THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES Our Dancing Days By Joseph Russell Taylor The Stratford Company Boston Massachusetts 1922 Copyright, 1922 The STRATFORD CO., Publishers Boston, Mass. The Alpine Press, Boston, Mass., U. S. A. ps 353? Contents Page The Mocking Bird ..... 1 The Waking of Brynhild . . . .19 The Nymph and Hylas . . . .43 Lady Greensleeves ..... 67 The Lady's-Tresses ..... 89 Two Notes and The Rechase . 113 The Mocking-Bird The Mocking- Bird THESE are the favors of our dancing days, I cannot keep them separate, and these The tragic figures stealing back to take Their places in the pretty twelve that made Our last cotillion famous : here they are. The Figure of the Tally-Ho was first. For that began it : Georgia perched with me High on the last seat of the crowded deck And highest, over a ship of children, yes, The crew from the old towns and all the years The last time gathered for a perfect play, Bound for the Country Club to dance night out. We made it brave adventure, worth the while ; A galleon cruise, a caravel crowding back Into the purple ; while our storied huge Journeying chariot rumbled under us To trotting castanets, the sixteen hooves, Out to the country and the stars; till now The city made a moonset in the west Like what the true moon yet unrisen made 2 Our Dancing Days Eastward ahead ; and now and now the elms That hung and hovered such mere shadows burst To a clash of boughs upon us, a cascade Of leaves that struck and swept us, caught and closed Upon the shrieks and laughter, and all the heads Bowed in a comic tangle knee to knee, And the song scattered. That was Old Madrid. "Where's Georgia?" "Oh, hung up!" "The third tree back!" How then the glimmering faces turned on us, The others there among them of our Four, A wind of escalade: "The witch rides high!" "The witch and John the broomstick!" The witch laughed. And she believed 'twas real, the war with Spain. II And here I make confession that indeed I was the witch her broomstick : for I thought, God bless me, that I might be wrong to think The Four of Us were right : John Hampton, I, With Georgia Lee, and with Virginia Lee Beverly Stead, but never two by two, Always the Four of Us : I might be wrong. The Mocking-Bird 3 And now he was off to Cuba in the morning, Beverly, I was sure they all were waiting My slow heart that yet might wreck us all. There's finer speech than talking: then with me How did Virginia dance, and Georgia how? Virginia, she was wild to go to war, Wait, with a gypsy rose between her lips. We two-stepped off to Spain, we danced with such Rhyme and assent of sure equality, She went with me so lightly closely one, That through the lamps I wheeled her so she touched White skirts afloat none of the cold fixed fires. They would have flamed and fallen, they were still. Why, that was sign enough. But then, who knows A woman 's heart ? The Figure might have told, The Shackle. Oh the Shackle : look, a tube, A barrel of belted ribbons, quaint and rich ; And twelve at once the girls thrust through it each A right arm shoulder-deep; and thronged to them Each of us caught and kept a hand ; and last The thing unlocked, and we untangled, yes. 4 Our Dancing Days And pretty was the cluster of laughing girls, Pretty the bare arms faggoted, the hands Imploring, desperate all, whose hand, whose arm? And I drew in my partner through the press, Virginia still, her wild hand captured mine. That music was right Spanish, Toreador. And now we snatched confetti, and throwing danced Through falling rainbows, frost on her dark hair, And her clear shoulders, and she sang. Why, so, Stuff of old sonnets, or my treacherous self, It was too easy reading, not Virginia ! m A war no more than sonnet-stuff, I cursed To Georgia that my honor kept me home And Beverly's took afield; to all of which Georgia, flying before me her serene And supercilious profile, quite agreed. She was so self-effacing, so polite, It did depress me more. The dance struck up : She glanced, she made, as none but she could do, Her lashes insolent: "What of me?" she said, "Virginia's dancing with a sword at hip, The Mocking-Bird 5 And I must ride a broomstick." "Sure," I swore, "You're riding!" and so caught her out away. The witch in violet, like the moon half-up, There was a wind at moonrise, yes ; she leaned Back in the hollow of my arm full weight, And with her breast a push-away like hands She flashed such fire against surrender, against Rapture, that we went reeling, we went falling, And only as by her arms-out went upright. "My dear Hidalgo," twirling on full stretch She said, "I meant a windmill." What she meant, Resist it yet, what was it but the fresh Temptation of how right 'twould be to kiss The inside arm that was uplifted for it ? "You're really nice tonight," she said: and then Laughed sweetly : ' ' Oh, you can 't of course : but where?" And I, before I knew it, I slid my hand Back to the loop that caught her up the white Flank-foam to let her step go brilliant: there For the increase of brilliance. We were first Under the lane of gold and white, and none That followed so with fury was picked up And carried through the dipping canopies. 6 Our Dancing Days That was the Figure of the Scarf, and this. The lights were low, and we all went winged like moths, And over each girl's head the sparks went red That made the air one luxury, of the joss-sticks Thrust in their hair. But Georgia snapped her horns Upon me trying to burn me with the fire. Or take my throat with yet more haunting scent, Dark anodyne. Who knows a woman's heart? 'Twas all too plain ! 'Twas my own selfishness ! IV Who knows a woman's heart? Why, every man Who knows a little of his own strange heart. It is no different faith binds men together. As that great day, no farther from our dance Than three, packed with excitements and fare wells, When Beverly's Eegiment was^off to war, And we in my high windows waited them ; Virginia with her sheaf of noble roses, American beauties, binding round the long Thorned stems of those deep crimsons her long gloves ; The Mocking-Bird 7 That was a favor indeed. And that great day, It's only one more figure of the twelve, The Figure of the Eegiment, the Hose. Ah yes, the Eegiment. Their way was strait Between the glittering crowds ; from wall to wall The wind and fury of cheering came with them ; The band crashed into ''Georgia", southward ho! And the instant ghosts thronged with us to salute The colors that came sheathed ; and in the russet Grim, and in the ripple of the rifles, Grim and unsmiling through the passion, came The Eegiment. The great gray Colonel rode With roses on his sword-arm : were we then Fools that we did not know with what a red Upon his breast, the charge passed over him, He was to lie in the sun ? Not fools, not we : For through the storm, the beating bells and guns, The blast of shrilling throats that seemed to strike High heaven with the utmost heart's desire Innumerably one, we sent them forth To no ignoble errand, no mean death, The Seventeenth, off to the Spanish war. 8 Our Dancing Days But with the Colonel rode his aides, and one Like dancing, so the bright bay hung and hung Timed to the horns upon the gay half-wing. That was Juanita. And as fairy-fine, Hung in my arm as Georgia in the other, Virginia tossed her roses, and they fell Slowly, slowly, instantaneously, A flame that was, a drip of splendid blood. They had made her room, Juanita, and her rider Wheeled to his chief again, red roses too Upon his sword-arm. That was Beverly Stead. V There were yet others of our saraband Escaped to wider floors. The Four of Us, We missed the Parasol, missed the Skipping- Eope. Lovelier lusters of the dance were ours, The Figure of the Lilac in the Dark, And of the Apple-Blossom in the Moon. The Four a fatal new way, two by two ; We had let the others go, the white-moth girl, And ghostlier than his moolit smoke the boy In khaki, and the glancing firefly, there, That was his sword between them ; let them go, And Georgia would not answer when they called. The Mocking-Bird 9 The witch now of the silver mask and bust, The silver arms and insteps, and all else Shadow, and all but lost against the cool Moonlighted lilacs that had lost their flowers, Her dark head to that dusk of leaves was like An incantation. But the flowers were there, And leaned arms out to her, and mouth to mouth. The witch of the unkissed kisses, was it she Herself that was the lilac, all night long Unwearying to send out so clear a soul Though none regarded? Did it come in vain, For all must love in lilac-fragrance, all Must love in lilac fragrance, did it come In vain to me of all men ? Georgia said Quietly, with her face against the leaves, "They'll weary of their fragrance by and by." And I said nothing, drawing her hands away From those dark others, and herself as if Into the very veil, the chanting choir ; The orchard of the mystic tapestries That, figured gray and silver and ghost of green, And woven with moonstone blue, and lamped with stars, Fell hush in hush upon us ; how more gay A fragrance, how more dimpling, perishing. Then, 10 Our Dancing Days While so we took the bloom-light on our hands And in our eyes, and every flower of them More lovely than by day, the blushing lost, There was a brilliant bird-song. Georgia gasped, Georgia caught my hands and danced, and danc ing Hung like an elf would never move again. "My dear, my dear!" she breathed, "a mocking bird!" VI There's here a later figure always slips Between, the Figure of the Roman Candle, And here keeps place. The Fourth of that July, I reached the Sisters at the end of it, As on the very wind from Santiago Blowing, and the band playing El Capitan, And the old town at revel, a battle-light On minuets; the calcium splendor now, The gables and the pillars and the bays Crimson, conscious, looking; group on group The merrymakers struck to Cardinals And Carmens; and the lanterns fallen green, Remote, relieved, as if they had taken breath. The fleet, the fleet had swept the seas of Spain. We watched like children, yes, with the great deed The Mocking-Bird 1 1 Behind it all, our rockets turn and break To a rain of limpid violets, or let slip A handful of such amorous emeralds It seemed we heard them ringing bell on bell. ' ' Gloriana ! the Don may attack us ! " thus to her Declaring I set the candle in her hand : "And where are the galleons of Spain?" Vir ginia cried, And standing in a glory like a gay Martyr, bowered and showered with falling fires, She lifted a bride's face, a lily, a rose, Lifted to those full jets of flame that dropped Sunset through elms or snow along the roofs, Kissed burning and kissed frozen, a bride's face. I thought 'twas still the play : a wider whirl, She had thrown the torch itself, she was off along The terrace, running to the steps, where now, Or it was all a dream that could not wake, There was the cycler with the telegram. She called us with a strange heart-stopping voice. And like a nightmare all the laughters, all The lusters, changed upon her, and she fell. VII The Figure of the Mocking-Bird. 'Twas here In our Ohio. For now more and more 12 Our Dancing Days The mocking-bird comes nesting in the North, South of the South, true silver of the land Of Georgia's fathers. Singing in our night We heard him. Oh, we have the mocker's kin, The brown-thrush, he 's our passion 's crown, but this Beyond the rich twice-over of the thrush Was aria, opera. Oh, he sang half-voice, But such wild-warbling fires never before Through the white vow and witchcraft of the veil Impeached our northern moon. The mocking bird? Well, I was conscious, surely, instantly, That I had known the bird I did not know. Surely I knew the mocking-bird, myself, However out of memory. It was mine, And phrase by phrase far-fallen my own life lived, Good art, the rest well lost, the best alone, Great heart, impatient most of its own joy, Vivid, voluble, outrunning time, 'Twas my own heart that in the silver danced, The quick wild daring of a heart released That forthwith all at once to its desire, The long-deferred, the half-believed-in, ran. The Mocking-Bird 13 The loveliness we loved, that loved not us ! 'Twas gone, and we could breathe again. We heard As from the underworld an echo of it, Virginia's whistle somewhere. Georgia stood Sighing away from me, and Georgia said : "I know what's in your heart, hear what's in mine: That we shall never see him, have him, more." "Nothing's in mine" I said, "but that I've kissed you." "My blossomed broomstick!" cried the wide- eyed witch : She laid white wicked hands upon me, breathed A wanton wonder at my very lips : "Kissed me?" her white throat fluted, "Oh, you dreamed ! You've just been listening to the mocking-bird !" "Listen to the mocking-bird!" the echo laughed. One bough of the bloom swung clear, and floating set The melting touch and throb on hollow dusk Of white footfalls, Virginia. She to me, 14 Our Dancing Days And Beverly straight to Georgia came, and caught Up from her feet: "You little devil," he said, ' ' It took a mocking-bird to bring you to it ! " VIII The Figure of Death. I think they sang at dawn, The mocking-birds. There's nothing now but guns, And out into the guns the Colonel steps Briskly, and with one aide goes pointing, here, There, for the Regiment's way that so lies trapped In the Bloody Angle. I see the old man laugh, The gray moustaches and the flash of teeth. I see the boy stand crisp and cool erect, With all his lifelong grace and insolence Upon him, in his khaki long and gaunt And like dead gold, and under his hat's brim The beauty that was like a scornful girl's Pouting, the cigarette between his lips. I see, but never quite can catch his eyes. These were the two with roses on their swords When they rode out the cheering streets from home. The Mocking-Bird 15 But one had roses with a lady's gloves Twined. And the lady's gloves were now as red. Five men went out for them, and four remained. A second five. And then the Regiment Went over them and took it, El Caney, Took it, and brought them back. I think they sang Again at sunset, yes, the mocking-birds. IX Golden swords of pain whose points were wreathed With flowers, and left for wound the color and scent, Young passion, the sweet adder at her breast, The song was life, and death was in the song. In May we danced, in May we danced to it. Though none was dancing when we came again ; The jocund gliding sweetness lost itself In babbling voices; then our names were cried, They broke upon us like a snowfall, like A wind of laughter : oh, the Two had told. And next the violins deepened tone and time To fatal, Lohengrin, and they all caught hands And sang it, and we danced it, light and slow, And round and round the circle, two and two. 16 Our Dancing Days And last, without transition as it seemed, The lamps were out, and in a cave of dusk The Figure was the Lantern, and the last. And all of us went ghostly and sea-green, And hid among us and let go the rich Rose-golden moons that splashed the gloating flame On throats and under-arms, to each of us A honeymoon* a bed-time, a hearth-fire. For each danced with his own, and I with mine, And he between Virginia and his sword; Lovers immortal; Raleigh with Regina, And Bennett Amy, and Lambert Monnie, and Knolles In khaki and he too between his sword And Julie ; and to each the violins, But only we danced to the mocking-bird. The Waking of Brynhild The Waking of Brynhild "H OW do you like it ? ' ' Betty Craven said, Arms out before me, turning round and round. 