Stars and its moon, shining golden and slumberless;
Who on my life, that was thorny and lowery,
Came—and made beautiful; smiled—and made flowery.
She, to my heart and my soul a divinity!
She, who—I dreamed!—seemed my spirit-affinity!—
What have I done to her? what have I done?
What can she mean by this?—what have I said to her?
I, who have idolized, worshiped, and pled to her;
Sung with her, laughed with her, sorrowed and sighed for her;
Lived for her only; and gladly had died for her!
See! she has written me thus! she has written me—
Sooner would dagger or serpent had smitten me!—
Would you had shriveled ere ever you’d read of it,
Eyes, that are wide to the grief and the dread of it!—
What have I said to her? what have I said?
What shall I make of it? I who am trembling,
Fearful of losing.—A moth, the dissembling
Flame of a taper attracts with its guttering,
Flattering on till its body lies fluttering,
Scorched in the summer night.—Foolish, importunate,
Why didst thou quit the cool flowers, unfortunate!—
Such has she been to me, making me such to her!—
Slaying me, saying I never was much to her!—
What shall I make of it? what can I make?
Love, in thy everglades, moaning and motionless,
Look, I have fallen; the evil is potionless:
I, with no thought but the day that did lock us in,
Set naked feet ’mid the cottonmouth-moccasin,
Under the roses, the Cherokee, eying me:—
I,—in the heav’n with the egrets that, flying me,
Winging like blooms from magnolias, rose slenderly,
Pearl and pale pink: where the mocking-bird tenderly
Sang, making vistas of mosses melodious,
Wandered,—unheeding my steps,—in the odious
Ooze and the venom. I followed the wiry
Violet curve of thy star falling fiery—
So was I lost in night! thus am undone!
Have I not told to her—living alone for her—
Purposed unfoldments of deeds I had sown for her
Here in the soil of my soul? their variety
Endless—and ever she answered with piety.
See! it has come to this—all the tale’s suavity
At the ninth chapter grows hateful with gravity;
Cruel as death all our beautiful history—
Close it!—the final is more than a mystery.—
Yes; I will go to her; yes; and will speak.
VII
I seem to see her still; to see
That blue-hung room. Her perfume comes
From lavender folds, draped dreamily,—
A-blossom with brocaded blooms,—
Some stuff of orient looms.
I seem to hear her speak; and back,
Where sleeps the sun on books and piles
Of porcelain and bric-à-brac,
A tall clock ticks above the tiles,
Where Love’s framed profile smiles.
I hear her say, “Ah, had I known!—
I suffer too for what has been—
For what must be.”—A wild ache shone
In her sad gaze that seemed to lean
On something far, unseen.
And as in sleep my own self seems
Outside my suffering self.—I flush
’Twixt facts and undetermined dreams,
And stand, as silent as that hush
Of lilac light and plush.
Smiling, but suffering, I feel,
Beneath that face, so sweet and sad,
In those pale temples, thoughts, like steel,
Pierce burningly.... I had gone mad
Had I once thought her glad.—
Unconsciously, with eyes that yearn
To look beyond the present far,
For one faint future hope, I turn—
There, in her garden, one fierce star,
A cactus, red as war,
Vermilion as a storm-sunk sun,
Flames torrid splendor,—brings to life
A sunset; memory of one
Rich eve she said she ’d be my wife;
An eve with beauty rife.
Again amid the heavy hues,
Soft crimson, seal, and satiny gold
Of flowers there, I stood ’mid dews
With her; deep in her garden old,
While sunset’s flame unrolled.
And now!… It can not be! and yet
To see ’tis so!—In heart and brain
To know ’tis so!—While, warm and wet,
I seem to smell those scents again,
Verbena scents and rain.
I turn, in hope she ’ll bid me stay.
Again her cameo beauty mark
Set in that smile.—She turns away.
No farewell! no regret! no spark
Of hope to cheer the dark!
That sepia sketch—conceive it so—
A jaunty head with mouth and eyes
Tragic beneath a rose-chapeau,
Silk-masked, unmasking—it denies
The look we half surmise,
We know is there. ’Tis thus we read
The true beneath the false; perceive
The ache beneath the smile.—Indeed!
Whose soul unmasks?… Not mine!—I grieve,—
Oh God!—but laugh and leave....
VIII
Beyond those knotted apple-trees,
That partly hide the old brick barn,
Its tattered arms and tattered knees
A scarecrow tosses to the breeze
Among the shocks of corn.
My heart is gray as is the day,
In which the rain-wind