'Twas fresh from Norway, 'twas a peasant's dress : A smart red bodice, glittering with white beads, That left her arms and shoulders bare through white ; An apron broidered open white upon The smart black skirt, and broidered open white The stockings to the smart black slippers ; last, A cap of spangled lace upon her hair. This was the wonder, Betty 's dense dark hair Was never of the north ; nor Betty 's eyes That had such violets angry with the wind, The laughter such an eddy of dark stars; Nor any of her, the arms and golden hands That fell like fragrance, and the feet that stayed 20 Our Dancing Days Like lilies. Oh, 'twas full of Spanish snow, 'Twas full of mandolins, the little skirt That now so startled on the milkwhite step. "Gyp sent it out of Norway," Betty explained, "For me to wear for you. It's all we get." "It's all I want," I said. "You didn't be lieve?" "I did! And she was coming!" Violets quite Furious with the wind. ' ' She got as far As England. But her old mad Princess sent A leash of cablegrams, and snatched her back,. Just as she was embarking on the boat At Liverpool. And now she'll never come." She turned, she brought me a slender little book. II "Brynhild !" upon a lift of breast I said. And whether near to laughter or to tears I hardly know, the book I made for Gyp Between my hands, I looked round Betty's rooms Like one arrested by some instant touch That looks about the house where he was bred The Waking of Brynhild 2 1 And thinks "Why, this is home !" 'Twas mine indeed. The windows yellow with the maples, yes, The floors dark gold, and the old clock striking four. I was in love with Betty. Not with Gyp. Did Betty know it ? She stood as if on tiptoe, Hands to her hair, and arms from fallen sleeves, And slim red waist left naked; tightening lips Kemodelling her chin, and narrowing eyes That in their lashes swerved but were not gone. And richly calculating, richly too Confessing, with no motion Betty seemed To bow, to strut, to dance, catch hands and run, Lift lips and snatch away. Did Betty? Lord. . . " You never give me poems ! " she pouted now. And now, as the book came open in my hands, She whisked from it a letter, whisked and tucked Into the scarlet bodice : "That" she laughed, "Is quite another poem! "We're reading yours. I've read it, yes, but you're to read it to me." She perched midway the couch, she crossed her feet Beneath her, loosening from her knees the skirt. 22 Our Dancing Days ''With notes, you know. The story is different. Isn't it strange that you and I, last night, Were listening to Briinnhilde? She's the same ? ' ' So on the floor I sat against the couch, An elbow at her knee, and told the tale, The older finer story of the north, By verse and verse, with much between the lines. m If I was asleep, If the sleeper was I, Then it was I That harked and groped Where time never was, On the hunt of myself : I and no other Where there was nothing That knew it and named it : This was the doom, This was the doom, The doom of Odin. But who was Odin? And what was doom? And I, and I, If I was asleep ? The Waking of Brynhild 23 IV Betty, or Gyp, or I, whoever slept Confessed it by the waking. Then 'twas I. I dreamed, I dreamed this year of my return That so had closed the new life with the old, And even now was dreaming the old dream Back to the startled moment when I first Revisited Gyp's house, as if her grave, This house of Gyp's long absence, and found here Gyp's sister, Gyp's own changeling, Gyp's last trick, Betty the elf grown woman with a look. And the old bold story had no witchcraft more, No stranger interchange of eyes and lips And breathing bodies of the two that wooed Brynhild, than now the exchange of each for each, Person for person, of the girls I loved. That was a blindness in the ancient tale, And none could tell it clearly. Yet to me It happened, and to them, and even now Was instantaneous change of mask for mask. Her eyes were gold, the color of clear fire. Why, no, more cool than pansies in the dew. 24 Our Dancing Days Her face was like a coolest cameo Of firm red lips, of faintly hollowed cheeks Untouched by her own flame of burning hair, Her copper-lustered hair. Why no, now no : Untouched by that thick gloom and gloss of night Which now let slip the black half-wings of storm On either side her veils of long lash-play. "Well, what's the matter?" Betty touched her hair. "I'm pretty as I can be. Go on, go on." V I slept in the firelight. Cold was the hall, And my bed was a-cold, But the fire danced sweetly. And a wind on the roof From over old battlefields Blew, and I knew That never again Should I ride the wind's whinney With the dead on my knees, Never again go Choosing the slain, The Waking of Brynhild 25 But wait to be chosen. I was a woman. And I was waiting. And yule came white, And lammas came green, But never came he That should wake me and make me The thrall of a house-fire, The slave of a needle, The drudge of a love. VI No, no, the woman chooses, not the man. And I was never faithless, nor forgot, And needed no love-potion. It was they, The two I loved, the two that loved me, chose, Not I, though both were open breasts to me. For Betty now, Gyp then, was always armed, Always defenseless ; like a nude in the sun, A nude in the sun, a nude with a naked sword, That with the airy glitter of point and edge All round her haggard laughing loveliness, Dark Betty as burning Gyp, made to my eyes A costume. All how like and how unlike, Black Betty, brazen Gyp, the old bold tale, The quarrel of the queens, not less but more 26 Our Dancing Days Queens, when the two were naked in the river, But only one was naked of the ring. "Jimmy! You make me nervous!" Betty laughed : Laughed, as primly over her knees again She tugged the little skirt that spilled such snow: Laughed with a subtle swim of her dark eyes : The stars slipped, and the rich still mask of night Trembled and wavered, danced and glanced on me. VII I slept in the firelight. I lay like a warrior. But no man ever Coiled in an iron-cap Braids so many, Or stretched from the ring-mail Sleek sleepy arms And knees of such dimple, And no man ever Had breast that was tipped With two sparkles of firelight. What was between them? The thorn of sleep. The Waking of Brynhild 27 I had chosen in battle The one that he would not, Odin : and now, Now I was this thing, The girl in the armor, Left sleeping, left lone In the hall of the windows That drowsed and doted "With the fire outdoors, The fire in the moat. And never the rain, Nor the mist, nor the moon Could quench the quivering Ripple and run That slid up the stone And over the shields And up to the topmost Wild banner in heaven. vm "Our quiet windows too," said Betty. "Look." "We looked a moment: fragrant afternoon Breathed at the open windows, glow in glow Of maples ; and so soft and hushed an air, "We heard a piano, somewhere over the street, Bubble and chime as if it danced midway 28 Our Dancing Days The yellow leafage ; and the only stir Was in the sunlit curtains of the bay, Still shadows of still leaves that fell and fell, Stirred in the curtains, crept across the floor. "Here's something in the story too," I said. "As I came down the street a sparrowhawk Flew before me, flew before me, and perched Upon your highest gable. And that's how Sigurd the Volsung found his Brynhild once. That was after the waking. And I mine." "And the leaves fall in Norway," Betty said. And from the scarlet bodice drawing again The letter, here and there she read it me, Smooth eyelids and smooth cheeks and smooth round throat And red lips playing, and only now and now Lash-lifting to the cool and conscious look. " 'Ah, but I know that Father's growing old, And Betty is grown a woman,' " Betty read. " 'What can I do? I'm wanted over here. Aslauga' that's her Princess, that's her Monster, 'Aslauga keeps me, when no other will. She'll never live without me, so she cries The Waking of Brynhild 29 With passion, and I kiss her, and we weep, And say no word for weeks of going home. We aren't even stared at any more. But sometimes it 's as strange as first it was : The great Norsewoman, fair and fat and yes, She 's forty ! and the odd American, The pale-green girl that's with her everywhere. Haven 't I told you that she calls me Yip ? Tell that to Jimmy. And tell him . . .' " Betty stopped, And folded up the sheet, and tucked away. I said: "You'll tell me?" and she answered: "Read!" IX The doom of Odin Is never all good, Never all bad. No coward could ride Through the moat, no dastard Ford the flickering Witch-fire and wake me. Maybe no man. But once in a dream, When the fire seemed a sunset, I saw how a boy Drove horse after horse 30 Our Dancing Days Into the river-flash: One swam over, A great gray stallion. That was his horse. And once when the fire Seemed the flame of a forge, I saw how a lad Broke sword after sword Like bells, but the last Bell-clang was the anvil Cloven in twain. A great gray war-blade, That was his sword. And once in a lightning I saw the white horses Eunning the sea, And a long sea-dragon Plunge, and the dragon Dip on the sail. And he was a man. And that was his ship. "It's long since Gyp has written me," I said, Filling a pipe to Betty: " I don't know now: How ever did she meet her Princess first?" The Waking of Brynhild 31 "Gyp's way," said Betty. "When she went abroad, Jimmy, I really truly think 'twas you, You and your poem, that turned her fancy north. She went alone to Norway, for to see And to admire, to learn Norwegian, learn Life, and to make you follow her, maybe, And maybe to forget you. In a month She was a feature at the village feast, Declaiming Peer Gynt! There the Princess came. Peer Gynt, or else your poem turned to Norse." "A boy's pipe-smoke." I waved away the shoal Between us. "But the very Norns were such." "But weren't there five poems to Gyp?" The smoke Avoided her bare arm and followed after. "Vanna, and Badoura, and Isolt. All's left of her, the torso of Isolt. And here's the Brynhild. So I know them all Except the Hylas. And to me not one. " 32 Our Dancing Days "To you? No verses, Betty. Never a verse. I wish you to consider what that means." Then I sat straight, I stared about the rooms. "Why, where's the Portrait? Where's the Gyp?" I cried, "Tony Farrar's Dancing-Girl in Gold?" "My dear!" She said it softly. Then she laughed : Laughed at the quaint dismay I must have looked : Laughed richly, laughed contentedly, a fresh Wind for my riding, eyes and breath on me Luxuriously abandoned. "That's indeed A poem to me. I had it moved today. Upstairs, to where it shall forever hang, Eight opposite my bed. I'll take you up. No, no, don't shut the book. We've yet to kill The dragon, and we've yet to ride the fire." "And yet to kiss the sleeping beauty," I said. XI All the green hangings Of the hall in the firelight Rippled like cliffs In the run of a like-light The Waking of Brynhild 33 Up from the water-sun, Cliffs of old fern. And I, I was watching Hard, for the brink Of the rock was alive, The snake-neck wavering Down, and the beak of it Gabbled the water, And reared, and swallowing Keeled to the welkin. The dragon was drinking. And that was Fafnir. I named it, the name That I never had heard, Though now there was nothing But the run up the fern Of the waterfire. Hark, I knew I would hear it, The death-wallow of thunder. And I knew when it died It was Fafnir was dead. And the fire ran the fern Like the glance of my eyes to him, Look, look, blood-red, Oh for Fafnir 's-Bane "Wiping his reeking Great brand on the bracken ! 34 Our Dancing Days XII "But Betty, Betty, how it should be done! Think of the music that we heard last night ! No, don't," I said. "Alas for Brynhild's dream." And Betty sprang across me, hand and foot A flash and fragrance on me, and perched now At the piano played that music through, That music ; oh, but light, but light, her way. And I sat still, and all my heart again Leaped to our great soprano while she played, And the drunken violins shrieking all at once Wide-winging discords that were yet all tune, And the whinneying oboes : hark, 'twas she her self, Hoyotoho ! Hoyotoho ! And wild As swallows that went mad about the sky The rocket of her vivid crying topped The topmost wind of music, and at last Struck one amazing note so clear and high 'Twas like an arrow into the heart of heaven. The chooser of the slain. 'Twas we were chosen. Snatched by the eagle of her golden voice. . . The Waking of Brynhild 35 Voices of children playing on the pave. And the old fragrance, yes, of burning leaves. A long long autumn moment sweet and sad, The sun was from the curtains, from the trees, And the room dusky, lighted yet with gold. "Is it so noble a story?" Betty's hands Were fallen in her lap : her eyes came cool : "So noble murders, noble treacheries?" I crossed to her; there was a storied old Deep armchair in the window-bay, that faced The darkening room; and there I brought the book, And there brought Betty, like a minuet, Curtesying in her red and white and black, With a kiss upon her fingers ; and she perched Against my shoulder on the chair 's wide arm. XIII All the green hangings In the light of the fire Seemed woods that waited The change of the leaf, When the stags are lean, When the fern is brown, 36 Our Dancing Days And the birch-top yellow, Yet green go the ways. And I, I was listening Hard, for I heard The talk of the woodpeckers Over the brown burned Acorns pattering Down through the oak -leaves : Words, had the woodpeckers Words, that I heard them? "He rides from the Dragon-Heath Nearer and nearer, She sleeps upon Hindfell, Green go the ways ! ' ' And he came, and he came, But his eyes were away from me. Only, I saw The great gray stallion, And the bicker of the chain-mail, And once how his bridle-hand Flashed, and I knew 'Twas the ring of the dwarf Andvari, the ring That Fafnir the Dragon Had died to let go. And he rode, and he rode The Waking of Brynhild 37 Singing I knew the words "Green go the ways To the Hall upon Hindfell !" XIV ' ' Gold go the ways ' ' said Betty at my shoulder, "To the house in Maple Street. And look, the fires." Children were burning leaves about the street, "W"e breathed the fragrance; and on Betty's walls Was light as of old hearth-fires, memories, Dreamy, dreamy, and dancing rosy-red Till all the room grew brighter as the dusk Deepened. And I took Betty's hand, and drew Her cool arm round my neck, and to my heart Her captured fingers. And I slipped the book Behind the scarlet bodice, and around, To lay it open in her lap. "You read," I said to Betty. On her breast the beads Shot little sparkles, clicked as faint as fancy, Against my cheek. But Betty took the book, And bravely, without a falter, read the end. 38 Our Dancing Days XV Dew in a rose That panted and laughed "With the wet bee 's sweetness, Light upon eyelids That clung against opening, Cool gray windows And the fire come in, The first that I saw Was my own hand lifted And ringed with the ring, And then his eyes, Sigurd the Volsung, Sigurd that leaned to me Yet from his kissing me, Me now I knew myself ! Valkyrie ! Valkyrie ! Brynhild the Lover! XVI And "Oh, poor Gyp!" she said. And we were still, Watching the firelight dancing on the walls, Listening to the children on the paves, And, once again, a piano, far away, Playing from the Valkyries, nothing else. The Waking of Brynhild 39 We heard it through. Then suddenly the book Slid from her lap with none to pick it up. "I wasn't asleep." she gasped, "never asleep! No, I must go and dress. And we 're to have The real mince-pie I made you with my hands. You make the lights. There's Father coming home." The Nymph and Hylas The Nymph and Hylas A mask for every wave to drop and lift, Face up to the hollow of heaven, lying afloat Upon their hands that clapped me feet to throat, Caught me and clasped, loosed me and set adrift, Upon their palms, my nymphs, their fingertips, And only now and then pulled back to take The sudden birdsong in my throat, the break Over my face of laughter and of lips, I took the sliding cloud into me thus, The long wave-crawling in my veins so felt, It seemed indeed that I must tremble and melt And suffer a water-change delicious, Delicious and destroying, until I lay Scattered in white wave-play, And veining with my heart the ripple away. n Ah, yes, but one should see the river-light Come beating on his eyelids, till the page 44 Our Dancing Days Bipples, remembering how he swam indeed, And in that buoyant indolence embraced Kipple and cloud at once, and at one 's cheek Fire, and across one 's very face the blue Kingfisher's wide-winged swerve, to make it real. The fifteen finished idyls, there they were, In the old progression. First Theocritus. "A hollow land, a blossoming waterside, Where in the midst the nymphs arrayed their dance, The sleepless deities only seen by chance, Malis, Nycheia, and Eunice April-eyed. And now the boy was dipping with the jar, And now the nymphs had caught him head and hand, For love of the Argive lad fluttered and fanned The hearts of them. . ." Why not? And thence by verse And verse proceeding. Summer mirrors. None Of winter, a flight beyond me. Autumn, yes. Cold blows the autumn on a swimmer's head. "The floating leaves surprised us, touched like cold Flat hands and clung : Nycheia 's limpid head With sudden wine-dark leaves was chapleted, The Nymph and Hylas 45 And Mails perked a faun's-ear pointed gold. What fish go over like a flock of birds. "What bells the ripples ring. What stars come down. "Ghosts of the golden thighs went up black night : A bubble of gold had slipped against my brow And clung there, oh, the moon, that sud denly now Shot to the topmost heaven aloft alight. . ." Why, all my youth was in it. What a thing, I used to take the notebook in my teeth And swim Scioto to the diving log, Dive, and hold on by stones, come up and write Wet-fingered, and in love with all green words, And all still meanings. If the verse runs dry, At least I drank. Ah, as indeed I drank My fill of pure spring-water, thrilling cold, At the river's bottom, like a child that finds Thirst and his mother's breast together at once. And I drank much who learned how every hour Is something new and strange in the water- world ; Waves now, a little dance of up and down Are waves, and pass the motion on away, 46 Our Dancing Days The seeming of the surface ; he who dives Into the quiet beneath looks up and sees The gather and break-apart of subtle lines Across an emerald light; no more than that. And every hour is silence, wonderful. Only, like the opening of a door That shuts again on music, one can hear His comrade diving, entering so the calm And the inviolate color. What of her? I dived for Hylas once to hear her call For calling Heracles; the weird strange voice Came insult, and the caller ankle-plucked Vanished from air; how then her green-capped face Was dark against the laced and quivering flame That burst into such jets of snow ; no myth, But breast-deep fury footing the ribbed sand That held our shadows in a net of fire Was Zoe splashing ! Yes, that nymph was Zoe. And Gyp, and Gyp, could she indeed forget The actual fact and comedy of it, The underwater kiss we tried to kiss? "If you can catch me!" And all at once she sprang Toe-tip and dived ; and I, into the bowl The Nymph and Hylas 47 Of brimming where she melted ; turning deep, I saw her sweep of motion smoking gold Turn too across the water-sun. The kiss? We nearly drowned. We never tried it more. And Bee the wedded woman, Bee that sent The book for bride 's-gift back to Betty now, As all things else come back to Betty now, Why, now I vowed a bachelor's last night To Bee, the nymph she was, and with due rites To celebrate, with each refill of pipe Between the firelight and the lamp a verse, And naught of Betty, of Betty naught at all, Child, you were not a sonnet yet of years. ni Wild wind, what wild wind wantoned in my Three? They courted every lightning, flashed and glanced Naked and vivid to the storm, and danced Three like a hundred, beckoning bold and free. And then the blind rain struck, the water hissed, The water smoked, and settled into spray Beneath the fog of tempest, levelled and lay Shrilling a tight song, one flat shoal of mist. 48 Our Dancing Days Where were my dancers heaven had fallen to woo? Under the multitudinous crystalline Icicled nipples, from the shrieking keen, The keen cold pelting, I dropped homeward too. Dusked dying circles, moment's films, were shed On dark light overhead. The Three were orb on orb of sleep outspread. IV "Look not so strange upon your friend," said Bee. "No, I'll be honest. Do look strange. In place Of Gyp herself here's one mere Bee Carlisle To greet a certain Jimmy Usher, come This moment, which is earlier than his word. And Gyp's gone over to meet and bring you back. And I 'm Gyp 's guest, and this is my third day. She's not had time to warn you. All ex plained?" Even from the first surprise with which she met, Bee in her bathing-costume on Gyp's dock, My greeting, it was fate in her bold eyes ; The Nymph and Hylas 49 It was as if when my eyes said to hers, We two can love ! hers answered, "Why, we do ! And while she spoke the long white coat blew out, Blew, in a fine tense curve like wings, and left Her figure brilliant, in the grapeskin black Only from breast to hips, and only else Black-sandalled, brilliant; with the gay white cap Hiding her hair, and folded to one ear, She looked the lady of a virelay Masked as a boy, turned what a rakish page, Escaping to her lover. Me. I said : "And what else are the coat and sandals for?" "What else than what?" she laughed, "than what you mean?" Yes, what I meant : to have a swim with Bee Had turned already tame, to be one more Couple of all the couples hand in hand That danced against the breakers, girls that posed Arms out, a lift of knee, a jut of hip, Against the heavy snowdrift, and were lost, The heads like flowers along the next wave- slope, 50 Our Dancing Days "Why, but a moment since I could not dream Adventure finer: I could now. "You mean To run away together ? I '11 go dress ! ' ' "You're dressed," I said: "we're rowing across the bay, We're going for wine for drinking on the rocks, To read the Book of Hylas I've brought you." All this was in an actual moment ; there, Wrapped in her smoke, my steamer went; the sun Burned through the cloud that at my coming took The glitter from the water. And while now I dropped into the skiff within the dock I had half-time to wonder at myself ; And Brie 's rich bold crowding of whitecaps, And every whitecap breaking miles and miles, The myriad bells of foam that flashed and flocked A joy unsexed, beautiful danger, they That wreathed the water's green and dateless youth With jocund winter leaping at the brow, The Nymph and Hylas 5 1 They were all discovered spaces of my heart, They were all the run of snow in my own veins. "Jimmy, you mean it?" Bee had cried, "for me?" And hugging round her close the coat she laughed, And stooping reached a hand, a vivid arm, And dropped wings-up to me, and out we came. Between me and my melody of her She thrust her very self, where on the shore I piped upon the wax-bound pipes the more To celebrate her eyes, what gold they were, Malis, within the mirrored noon who now Made of her face a lily, and here and there Bloomed, and was gone, the lily not so fair Whose green stem bound itself upon her brow. And the pipes warbled : when she looked at me, Out of her eyes I saw the white fear pass, And leave them jewelled dark, the twilight's glass. And the pipes fainted: ah, but never she! Or ever the thrown pipes fell I plunged to meet My image. No, more sweet. Lilies not mine, nor yet the ripple 's seat. 52 Our Dancing Days VI I pulled into the wind, across the bay. The beach, with all its dancing water-flowers, Fell off at once behind, till shoreward now 'Twas wide clear violet-blue that shoaled and played Through a smother and shudder of sunlit amber-green That fell and f ountained whiter on white sands In to dark elms and uplands of the vine. And these hung still, but farther and more far. Half-way across the bay, for very joy I stayed the skiff upon the outstretched oars; For joy of that wild cradling, of the dance Whose reel and swing had passed into our veins ; For joy to ride the moments as they came And passed, with back-tossed tresses of the snow, And yet were passing. Only this was strange, That on the sliding billow-and-run the shore Remained dead-heavy fact, the still stiff land To which in the first giddiness we sent An eye for balance. That was yesterday, The Nymph and Hylas 53 And this was now. And this was Bee that now Leaned in from heaven and leaped out of the deep To meet me in the enamored opposite. She nursed the book. "I never dreamed" she said, "That you could be as sick for it as I am. I mean this holiday, this escape, from what Has grown to be the day's work. Making love." Her gloom was desperate. "Hands All Bound!" I laughed. "You shall go courtesying round the ring no more. And I too, I '11 take hands and part no more. Today at least. No making love today. But who's been here? Not Tony? Farquhar, Guest?" . "No, Tony comes tomorrow." And now she laughed. "No doubt it seems we're doing the selfsame thing. Dick took me sailing. Yesterday Ned Guest Canoeing. Look, the withered waterlily! Oh, but we'll sign and seal it, no love-making!" 54 Our Dancing Days "Steady the boat!" I leaned across the oars. And Bee that leaned as quickly took my face Lightly, prettily, in her hands, and kissed me. "Now we can read my stolen poem," she said, "But make her own true first edition soon!" vn Her hair asleep, that was the rich surprise ; 'Twas bound to her head, 'twas braid in braid green-mossed, And woven with watercress in flower like frost, She dazzled more than sunlight on my eyes ; And so my eyes that hung with rainbows air Flashed on her beads of trembling wet, like pearls And opals, that so multiplied the girl's Eyes to a hundred, glittering and aware, That her eyes caught the panic ; out and through The rape of sun and shadow along the sand We ran a sudden-warbling hand in hand, But shy of each other in such heaven, two That seemed ourselves; and one ran sparkle- tressed, And the eddies of her breast Convulsed with lovely anguish unconfessed. The Nymph and Hylas 55 VIII And that was something to put out of mind The withered waterlily, yes. A kiss Swung high, swung low, and most all swung round Upon the oars I leaned across, till now The withered waterlily was safe behind her. 'Twas in the living water close to her ; So clear it almost broke to open air; Something not sliding with the sliding wave, But dipping and returning. It was like A drowned man's hand. And "Gyp?" I said that dropped Back on the oars full length, "her book shall be More better for our reading of the proof." ' ' The Book of Hylas. Row, and I '11 read, ' ' said Bee. 'Twas in her lap, she had a lap again, The open book. I glanced beyond and saw That knock upon the door and floor of nothing Hang still and dip, while now the sliding wave Went by, as if 'twere following us ; the thing That looked a man's hand reaching up to day. In the next wave, nothiing. In the next and next, 56 Our Dancing Days Nothing. I had not even glanced to shore For fear of landmarks. "No, not yet," I said, "Not here among your ghostly gentlemen That over running water make their vows." Forgotten reach to the forgotten light. "Oh, for my ghostly gentlemen!" The last Gesture. Prayer to heaven. Or curse at fate. "Ned and another boy canoed across From Marblehead," she was frowning. "And last night When those two boys put out in a canoe To cross four miles of lake, straight into storm, And laughed at our distress, and mine was great, "Well, you may call them ghostly gentlemen!" The ghostly hand. I had refused it, yes. That I would do again, that was for Bee. Yet how the thing kept knocking at my heart ! "Safe over, and the ferryman paid," I said, Shipping the oars how gladly: "Come and play!" IX "Pan!" she laughed in her throat: no thrush as rich. The Nymph and Hylas 57 As that one ; Eunice fronting breast to air Midway the current that tugged her by the hair Crouched deeper, sparkle of eyes, an instant witch. So we let go our feet, and fingers caught At arm's length drifted, and the river-sigh Drew us, the shallows danced us down the sky, The very bubble and chime were in the plot. How else so dipped and dallied and swung wide, Without a pull of hand or turn of cheek, Should we be floated to the sleepy sleek Touch and recoil and touch of side to side? The scent and blossoms of the grape hung low, The leaves ran fire, ran snow. Never was thrush as rich as that one, no. X The mood fell from me with the touch of earth When there at the old wine-dock we dis embarked. The mood that made me fancy a drowned hand. And up through ruffling vineyards to the towers, The castle of cold stone, that looked so far Over the thousand fleeces of the lake, We came; where grapes glanced blue in blow ing leaves, 58 Our Dancing Days Like her that slipped into her sleeves, and flashed So gay a grape-stained nymph; and with the coat Shut now, and only her subtle insteps free, Discreeter lady never marketed. We brought from those deep musty cellars wine, One flask of dry Catawba. And so came down To the rocks, where now the flashing crashing waves Widened to silver-sheeted afternoon. So drunk, unto the utmost tang of it, So drunk on its own rocks, the good wine kept Its incommunicable bouquet and bloom, And the sharp clinging flavor of the grape, Virgin, like knives of sweetness. Pledges first. And Bee held high the cup, we had a cup, Let fall the coat, stood up a splendor, Bee Of the old inviolate beauty, Bee of all The loyalties and the coquetries, and looked Young Ganymede, if it was Ganymede And not Himself, the long-legged liquid-eyed Young Love, that was cup-bearer to the gods, And drank. "To Gyp!" "To Tony!" And as she drank From the deep-creviced rock the silver fount The Nymph and Hylas 59 Sprang like an apparition to the sun Beside her. "To Ned Guest!" And the ninth wave Filled all the coves with thunder and cataracts, Rhythmic confusion, ordered hurry, like A snowdrift, to her very sandal-soles. And while we read our Hylas the west blew On bold bright waters naked to the sky. Recoiled, returned, the hollow of the wave Was curved so smoothly it drew the imaged sun To fiery flosses, gathering blaze on blaze; And at its curl and curve, with the instant sharp Shadow of its own self upon itself, 'Twas jewel-green translucence ; then the foam Blossomed and burst to keen and lovely shapes, Of silver ribbons falling, of reedy slim Hyaline cups inverted, look you now, 'Twas all one climb of snow that struck and quenched Through fire; and there across the wide wet rocks The silver lilies stood, the fountains fell ; And now the booming harps were glittering spray That fell, and fell in to us, and showered us 60 Our Dancing Days With the ninth wave whose pelting chill was like Emotion in emotion. And through all Our hearts went out abroad upon the vast Beautiful waters, to the perfect pure Horizon, to the sky, the line of peace. XI Suddenly overhead the amber girl Was hung in hollow haze, the diving sky Following down to touch on shoulder and thigh Discovery, new-moons of lighted pearl. How then she melted into a sudden mist Her shadow-stroke of arms and legs, and how The raining fires were vacant of her now, Nycheia of the boast she went unkissed. 'Twas far, 'twas under the swallow-cliff, 'twas in The deepest dusk she ended that wild chase, Collapsing with the inverted back-flung face, And curving on my hands a glimmer green As opal : and out on air the swallow yet Along the ripple met The lips and nipples of the violet. 61 "There was a day," said Bee. "It's afterglow. There goes the Arrow across to Put-in-Bay That brought us home Our Lady of the Lake." I dropped far out, a splash of blue in gold, The flask, upon the sudden seeing again The thing I fancied and forgot, a hand That caught the throw. Not Hylas but another. "So let's go face Calypso, right," I said. "She's that!" cried Bee. I held for her the coat That held, "I'd have small pocket else!" she laughed, The book; midway the softer-sounding trees, "I'm going to need a pocket," she professed; And with the first look back across the bay, The eastward purple bloom of sky and lake Where yet the whitecaps caught the afterglow, And where, no larger than a golden gull, A single boat danced on a gleam of oars, "I knew it!" she cried. "I know who's with her too." She made a face. "Ned Guest. Eeturned for more." 62 Our Dancing Days "They've used a glass to find our boat," I said. "Of all the mean suspicious . . . No. it's not. It's your tomorrow. It's Tony. Come be good." "What, did I kiss you?" Bee, she tugged again The white cap over her ears, she tucked the last Black ringlet in to sleep. "That wasn't real, That boy's kiss, that unpetticoated thing." "Why so" I said, "do circle-dimpled knees Outluster all the gartered: the nymph's kiss." "When I kiss Tony it shall be" she vowed, "Kicking this way and that my skirts that whisper 'Lady, lady!' ' ' And with the laugh of that We launched again, and riding with the wind Lightly along the fresher-dancing dusk Half-way we met them ; but before the boats Dipped side by side the laughter from our hearts Had vanished. What was Gyp crying to us? ' ' That poor lad 's body was on our very beach ! ' ' "Ned Guest? "cried Bee. The Nymph and Hylas 63 Gyp shook her head. "His friend. He must have been there half the crowded day. They've found the empty canoe." "But Ned? "cried Bee. We did not know it then, 'twas the last word That Tony Farrar answered: "Not yet found." Not yet, and never yet. Tony himself By now had turned the skiff between the swells So daintily that Gyp not even swayed ; His taking stock of us was quiet and quick, As quick as Gyp 's ; now as he pulled away I heard her sing the old song under her breath, The Hands All Round. And she had smiled at Bee. I though it was Gyp Craven that was drowned. Bee did not smile. "That was his hand," she said. XIII Love, liked a naked diver, leaped and met His leaping image, sudden and swift to start Up from the under-heaven of her heart; Plunged, and was gone, and the heaven is per fect yet. 64 Our Dancing Days And though the burst and plunge was fathom- deep, The naiad dimpling drowned him in her kiss, And took that violence for no more than bliss, And held her buxom laughter yet asleep. And none that wandered by that water knew How Love was lost, and by what waxen ways How Death was found and fettered to new days. . . (Ah, Betty, so things all come back to you.) And Heracles the wanderer and the guest Is yet upon the quest, But golden Hylas numbered with the blessed. Lady Greensleeves Lady Greensleeves OCTOBEK. On Regina's wedding day, While yet the leaves are green, a storm of snow. Snow in the lap of summer. When I came At sunset, yes, there was a sunset, home, The wet streets mirrored our white roofs and lawns, The maples were cross-laced with wanton white, And every lilac blossomed in cold jest. Snow that was far more native to my heart Than those dark towers of leafage; that was strange, The bronze belated summer, not the white ; And yet such wonder, with such sympathy It imaged thus my state and circumstance, That I imagined how the jocund veil Fell cold about her, fell what sudden snow Upon dark memory and my own dim face. Regina ever loved the tragic mask. 68 Our Dancing Days And if indeed I loved the bride her eyes I should lament her lacking the one thing Could add them sparkle, word of how at home, There in Ohio, fancy, on that poor boy, It snowed, it snowed, when all the leaves were green. But not in France. It's moonlight now in France. The mooncloud drifts, the turrets are snowed with sleep, And the dark's musky with the grapes. "Well, then, I saw her. I swear I saw her. Here. Today. She went before me idling and alone, None else in all the street, and as she went She danced a whiter moment with herself, Spin of a green skirt, slide of a white shoe. Regina herself as when I knew her first. II October. Halloween, no doubt of that. Crossing suburban uplands of the beach From Georgia's house, I found a lady's glove Fallen upon the path. My fancy again, Of course; what followed color all; but . . . well, Lady Greensleeves 69 'Twas charming in my hands, the long white glove. 'Twas yet a hollow sheath that held the shape Of some young arm, the mold of some young hand. The sweet thing like a relaxation hung, Like a caress, across my hands. Oh, say it: The stone-gray beeches and blue-branching shadows, And slopes of tawny leaf and ancient green, Remembered, and the blue of the brook, what glove "Was kept and cousined by their violets once. . . Forthwith I turned upon my steps, I found The glimmer I had passed, and took the two Long-stemmed autumnal violets, why not? And thereupon I met herself, green sleeves And silver furs, the lady of the glove. I think the girl divined from my first glance, Of such sheer wonder and incredulous joy, Delight's long momentary breathlessness, Divined some recognition not her own. Ah, but Kegina was never quite so young. Her eyes never so gentle and so wild. Yes, and her throat, that naked in white furs 70 Our Dancing Days Laughed with her own voice, had quite other words, Oh, the old voice whose breath was plangent flutes ! 'Twas perfect, wonderful ; her every move Kept my heart racing ; yet this wonder stood Apart from me, a stranger to my dream, A little alarmed, no doubt, of just my eyes ; Taller a trifle, younger most of all, The full reincarnation of my love . . . She took the glove, she took the violets, She did not know me. Lethe was between. Ill November. Silver f our-o 'clock on Broad. ' ' Who 's that nice girl ? ' ' Virginia said : and I Made truthful answer: "Greensleeves. I don't know. ' ' I think, I am sure, Virginia saw no likeness. Both my sisters have refused with scorn The likeness. But that's later. Too much scorn. Well, but I 'm with them. It was that nice girl Who passed us, and no other. Velvet capped, Lady Greensleeves 71 And drifted to her ears in milkwhite furs, Her cold green velvets lifted, lustrous, half Aflame with sky, and full of little flames The milkwhite shoes laced almost to her knees. How does a woman judge? Of course. By clothes. I did not need it, I was glad of it, Virgina's word. The nice girl spoke to me. She came how faintly smiling, faintly flushed, Into a wind that only blew on her ; I know her hair was stirred to wanton mists, I know the green skirts tied and trapped her knees ; And yet she did not hate it, not my eyes, So gently and intently came her own, Eyes of such limpid light and loveliness . . . Good lord, am I to valentine again? I'll have Regina back again, I'll kill False dream with brutal fact. Why should I, though ? 'Twas neither dream nor false that she who passed, And clustered with the delicate pale day So went like eyes, went blindly with her own. Why will you hurt me with your beauty, child? 72 Our Dancing Days IV November. Over the twilight cliffs of High, Fair skies, and all the faces flocked on me Like happiness. Most like were three young girls That passed with sunset on their lips, a gay Salute of three at once : the middle grace Who but my Lady Greensleeves ? Passed me by, And left me in a swift and curious heat Naming the others. Newly rich. Not good. . . "Well, the adventure. There was plot in it. Out of the nothing one could build a tale. I missed a beat of heart, the same she missed That held half -turned her glance in such arrest ; Then in the lash-full luster of her eyes My own had time to run to her mates and come Back to the lashes and the light again, And take their luster last ; there was a thing To happen in due order in the large Space of an instant. Ballad of her eyes. Let go, they waited to be caught again. They were the fresh high color of the sky. They took one in so softly one became A star, and melted. Twice a fool ? Why not ? Lady Greensleeves 73 They were dew on fever. Why not, if the crown Of folly is the fear of being a fool? I heard the others as they came and passed Babble Greensleeves her name. It's Moira, yes. V December. But it seems an April night. I stood with Hampton waiting at the doors My sisters, in the audience thronging out Gay with the comedy we did not hear. I breathed a waft of fragrance, I looked down A lady 's very breast into her flowers, Orchids, flame and snow. Greensleeves herself. With a lad for lover, Greensleeves. Jealous, I ? Not jealous. But an instant rage was mine, I could have made her so much happier ! Surprised that Hampton knew her too, I asked : I had met her, yes: who was she? Money, he said. But give it time, 'twould open any doors. Irish. 'Hara. Except maybe our own. She 'd smile 'm open if 'twas only she. And can one weigh her smiles ? It can be done. I know 'twas planned, the way she saw him first; 74 Our Dancing Days Her greeting to my fellow was clear and bright, Decided sweetness in the moment's nod; Then, in the wing of a half -moment, homed ! The quick glance rested and relaxed, she gave me Her gay and conscious self without reserve In the smile that kept its kiss, the eyes that had The happy helpless little falter in them. We met as if in some sure after-life With eyes that wondered backward, crying each: What, is it true we two once lived apart? Or did we dream it? Just to meet was haven, Was repite in a jewel shut secure. Lady, what do you ask of me? No more Than not to miss the moments when they come ? Moira O'Hara. Well, that's pretty enough. VI December. In the foreign news today I read high scandal : Madame Quelquechose, Not two months married, sueing for divorce Eegina. But there may be snow in France. A Sunday afternoon, like spring : this year The Christmas will be green : the russet lawns Lady Greensleeves 75 Unlaced the elm-shadows starred with gold today Of winter dandelions. New squares of city, I sought a house not there : and one more house, I turned upon the steps to hear my name Called, and to meet her from the carriage-way Coming, newly alighted from a drive, My Lady Greensleeves at her very door. The ballad put to touch, her hand in mine. And the old song new music. Hue and cry, Lost in open Broad Street, Mr. Lee ! Ah, but I sought the House of Happiness, And begged of Miss 'Kara : was it here ? Alas, this was the wicked witch's house, And who knocked here was never seen again ! And I made cheerful and contented vow I wanted to be lost, to be bewitched, I came to see her, if she would let me in. But first, to prove the witchcraft was indeed Real, and foretold my coming, I must see Her garden ; not the late chrysanthemums, Her colors, but the bold bare apple-tree Green-stockinged too in sunlight: 'twas in bloom. Like a stag 's antlers tipped with roses, yes. 76 Our Dancing Days But no such magic as her breast by now Bare, and the white fledge slipping to her hands, No such magic as her head by now Uncovered, up to a richer wreath than time's. vn Midnight, and long midnight. The New Year. And all the horns of all the city drone A monotone so myriad and immense It seems more old than man ; to hear is like A strange half-pleasant nightmare, dreams of death And the end of time ; when all may yet be well If one can find one's friends, one's self, before The horns blow out. Terry O'Hara's child. I might have guessed it. I could laugh at it. In Collegetown, in Terry's Place, of old, Every one of us, the sons of song, Every roistering clinker of the stein, At one time or another heard him swear In oaths most interesting, his girl should have A chance. He'd give the business up, by God. Blow, horns, tonight I met him in his house. Lady Greensleeves 77 The old brute was mute, and, going before ourselves, Winked but the once. Then when I held her furs To sleeve my lustrious lady in, and take The clear half-smiling profile, like old coins, Across her shoulder, stamped upon my heart, That was across her shoulder too, the wink. For old sake's sake. For a new elbows-up. To notice in the green and gloating lamps How did the subtle insinuating curves Slide, a voluptuous deprecation, down Into her flat round back, and not to miss What dimples and caresses in mid-play Adorably vanished, and the sudden stroke Of shadow deep between her shoulderblades That left no stain upon her. Blow, horns, blow. vin Saint Valentine. No Valentine from me ? My lady in the wonderful gold gown That danced tonight with me? The Assembly Ball Its Princess. Even my sisters take the vow. Alas, my love, you do me wrong To cast me off discourteously 78 Our Dancing Days The green sleeves you have worn so long, The green sleeves were a gift from me. But money could not get her those clear arms. Much money not her gesture when she took At half -arm's length the chain and let it fall. And that was genius, how she wore the rose. And oh, White-Shoulders, must we part? And richer in rich tiffany, Why have you taken me my heart And pinned the crimson at your knee ? It's an old wonder: she's aristocrat By nature, as of finest blood and breed, The portrait of a lady. How she sprang So perfect, out of such a stock. . . Well, well. Cophetua met her on the green, And sware a right king's-oath between, By God this beggar should be queen, And who but Lady Greensleeves ? Another ballad, now the sleeves are off. How once there was a man that loved above His fortune, and his love deserted him. And loving then below his fortune, what? Lady Greensleeves 79 IX Good Friday. Home from the East. The old home now. And now that Georgia has her boy, my name, A Hampton and a Lee, and by as much Virginia, she will never marry now, Is blossomed into an Aunt, I'm free, I'm off. It 's curious therefore now to take again This journal. Curious too, it's not quite done. Fifth Avenue is by a lady . . . well, Distinctly gayer. Kegina. The return. I saw her at Pagliacci, play in play, And yet within ; her glance came quick to me ; Her box was empty when the curtain fell. Well, will it snow again? It's cold enough. The valley's rich cold greens and violets Were crisply wrought and stayed in driving glooms When from my train I looked and named it, home. Ohio orchards, now at prime of bloom, What chill and kindred echoes in the rain Of that cold sky. And here, from street to street, 80 Our Dancing Days Cold wafts of fragrance, how the lilacs bowed. And billowed, wind's work, burst to purple foam. . . Damn it, she looked like Greensleeves, she looked like Greensleeves. 'Twas hellish, 'twas a witch's dance. Ah, Greensleeves, shall we ever dance again, Greensleeves unsleeved, and in the gold not mine? In gold not mine, her arms and shoulders, look, Are far more precious fabric, and her breast : And like a purple lilac love's own face Struck in the middle of her breast, struck deep And vanished, the one shadow near her heart. That was the fear I might ask even yet : Would she drop everything? . . A fool and cruel. A fool and cruel. One can't drop everything. X Easter, what an Easter! Snow, what srow! And all the greensleeves, all the greensleeved trees Were silvered over with a blow of flutes, Lady Greensleeves 81 Shrieked over with excessive sweetness, shot With chills and ecstasies of white alarm ; Only the pines stood up ; but under each, Itself a fountain of the gushing white, A circle was pure Eden. And the lilacs, Bowed head to knee, white curve on curve of snow, How darkly in the eclipse the lilacs glanced And glimmered, with the swim of violet eyes That could not hide them even in the veil, Of violet eyes self-startled that were gray. And I am he that cried to dream again. Once in a lifetime is a wonder. Twice ? The pretty letters, oh, the pretty liars That end with the gay "Greensleeves," they are naught. That little laughing backward tilt of head, Together with her lift of arms, was like Her very kiss. For perfectly I know How she would give her lips, and how her breast. It was as if it had been, long ago. We almost spoke of how our children slept While we were dancing, virgin each of each. . . 82 Our Dancing Days Snow on the lilacs, of such stuff are we. I had sent no word ; she would not be at home On such an Easter morning; at her doors I said to that old hypocrite my heart, None understands her quite as well as I, Wherever her love may go, as go it may, And she will never quite be what she might. Snow on the lilacs, yes. But sleeves are good After Easter. Lord, but who said that? XI "The other things are nothing," Moira said. "Tell me of her, the girl you loved. The girl I'm like. The girl you love again in me." I breathed so deep a wonder that I laughed "She's dead," I said "and he that loved her, dead. There's no one but your lover left alive." "She must have been most lovely." Lightly then She caught her hands to her cheeks, her eyes, she cried: "Don't say like me ! What is it, my long throat With my heart in it ? No, no, if 'twas hers. My tell-tale eyes ? ' ' She turned away with this. Lady Greensleeves 83 In all her vivid sweetness was a pang, A plangence ; that fire-melting flash of eyes, Yes, and the fever of beauty that so burned On her tight lips, impeached her; and her voice. ''And snow, snow on my heart, is that hers too?" I came to her at the window. Morning yet Was flash on flash of snow beneath green trees; And from deep green the dulcet fall of white Caught down and tricked our eyes; without a wind, Large as white roses, like the vanishing Of meteors. They that lived till sunset, how They would forget the morning's wickedness, Would see in her wet apple-blossoms April Smiling, her penance done. The white sighs fell, The ghostly roses. "Do you love me?" I said. She laughed a little. "I knew you would come" she said ' ' This morning. ' ' Suddenly sinking to the floor She kneeled before me, tight hands at her breast, And eyes imploring. "Raleigh, no!" she said. "Since I must wrong you, thus I'll wrong you least. 84 Our Dancing Days Poor Greensleeves. Lift her up. Kiss her goodbye." I jeered at her. "Because your sleeves are green ? She is two white arms will never let me go. And you, stay on your wicked knees till then ! ' ' XII Oh, keep the date, the habit, end the book With one more page. I came away indeed Without a touch of her. In Georgia's house I found Virginia and herself struck cold Over the letter which they gave to me, Regina's letter. And I jeered at them. I wrote across the unopened envelope And sent to Moira. And I myself came out To the upland beeches and the afternoon Where now the northern shadows were last snow. But white is not my lady's favour. Look, The green that gemmed the snow was thick with faint Gold bells and rosy tapers, flowers I thought As white as snow. But snow's another thing. Lady Greensleeves 85 Bloodroots, the green hands held me up their pearls Warm as a throat in cold white furs. "White- hearts, They were like love's eyelids sleep can not un- flesh. Spring-beauties, they were closed like kisses death Cannot uncrimson. But no violet yet. Hark, how my heart went leaping sudden and far, That was the first woodthrush. My heart went leaping, Once I mean I saw her before she knew. Greensleeves and silver furs, that nice young girl. Coming across to Georgia's, the bold thing. Coming across the green yet laced with white, She danced a whiter moment with herself, Spin of a green skirt, slide of a white shoe. And quickly as she checked, it was too late. The Lady's-Tresses The Lady's-Tresses I HAD meant to wait till moonlight and re turn To put my gay adventure to the proof; But orchids always struck an hour for me, And now the hour; and these were rare and fine, Fresh little spires of April snow were they, And where the ferns were yellowing under the wood Looked lilies-of-the-valley in autumn's front. So 'twas not feigned, the excitement I called back To Emily waiting in the motor-car : ' ' They 're lady 's-tresses ! ' ' "I'll come too!" she cried. But I was planning swiftly. "No, it's wet," I said, "I'll bring them." Now I bent to them, The moment's scent unlinked like an embrace 90 Our Dancing Days Once and again from me. The flowers them selves Outlustered even the fond and pretty name ; Most artful, waxen white of ruffled bells Twined in the plait of green, and like her braids Fragrant of maidenhood. An exile far From its own April, a, virginity That never hears the thrush. What truer sign And symbol could there be for tragic love? "Don't be all day!" cried Emily from the car. I laughed with quick abandon, and it seemed There was an echo in every waxen throat. Slower, you little shrieks. You wanton breath, Between the lips of what surprise are you? "White thing, what's in your scent? White thing, what 's yours ? I was all but saying these pretty things when now I brought the lady's-tresses to the lady. And she that tapped away the yawn kept still Breath-parted lips, for rapture feigned and true Upon my orchids. "Oh," she said, "they're dear!" The Lady *s-Tr esses 91 "Hands in your lap!" I held the flowers from her, "Smell first!" and made her lean out of the car. The white veil showered a silver round her face, Her eyes flashed through it, and to her breath it danced, And now 'twas crisply imprinted on her mouth. I kissed her through it. "George!" she gasped, "you wretch!" She tugged the levers. "You shall run for that!" And run I did, and climbing in I made The one excuse, and choicely said, I vow, The asking Emily would she marry me That made the car so widely swerve; and though I had grown so letter-perfect in my passion, I never should have said it half so well, So sweetly, lady's tresses! but for you. II The steady touring-car so widely swerved 'Twas like a sudden giddiness of wings Falling ; but then like wings indeed, we went 92 Our Dancing Days A glance's speed, and the wind's buoyance, A smoke behind us and the sun before, All up the greenwoods and the goldenrod. Therefore 'twas not absurd, the thing she said So quaintly, with so soft a sullenness : "Oh, damn!" And in a running moment more, "George Cartaret!" she cried, "if you mean that, "Wait, and be still, or I I'll wreck the car!" And I was silent, sober, in my heart No shadow of remorse, but one delight Of laughter, till I all but hugged myself. For life is better than the tales. I sat, But in a kindlier sympathy and amaze, With gods and fates, and laughed at life. I touched Creation, lord of art, who proved by fact Our high imagination's prophecy, Not written after the event, but lived With sure foreknowledge, crafty piloting. Emily steered us, yes, but I her hands, And I more silken than her silken foot. And I had said enough, I need not act One inch beyond the proud and confident Waiting her answer, sure to be pure gold, The Lady's-Tresses 93 Stamped with the coin of my own fancy, and yet Free will, her own. Who ever waited thus His sure refusal from a pretty girl? Carriage or coach or motor-car, they're not Good places for proposals, no ; unless One knows the answer, as I knew ; because If one should be unfortunate there's yet The remnant of the journey. Unless, once more, It is one's joy, as it was mine, to be Unfortunate, unless one loves as I The profile of rejection in the veil Beside him, and the veil so bitten in. Loved surely, oh you half -averted cheek, Securely, oh you lips and eyes like flowers Recovering from the wind that as winds will Visited you too gaily ! If I wished At all, if I had any wish beyond, I wished the way was longer, and the day. The way, the day, were fair enough themselves For any man 's devotion. And when now, By historied beeches and the bridge of sighs Over the brook, unto our journey's end, The tents upon the riverside, we came, 94 Our Dancing Days Where Nan the child came dancing out to meet us, And Nan the mother, well, I stepped to earth Sighing content, and almost sighed regret To take the splendid fiction up again. But when I turned to Emily, Emily sat With both hands lifting from her face the veil, One rose to the clear falter of her eyes. "Yes, George," said Emily Saint, "111 marry you. ' ' III 'Twas Benbow and Duquesne and I that made This great conspiracy. Oh, the word was true. Emily wore no ring, that craft was hers. Emily took me driving for I asked To visit her that evening. 'Twas all straight. Alice Duquesne had brought the secret word That three days later Emily would announce Not only her betrothal but her day Of marriage, near and strange as was the man : Martin St. John. Saint added unto Saint! And forthwith we conspired. That very night, The night of Friday, this was Saturday, Benbow, no better actor, chosen by lot, The Lady's-Tresses 95 Proposed, and was rejected, and went off To the devil, as lie swore. He came to me. They were old friends : Emily wept : he raged. Mine was the second turn: and Benbow said: "But she deserves it, taking you to drive When she 's as good as married. Most immoral. You'll take your heartbreak quiet like a man. Wonder what's left Duquesne for Sunday night ! Be sure and tell me." One thing only stays In darkness : how the chapter of St. John Keally read, I shall not ever know. I think indeed 'twas I that closed the book. Small boast in that. In the innocence of my heart, In my unfeigned appreciation, yet My hand was out to Emily of the faint The flushed half -smiling fright, the blind wide eyes, And desperate quick hands that at her veil Strove to be still, where in the car she sat With knees bent sharply and feet together tight. "Yes, George, I'll marry you." That's what she said. And out she came, and catching up my hand 96 Our Dancing Days She tugged me away to meet them like the two That so came dancing: and "Hello!" she sang, "Nanny! Nan! You fairies of the wood!" Thank God that women kiss with both their hands. Thank God they talk. I grew religious, yes. And there was much to talk of and to see : That quaint and rustic household, tent by tent, Where Johnny Mahan had made his summer nest, The tents that were such blind bright hearts of cloud Inviting sleep, the faggots on the hearth That promised to our faces dreams by night, The titmouse on the guy-rope, all that so Had weathered sun and shower, and gave them back, Mother and child, their health: these we sur veyed All in a babble like the brook's talk, out To the river, and now back to where we stayed Safely together, safe yet, where the brook Down upper ledges sounded and flashed white Above the waterfall, the waterfall Draped on the cliff below us. Hear it? Yes. George Cartaret betrothed to Emily Saint. The Lady* s-Tr esses 97 IV The joke was on me, if it was a joke. Nevertheless, I may say this at once, I could not keep my moment 's sharp suspect That Emily knew our precious plot, or guessed, And turned the tables. No. The plot was safe. Alice Duquesne had never failed us yet. And Emily knew just nothing of herself, And of herself guessed all things, chiefly love. Oh, I was fond of her, as we were all, I had my own proprietorship and pride In her, no doubt of that; gay and assured, A beauty known, an empty curly head, And dimples at their rakish hide and seek, Somehow her beauty mattered not a bit To anybody ; nor her coquetry, 'Twas so transparent, so unprejudiced; Emily Saint that went on dancing feet Whither she would, or whither she would not Went, what did it matter, so she danced? But what burned up suspicion was no guess, No plot, no peradventure. That new fire, The clear faint vivid carmine that suffused 98 Our Dancing Days Her cheeks whose wont was pallor and smooth light, Damn it, that rose was mine, that was for me. There was a thing for courage. I to wed? Oh, sometime, doubtless, maybe. I found an odd Conviction in me : there were many girls, Girls I had known, girls I should never know, That had enough humanity to match And mate my own. Put by the question, then, Of what's called character; for I myself Had little as yet, as this adventure proved; The question was of choice, to choose to love. Well then, a thrown flower out of nowhere. Look. Sighing surrender without glance, be sure She knew my eyes took airy rape of her. But woman wear more braver masks than men. And it was maybe far more true of her That I could feign or fancy, that she made A joy of it all, a luxury of still fear, Godiva galloping straight and fast to me Naked upon her beat of heart, and yet All but asleep with safety as she came. The Lady's-Tresses 99 Oh, but this child and fairy in the round High-girdled pearl and blue that from her breast Hung hardly farther than her knees, was she Indeed a woman? Arch of brows and pout Of conscious lips, she held her profile thus ; To the play of her shoulders, affectations light And dainty : what a valentine, just saved From sugared sentiment by that pert nose, By that full chin, beneath her hair : was she My lady and love? The lady's tresses, yes: Upclustered and obedient wild hair, Most rich of inner artful whisks and eddies, Dull gold, and all elf-shivers, little shrieks Of sweetness, crowning her smooth temples with A play at savage. Love ? Did she love me ? We babbled with the brook, old things, far off. How Johnny driving out at six would bring Alice Duquesne. The wretch. For audience, yes. Martin St. John was coming too. And that, That was a smile, how waiting and prepared, That dimpled into amber full beneath 100 Our Dancing Days Her arch and innocence of brows, one hand Outspread, without a ring, upon her breast. I did begin to love her then and there. Against the upper brook's cascades, the slope Of lilies that so kept their woven place But fleeting, beating, shuddering, and looked The sudden cloud 's descending from the blue, She crouched upon one foot with one foot free, She coiled with one hand up behind her neck. You know her, Emily Saint. She's light, light. She 's slight, slight. A waist like Ariel 's world. Yet that forgotten and eye-snatching leg Bloomed to a sumptuous fullness, and the breast Her hand could not keep down. She's sweet, sweet. Forsworn for me, that settled me St. John. But Alice, she would look with no such eyes. Alice must be outplayed. Event's the thing. For now, no prettier thing could be, the child Was stripped and bathing, pure delight to watch, And Nan that waded with her was as fine, Bare knees midway the pool that linked the falls, A hand to Nanny : what could warm one 's heart The Lady's-Tresses 101 More, of the rapt Madonnas? Like an elf Was Nanny, and slipped the shadow of leaves from her, Slim little back and flute-note arms and legs, And spilled to a mist the perfect joy she was. Emily kicked a slipper free, and whisked The long blue stocking from a brilliant foot. But I took quick command. Up to the tents, Our hostess crying instructions after us, And Emily limping on one foot, we ran, And she into that tent, and I in this. Not in the river, no, the waterfall. Sport royal ! I laughed unto myself, while now I stretched me into Johnny's bathing-suit Exultant: Alice and all should be outplayed: And out on high air met her from the tent. And Emily, straight into my eyes she came Bare-figured, empty-armed, and so let go In the little black-silk bathing-suit I knew What languor loosed her knees, and why her paired And pretty pacing flagged, and how she was held Up by my eyes ; and if that smile had been Longer, only a moment longer, well, 102 Our Dancing Days She would have swooned and fallen face up to me Still smiling. But we laughed, but we caught hands, And down by a ladder of roots and steps of rock "We climbed still laughing under the waterfall. VI Then first, when stroke for stroke she followed, round The sounding pool, I hated that the two Must bring their toilets out to oversee us, Crowding and calling on the brinks above. If I assumed the penalties, I took too The privileges. Why, so, I climbed the rocks Into the fall itself, and so leaned out To catch her hand, the naiad : Emily, She came, she screamed, she was beaten to my hands, She clutched me and she crouched beside me, full In the fall of water. Two in the waterfall ! Who knows that rapture? Well for him who knows. The silver ache, the flashing water-weight The Lady' s-Tr esses 103 That shocked and pounded, pushed and pressed and played Heavy upon us, driving out of us All fret and fever, and leaving bloom, clear blood Singing from vein to vein like rosy far Lightnings in long neutral twilight. "Well For him who knows it, well for him who dares. The multitudinous seizing shattering clash Drowned every sense in us but being glad ; And the water's cold strong wring of hands re shaped To the good bones our bodies ; 'twas a new Modelling and creation, casting out Of devils; as the clay the potter's hand We took the brook. Two in the waterfall ! "Lean back!" I shrieked. And backs against the wall, And on our knees the drums of riot, the harps Of clamor, we had room to laugh, we looked Through sliding panels of clear hyaline To see the sunlit well of golden cliffs Dance with a drunken clearness, and the two That hung above us how on the sudden changed Into the maddest phantoms, leap on leap. 104 Our Dancing Days So may they dance who are shut out of heaven. The first kiss. Ah, but thrice expert of that Cold sweetness was the wet-faced nymph than I, She that of one so made a three-times-three ! Then she was out and in the pool again, And following, after a slide and glide into Gloom-lighted underwater soft and still, I turned and lay beside her, poised afloat, Face up beneath the grotto's open dome. Clouds blanched across the blue; remote and rich The beech-tops waved ; the cavern of cool rock Jutted a ponderous purple gloom on us, And fountained its paired silver columns out And down to us, with scattering pearls that dropped From tresses of pure luster ; falling, fallen, And yet to fall, forever now and now, Down, and deep down, and kissing-deep, my veins. It seemed a voice in dreams, but it was Nan That made her mandate heard above the falls. "Come out, you mad things! Dinner! Half an hour!" The Lady* s-Tr esses 105 VII But when I issued from the tent, reclothed, Remade, and let alone into the high And smiling contemplation of the gods, Once more the human comedy returned Upon me, the relentless jocund fact Shocked home in me as instant as at first. The maid was at the kitchen-tent, and waved A cheerful spoon toward Emily, perched in view Down by the brook: Miss Saint she dried her hair, And Mrs. Mahan and Nanny they was gone Out to the road to meet the company : They'd ought to be here now. Indeed they'd ought. What most was in my mind was what should be My answer to her question : when did I Begin to love her? That, I was assured, Was always the first topic of the engaged. I brought it with me, dropping to the shade, And putting now the slope of upper falls, The dancing sounding snowdrift in green gloom That had the sun-flash only along the top, Behind me, facing resolute where she sat, 106 Our Dancing Days Emily, on the sudden-ceasing brink, Drying her hair. I stood and looked at her Before she heard or saw me. When ? Why, now, If first love is as strange and wierd as death. Rebloomed, in new ungirlded disarray ; The gray kimono 's golden dragon twined A gorgeous agony about her, caught Between her knees, and mixing with her hair ; Relaxed, relapsed, she sat, upon her feet, And folded limb on limb and knee to breast, Conjured and instant, well, she made me think Of what I know not immemorial nudes By old immortal watersides. I saw The glimpses of a new-moon throat and face Up to the sky, a head thrown back to shake The rich smooth blindfold smother free of her. Or now she bent full forward, face to lap, To let the shaken bright cascade of hair Flow over her head and hang like drapery, A pose without a parallel, I thought, The dragon flaming into ashen gold. What drapes were these, what masks, what gestures, what Disguises not the human that I knew, The Lady's-Tresses 107 Allurement fainter than the thick sweet fear Of what we were and were not, she and I? Prone on the brink, stooped in the sun, she looked Deserted, widowed, some enchantress slipped Out of Theocritus, dreadful and sweet, At her enticing, her abhorrent rites; Mourning and wronged and lone, thus crouched and draped And run to gold, thus cowled in heavy hair, The sack and smoothly-hooded eyeless glow Of dead inhuman gold drawn over her. . . . My eyes grew hot, the heart sank out of me, I made one leap of it all down the rocks. VIII She flashed me sudden sweetness as she turned, The saintly-slendered face uplift, the new Moon in the gold; and on the curving ledge She made me room, she leaned against me, half Scarfed with the fragrance and the silken touch Of tresses ; where I smoked, and we were still. Sun on the glowing trees and bold cliff brows, The cove's white walls were mirrored bright, beyond, In the outlet to the river, silver cliffs 108 Our Dancing Days Broken to dapples of rich sun, with carved Sun-crusted juts of masonry antique, And ivied with wild vine. And in the shadow Under the arch beneath the fall were ferns Hung like fresh garlands from our own wet brows, I had not noticed them, from our old selves. But we had passed the veil, the waterfall. Profiles of jetting silver at the brink Glittered, and left the sun ; silver and blue It fell, and in the cold of jewelled strands Hung, in a dropping shimmer and staying slide, The tall slim delicate presence in the shade Whose feet were milkwhite dancing on our hearts. For I, wherever I looked, saw womanhood. And all that fire-crowned fall of shaken snow That swiftly fleeting slipped to opener curves And instantaneous broideries, well, it seemed The nymph's hair dancing lock on lock, that fell No farther than her knees, and spilled the white Lilies upon her feet. 'Twas life that danced : The passing continuity, the fall Remaining, like seen music, now and now Immortal moments ours; and music heard, The Lady's-Tresses 109 I take that music in my blood again, It echoed round from cliff to cliff till all Was one full cup of monotoning song. When then at last I broke our long content, 'Twas sudden even to me. I laughed, I said : "G-ood lord, where are our lady's-tresses, lost? I laid them in your lap. But perish flowers, Perish all flowers but the flowerlike hair Now in your lap." I touched the silken flow That now no more than trembled its gold gleams And flicked its pointed tongues. "You know," I said, ' ' 'Twas inconsiderate of you to perch Here in full sight of camp, and so defer A lover's most unquestioned privilege. I wish, you know, to kiss you in your hair." She had a tightening little thrust of lips, She had a sudden deep delicious cleft Of shadow vanishing from her smooth cheek ; The bands of rich hair narrowing her face, Spread out on her white arms, fell back again Dull to her eyes ; forthwith she set her hands To braid the glory in. "My dear," she said, "A woman's oldest privilege comes first. 1 1 Our Dancing Days It's joy enough to know it might have been, Isn't it, George my lover? Oh, but tell Alan Duquesne he need not follow suit. I've changed my mind. I will not marry you," Two Notes and The Rechase Two Notes and The Rechase T IF I were set here in the wood, and he On high Tintagil yonder, if I had Long Failnaught bended, with a tough tight string, And with a shaft of a right rounded nock, And gray-goose feathers fastened with green silk, And the arrow head of steel, an inch across, And of a green-blue temper, that would draw Blood of a weathercock, if I were set My foot to a ferntuft and the oak behind, And at my right the sun, and at my back The wind, and on the footpath hard beside Isolt, then would I shoot him such a shot, So strong and sweet, so smooth and so long- drawn, The tower should yet be murmuring 'Tristram's Harp!' Long after Mark had fallen into the sea." 1 1 4 Our Dancing Days This much if I remember of the lost Poem, it's of the other, of the wrong Isolt ; never of Gyp ; 'twas my own fault That so must tell my tale to such a chance Acquaintance, such an understudy, this Nina Farrell. The arrow should be green, Green tipped with blue. The blue closed gen tian, yes ; The flowers that never open from the bud; They were like what tapers of the deep mid night, They were stripped and smooth like lamp- flames; jewel-blue, An ecstasy of blue, how pure and cold, A bitter virgin blue. For these were now In this girl 's lap, where at the silent door We guested, in the gray benched vacant porch, With none to hear but absence at the pane, And by the cold hearth memory, there midway The dead deserted village by Pine Lake. Crafty and conscious, yes, a jester's mask, A push of lips, and under high-arched brows The droop of eyelids maybe overfull, As after sleep or weeping, for such eyes, So narrowed, such new-moons of mirth or mus ing; Two Notes and The Rechase 1 1 5 Now with the tale she yawned, she tapped her mouth With a blue pointed gentian, but her eyes Glittered excitement even while she stretched, Bare elbows up and hands behind her neck; And so curved forward, so full blown, her body Leaped into bold expression, flashed on me The sudden thick white double throb of breast Within the slipping veils : Isolt, Isolt, She of the full cups given without hands, The cup of love was one, and one was death. 2 "Oh, let's invent," she said, "new episodes! Couldn't we pry a window, force a lock? And build a fire on one of these old hearths ? ' ' \ "A hatful of the wild red raspberries. A pickerel, I've a line, out of the lake. We'll do it!" I caught her hand, both hands, to me. "It has been done before, this very house." Yielding, full weight, she let herself be drawn Up to her feet, a rich reluctance, sighing: "It's all been done before." And then: "By you?" 1 1 6 Our Dancing Days "No, I was fishing, half the night alone, One night last year, ' ' I said : " in the upper lake "Where all the dead pines are. "We 11 row across. I came at midnight through the dark, the dew, And found one window lighted and alive. Oh, I looked in. This window and this room." By now we were at the window, hands to brows. "I'd love" she sighed, "to be a village ghost. Two lovers? Tell me what the girl was like." " 'Twas I that played the ghost," I sighed in turn : "Good lord, if they had seen me at the pane ! 'Twas pretty as a ballad, how the two Sat in the naked room on the bare floor, And watched the fire, and the fire danced and danced. The boy's face burned. The girl was back to me." "The girl burned more," she breathed upon the pane. "We'll blind the window with a petticoat. And toast the last marshmallows. "Well, your boat." Two Notes and The Rechase 1 1 7 She pinned her hat across my coat, and these We left for notice that the house was taken, But gathered up her flowers ; and out we came To the old town well, the chain and windlass yet Unbroken, where we drank, and to the stile, Bare steps that nothing crossed and nowhere led, Where now atop we lingered, looking back About the village, market-place of ghosts, Gray roofs and russet gables in the sun Midway the unaging mountain-valley, set In old idyllic meadows, ever green And ever narrower to the encroaching wood ; And so through goldenrod and gentian crossed To the aldered lakeshore, where I found and launched The secret boat ; and all the while we built A ballad, how indeed it might be done, How two might live a season out of time, By shifts and makeshifts, modern stratagems, Old woodcraft, in the house of the benched porch. ''But we must have a happy ending, not Like theirs," I said, "that played too much the ghost, 1 1 8 Our Dancing Days The two last year." With which I picked her up Suddenly, and so carried ankle-deep, For there was no clear landing, to the boat. And she rode gay, an arm about my neck, Kicking a white foot to the tune she hummed. That was the "Whir, let fly!" the falconer's song. "They died of it," I finished on the oars. Play too persistent, for a moment yet The oars were heavy, all the air was thick With fragrance of red-russet : wierd enough. The lake was ever wierd: whose mountains round, Deep-domed, autumnal, velvet-forested, And their twice-limpid mirror, wore a mask Of strangeness, where all up the clear canal, Rowing as if by gaunt dimantled piers, Between those bones and horns of wood as if Through courts of roofless columns, we came in : Hundreds of gray pine-hulks, to right, to left, They caught the long last sunlight, purpled keen Against the darkling deeps of water and wood. Two Notes and The Rechase 1 1 9 "But that's a happy ending," said this girl. "No place for swimming free." I turned the bow Toward sunset; now she burned, as of herself, Rich on the ruin ; I crossed the oars, I told The story of what happened here last year, The story of the two I saw by night, The boy and the girl, that next had disappeared. "I did not know them: yet it's strange," I said, "Even when the hue and cry ran round the lakes, I did not think of them : not till I heard How here on Pine their oars were found afloat, And their boat stranded. In its own calm time The lake that tells no tales gave up its dead, The boy a sunset earlier than the girl." She took the gentians from her lap, and strewed Wide on the water : and with her push of lips, "The widowed blue," she said, "the tragic buds, Fit flowers for them. How do you know of them That they were lovers and they meant to die?" 120 Our Dancing Days "Lovers," I scoffed, "that is indeed a name We give a many fools. They played they were. It did not need a ghost to tell me that When I was at their window. And in her breast There was a ring, a diamond jet alive In her dead breast. That was his mother's ring. ' ' "Then who's to judge them?" Sunset-flushed she glanced. And "Oh," I ended, "he was all forsworn. The girl he was to marry came that day, Or was to come, the day they disappeared. Another girl and ring. It's all of small Romance, except for one thing, maybe, this: Was it he or she that overturned the boat?" 4 It is not in my mind that after this I spoke a word. She did the speaking now. And I quite other and quite breathless things. She reached both hands: "The oars," she said, "I'm cold." And we rowed the skiff together, face to face, My hands upon her hands upon the oars, Drawing her arms to me, or following them Two Notes and The Rechase 121 Home to her breast: quaint progress, eddies wide. "Do all men wear their mothers' rings?" she said, Staying the stroke : well was it that I kept The oars out balanced : "May I look at yours?" She took it from my hand, she mused upon it. "Initials, and the date. They must be dead. And they were lovers long ago." With which She leaned back, smiling strangely, hand to her breast, And fingers now outspread. The ring was gone. "Jimmy Usher and Nina Farrell," she said "We'll play it out, why not? the ballad-stuff. What would happen if I upset the boat? What would people say when we were found?" I grasped the truth so slowly, even now ! "Funny you didn't guess. I'm in that too, Your poem. Only, between the lines. The other." She panted sharply, suddenly stood up Reeling, and cried: "You're shipped with that one, that one, Jilted Isolt : look at her : in her hands, ' ' She held them wide, "the sunset red as flowers : 122 Our Dancing Days Here's innocence for you, here's touch-me-not," She touched her eyes, her lips, and now her breast, "Here's virgin-bower," and now caught up her skirts, "Here's lady's-slipper for you, and lady's- smock, Oh, and your love-lies-bleeding. . ." Then she stood Still, and the circles ran, stood still, and saying "When did the fire leave the lake?" she sank Quietly down in the boat. The boat lay quiet. Then last "And here's closed gentian, I," she said. II 1 ' ' The two notes and the rechase on the horn, The old hunt 's-up you found for us or made, Man, are you deaf to that? The death of the stag. The voice of your own gun on your own lake. If Ida and I can 't tempt you, here 'a what shall. Listen, it happened only yesterday." Ida, that was of course his wife. Dick's wife. This was Dick Farquhar writing from the lake. Two Notes and The Rechase 123 "Yesterday early. I slipped into West Lake, And just within the alder-gates surprised Wild ducks, a flock of four. They flew long range, But with the good left barrel I knocked one down. Why, then, I spied another, out from shore, That did not fly. No mallard. A deer's head." I'm done with it, the hunting of the deer. "I paddled, man, I paddled like a fiend. Remembered in an agony how the gun Was charged with duck-shot, stopped and with mad hands Slipped buck-shot into the breech. It took an age, And yet the magic driftwood there that trailed The ripple was no more than half across. I stood, the trick you taught me, lunge on lunge. I threw the green canoe with every stroke Out of the water. Last, I snatched the gun, And sent the left choke-barrel it holds its charge 124 Our Dancing Days Far better than the smooth-bore right, you know, Into the swimming head. The gray beast lay Out on the water kicking : and I slid Alongside, clutched a great warm velvet ear, Cut through the long soft furry throat, and drew The hind-legs over the bow to let him hang And bleed in the lake. A buck of three years old." He blows the very devil of a horn About it. Dick the married man. I'll write. "Go to, shall we not have right English fare Here in the greenwood, pasty of venison "With ale of which I have good bottled store?" I 'm done with it, but not by sentiment. 'Twas boy, I've no remorse of that. And none Of what he does not mention, laws we broke Jack-lighting for the deer. But never dogs. Law or no law, we never played unfair. The joy of the light's the night and the canoe, When you slip in to a shore like other worlds, Two Notes and The Rechase 125 And fiery eyes look at you, fiery eyes, And the stag wheels and whistles, and you shoot. That was a corking shot on Otter Lake. And once on Sacondoga. . . No, I'm done. 2 But we were thinking of another marriage, Not Dick 's, when Dick and I went out by night The last time, on the night of Gyp 's goodbye. For we were fresh from it, the other marriage. Far down the lake, the paddles dipped in stars, By Dick's one speech within the hour, I knew We thought of it, Bee's wedding, both of us: I with the stale contempt of all success They know who fail: and Dick as much, I thought, But Dick, I thought and think, saw only there, In that bright image of our loss, the bride, And I the bridesmaid. Two bold hunters, yes. "Damn you, Jimmy," was what he said, "I keep Seeing you two parading, Gyp and you. You spoil a man's last privilege, cursing fate." 126 Our Dancing Days I did not answer. I kept seeing too. My rice was gone before the bride ; 'twas spent Between the bridesmaid's limpid shoulder- blades ; She turned the trick upon me at last, and I, I caught her fingers in my collar, tight Between shrugged shoulders and a back- dropped head, And led her captive round the dancing rooms. What, was someone married? Yes, I saw The white-hung chapel green with maidenhair And smilax, sounding to the Lohengrin, I saw the flower-children wavering come, The prettiest screwing Betty's mouth at me, With ferns and lilies-of-the-valley ; and then The bridesmaid's smile, the tragic fairy, Gyp. Brace up. That way lies madness. Try Dick's way. And then, the bride. Within her veil she looked, The white cloud under the orange-blossoms, like Undine within her fount ; the veil like death So paled her rich bold profile, and the rich Line of her mouth ; looked how apart, afar, Some famous beauty out of old romance. I heard no word between, I watched her turn Two Notes and The Rechase 127 Back up the aisle, with that keen laughing boy Tony her husband; now she went unveiled; Eelaxed, loose-limbed, full motion, after tears, Alcestis up from death, or from the fire Guinevere. Oh, Miss Bridesmaid. We come next. "Light up," said Dick. "We'll try the north shore first." Well, I was sick of it. In all the stars That sparkled on the midnight lake, was one Where lust went hunting? That was earlier, stars, Stars and the wakes of stars, though now the wind Set all the black shores lapping long and loud. And now, the jacklight masted in the bow, Dick dipped a silent paddle, and in we crept, And all the lazy-heaving lily-pads Crept on us, taking light and wicked light, Where rustling loud as thunder we slipped through ; A wicked light, indecent to expose What tossing alders waved their glimmering blooms, 128 Our Dancing Days And tossed them dark and darker into night. A wicked light, as Gyp became to me. No more of that. 'Twas done. That was today. This was the gun across my knees, tonight. Leaf -wavering was in her every move, Light languor poised and tense. No more, no more. How could she do it? Oh, I do not mean Refuse me, that 's all right : I mean refuse With such a plot and play of cruelty, To make me ask and end it. Why? To smile That crimson close-lipped brilliant smile of hers? She smiled, there was a spot of carmine-pure In either cheek ; she smiled, her vivid lips A little tight upon the glittering teeth : "Jimmy," this kept her smiling, "Jimmy dear, It's you that I can't marry, you yourself." At least I pulled myself together then. I had heart enough to bless her anyhow. But if her no was unexpected, lord, What shall I call the storm that fell on me? When she came flying and caught me at the door, Two Notes and The Rechase 129 Clasped me, and hung upon me, and took my breath With such wild weeping fury of kiss on kiss. . . Oh, hell. And nothing in all night to kill. Is it my fault that women make of me Their fool and eunuch ? Sure, it must be mine. Correct it then. Amend it. By the gods, I Ve held two women in my arms at least, Gyp that would not marry me for all Her kisses, and another, well, that would For all her lack of kisses, Nina Farrell. ' ' Cut it ! " said Dick behind me. I had laughed. 4 I laughed again, but this time not aloud. For though Gyp put confusion thus in all I had thought sure, they still remained, still sure, However useless now : nothing could be More sure to my instinctive inmost sense Than this, that Nina Farrell was there for me, A second time, on Auskerada, not For Dick who now pursued her. Much I cared. And much for now this hunting of the deer. Moths flashed across the flare; and mists that walked, 1 30 Our Dancing Days Invisible beneath the stars, the lake, Took sudden being, were snow that filled our eyes; And once there came a little pang of touch, Another, and another, like cold tears, Upon my hands ; so for a moment fell Blind rain, and blowing from half -blotted stars Drummed with a sound unknown and quaint upon The lily-pads about us. With the chill I shook the mists and my own mists from me ; And praying the deer would shun the valley, keep Far up the peaks and safe from me, I turned To look what dusky undulance the peaks "Were hung along the night, and so caught breath To see the red star burn, a flaming eye, Far on the highest shadow : a forest fire. Of course, we saw it from Gyp's window, a faint Blowing of threaded smoke, blue on the blue. But now it was an eye of fire, and watched. And with the sudden anger of that sense, As if 'twas Gyp 's own tyranny even now That watched, I sent my heart to Nina Farrell ; Two Notes and The Rechase 1 3 1 Remembering how the ring upon my hand Slipped down her breast, remembering what her eyes. . . Oh, hell. As I remarked before. Her eyes? 'Twas she I could not marry, she herself ! Gyp, did I not forgive you then and there ? Much more : for I had nothing to forgive : I sympathized. Farewell Gyp Craven too. And farewell youth, 'twas time to be a man. And oh for this last child 's-play, 'twas no harm, No danger, I'm no shot that missed the doe. . . It seemed the night made sudden answer : owls, The horned owls, and the hoot owls, how they called, Inhuman manlike voices, bold, obscure, Confusing all the dark a moment loud With ancient prophecy, with the unknown word Uttered, of life and death. The silence fell As startling. For I knew the deer was there, We had crept downshore ; the wind was fallen ; and now This little creek was empty to the light, Alders and mirrored alders : but I knew. How is it one 's so sure ? It has been so 1 32 Our Dancing Days Always in all my hunts. Or all but one. Why, no : that was no afternoon array : From purfled hair to jewelled slippertip Gyp was in gold for wooing. That time too. Although I missed my shot, I was not wrong. And the deer was here, was in the hollow glow Of the alders somewhere, gazing his eyes full Of flame ; though from the alders, as we touched With throb on throb of dimly thundering wings Bird after bird took flight, and wild with wak ing Piped, and I named them, blackbirds of the marge, They that from out the leaf along the wave Hover, and ankle-deep on lily-pads A dancing moment tread ; like nightmare now They darkled over the blooms into the gloom. Plain warning, but the pretty fool stood still. The pretty fool stood still and held her close And filled his eyes with kisses and thick kisses. . . Right oh. A hiss from Dick. I've got 'm, boy. Usher ran well, but I-Love killed the deer. Two dusky little lusters, but they stirred Together. Brimming opals. Witch's eyes. And in an ecstasy upon the trigger. . . Two Notes and The Rechase 1 33 Someone singing. Very carefully I lowered the silent gun, and drew the charge, Both cartridges, and splashed away, before I crumpled up. I could have laughed at it, Singing "What shall he have that killed the deer?" No, there were now two voices; one was Dick's, I could have laughed at it, a stream of oaths Over a plunging paddle; and one, a girl's, A scream of laughter. Standing in her boat. Holding to alders in a blaze of light. A mask of mad caprice, I could have laughed, A gargoyle now, and languished sweetness now, With eyes like candles waved across my face. 'Twas only Nina Farrell, and long ago. in i My telegram to Tony brought them both, Bee and himself, the dears, to meet my train. Bee met me with a kiss. 'Twas this, no doubt, When now in a babble of talk of new and old Between the lamps in pines and on the beach The rainy clash and glimmer of the surf 1 34 Our Dancing Days We came around the bay, decided me On instant celebration. Half-way round, The summer crew was dancing out-of-doors, And I snatched Bee into it. Oh, all sorts, A vulgar rout; but how the image stays! The ring of paper lanterns in the ring Of splendid blowing birches, and the floor Wind-touched, a mirror of those golden moons ; Where all the dim crisp dancers twirled and slid In an enamored circle, ghostly and sweet In changing lights, pale gush on gush of skirts And falling flowers of insteps beat on beat; And through the circling glimpses now and then The faces brightening, when a lantern caught Wider and fatal flame : that was a charm. All to what naked violins. And then A call came, "Circle all!" and hands all round We wound and counted, "Dance with Number Nine!" / Gyp 's color, curved smooth gold, what lady was this In yellow, lifting cold as twilight snow Her arms to me ? The lady softly said : " It 's Jimmy Usher. ' ' It was Nina Farrell. Two Notes and The Rechase 1 35 And safe by six years now I danced, why not ? With Nina Farrell, and with so quiet a heart I did not even pity her, or forgive, But in some simple fashion understood. I had heard a word or two. I looked for Dick. Oh, rouged, no doubt; but under the gold hat, The red-gold hair, that jester's mask of hers At least was nude of coquetry; so too She gave herself without reserve to that Cheerful abandon, out of which I made Our dance into a rich extravagance, Her arm outstretched on mine, gaily aloft, Yes, and her bare breast given so its depth "Was measured in the double touch, arm-full. But it is only to the poisoner Such cups are poison. Not my cup of death. Twas hands again; a lantern flamed, burned out, Above us ; brilliant in the flame was she, Half in the jealous color gilded, like A nymph in a gold leaf ; no mere nymph 's eyes. "Didn't you know?" she said: "I've married Dick. Ida divorced him and I married him. But Jimmy, don't come see us, never, never!" 1 36 Our Dancing Days 2 "Fancy Dick Farquhar!" This with much dis dain Was Bee 's one comment. Not indeed on Dick His marriages, for now, the second night, I explained her this was none, but none at all, And "All your fault!" laughed Tony kissing her. But she that had been singing to my playing The old way wonderful, with in her arms The baby lying contented, sang no more, Opposed no more my running off from it, Even with Betty coming, rather talked Of Betty : ' ' Fancy Betty ! ' ' And I did run, I camped upon the North Peninsula, And 'twas as many days, I fancied though, Before I saw this Betty as she had years. With Tony gone to meet at least the letter, So I had fished, that afternoon, alone. A mile straight out, midway the azure calm, Floated a cork. I anchored by the cork, And one for each year caught my eighteen perch. Ingots of lifted treasure, shining massed And heavy like pure metal. Lazy sport. Silver and lemon-yellow, silver and green, Two Notes and The Rechase 137 They flashed from deep green water under me Into the sunlight ; once or twice indeed My hooks were double-lustered ; now and then The deepening cluster at the boatside plunged And sent a running circle ; and for talk There was the click and buzzing of the reel. Why should I fish in other waters, I? Wonderful waters, but this naked north, The burned pine-barrens and the leagues of sand Hung in the seventh heaven of pure light And nights of great auroras, was not mine ; Nor yet did any brilliant crude today Connect with my deep yesterdays : enough Of new adventure ! Well, I rowed back straight Into it, I fairly bumped into the launch From which Dick hailed me ; they were perched at feast Under the awning, over the water-play, Where they were moored midway the blossomed heads, The laughters and the splashes, off the beach. At least they should not know I ran from them. And they had bottles round the dish, and I Was thirsty. Oh, she made a little scene, She loved to make a little scene. She sprang 1 38 Our Dancing Days Up to her feet to greet me, and with the move Knocked from the rail the silver chafing-dish Into the lake. The lamp fell at her feet. I leaped, I beat the flame from her, and she, She laughed, she ran, she shut the cabin-door Behind her, and we heard her laughing still. "Jimmy," said Dick, "shell eat out of your hand. Pluck up a heart and take her for God's sake. . ." 3 "The round gray towers looked over the cold sea, And the empty hall looked over : for two doors Were open, and the swallows through the doors, They nested in the pillars of the hall, Came in and out. But the third door was shut. And there we sheltered till the day the swallows Quarrelling dropped afloat the thread of fire, Red-gold, the hair, and someone said 'Isolt!' And someone strode and opened the third door, Before it touched the flags, and we looked out, The three gray faces and the three gray helms And the gray swords and hearts of three old men, Two Notes and The Rechase 1 39 Remembering, I say of three old men, Sentraile, and Governale, and Berangere. That was the door that looked toward Lyonesse." "What's that?" said Betty when I stopped. "Isoltl" We had been playing, none else on all the course, For this was blue September, over the lake, The sweep of emerald shallows round the shore And that pure cobalt of the middle lake How flocked and peopled with white swans, with white Enchantments, of the whitecaps, and across Cloud-shadows lying of deep dense violet. The north was mine today. And mine long since The two great splendid plumes of smoke that stood, Their sunlit tops like roses, deeply infurled, Up from the slender naked uplands, there So near and far across, of forest fires. This was from somewhere high, the seventh tee. And Betty's drive half -circled on the air 1 40 Our Dancing Days Free as the silver killdeers, and my own As wild and wide; and hunting then the balls We found white disks, the little ivory placques Of meadow mushrooms, " Agarics!" she cried, Dappling the green like flowers, and here and there Yet beaded with the morning's dew, and each The dark-pink hollow of a shell beneath. "Hands off!" she waved. "You'll break them. Oh, but smell!" I smelled her fingers. "Jimmy, think!" she crooned, "A dish of mushrooms underneath the lamp, A little ale, a lot of talk, and us ! " No doubt by Bee's contrive, Betty alone Had met me ; we should even dine alone ; The beach was full of farewells anyhow. But I protest that I did not make love To Betty; not for weeks yet; more made love Through her to Gyp, and back through Gyp to her. The black-silk rippled head that rich and strange Glanced in the sun, I thought 'twould be red- gold With every glance ; the slide of those dark eyes Two Notes and The Rechase 1 4 1 With what a little touch of coolness, what A little breath of strangeness, took me in, How lighted with a special moonlight now ! So now ahove the mushrooms I recalled The door toward Lyonesse. ' ' But look, ' ' I said : "Straight toward the flag: aren't they mush rooms too?" 4 Two great white mushrooms bright as lamps, they looked The finest of our finding, but at once She caught me back from even touching them. "Verna, virosa? All alike," she said. ''An amanita. Poison. Why, of course, Nina Farrell must have found them here ! That 's the destroying angel. The death cup. ' ' Others were on the slope, but these alone Mature ; the rest were buttons on thick stems, Like bulbs, like bells, old porcelain, priceless ware, Satsuma, caricaturing gross and quaint The double orbs of girdled womanhood ; But these that looked their name were great and prime, Inverted cups, a span from rim to rim, Pure white, but crusted with a filigree, 142 Our Dancing Days "That was the veil" she said, "that covered them," Like silver carving. Fine indeed as that White-slippered touch that freed them and up turned. "And look what perfect rings." White garters, yes, White on the white full legs in the white skirts. Turn up the cup, there was a girl within it. Bloodless. Oh, too wild a fancy, too Fantastic. I was cold. I took my time, Fain of the flame upon my lighting pipe, And, lord, how fain of Betty that kicked free Those nipples of white death ; we made of it A game together; and not till we were back And Betty gathering my cap full of them, The mushrooms that were life not death, and though I knew the whole thing now, did I make sure. "Nina Farrell? What's she been doing now?" And Betty sat upon her feet and stared. "Haven't you heard it, Jimmy? Oh, you've been Away from mails. They died at Mackinac. Two Notes and The Rechase 143 She and Dick Farquhar. Poisoned with those things. The day after you ran away from me. ' ' "It's two notes and the rechase, Betty," I said "Remember that, the whistle we all used?" And sitting close beside I told her all The tales she knew indeed, but now one tale, Of Nina Farrell, the gentian, the jacklight, And now the death cups, and the two great plumes And pillars of the sunlit smoke across Looked like them. "And I climbed aboard the launch, And Nina, jumping up to greet me, knocked " Betty gasped "Oh, lord!" across the word. "Yes, knocked the dish into the lake," I said. "And then she screamed, and I was beating off The lamp-flame from her skirts. The last of all To clasp her knees. A scream of laughter, yes. That was the death cup, Betty. The death cup." Betty sat still and very still. Her hand Had crept to mine between us in the grass. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. Form L9-42m-8,'49(B5573)444 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 001 247468 PS 3539 T215o