THE PLOW
(A New England Tragedy)
I
Habberton’s plow!
John made it,
William stayed it,
Sharp the blade it bears till now!
Wind shadowed billows of rippling grass,
Under a sky as clear as glass.
And a road that wound like a crooked arm
Over a hill to Habberton’s Farm!
Two stone posts and a gate between,
A well sweep, dripping and cool and green.
And a girl who strained in the August sun
For the thud of hoofs where the path lay dun;
For a cloud that grew in a moment’s course
To the sweat and speed of a flying horse.
Though the dust lay white upon spur and shoe,
On the steaming flanks, and the trooper’s blue,
When the ride was done and the reins hung slack,
And he swung her up to the bay’s wet back
And kissed her brows in an arch of black!
Clung together, she heard him say,
“Three months more till our wedding day!
“Three months more and this purse’ll buy
The next two farms by the Mill Brook dry.
“And then long years of the kindly sun,
Children and work and the wild times done;
—And an end in peace that our hands have won.
“Here I’ll bide till the morning comes,
Then go back for the last of the drums.”
... The wind whined round them like a ghoul.
Into the doorway, still and cool,
They sank, a stone in a plumbless pool.
II
William Habberton drank his ale;
An iron man! An iron man!
—Without the first stars, cold and pale,
Streaked heaven with radiance milky-wan.
William Habberton sat at meat;
He frowned an oaken frown and stark.
The lovers cursed at Time, the fleet,
And stumbled, kissing, towards the dark.
And as they went the purse chinked thrice,
In chiming notes like clinking ice.
William Habberton eyed his guest;
Like stubborn flint was grown his stare.
He drew a parchment from his breast,
And looked, and saw his ruin there.
His fields beneath another’s plow,
Another’s seal stamped on his brow.
Black hound, Disaster, at his heel ...
Hand crept to sheath and found the steel.
Out of the night the lovers came,
Their cheeks on fire, their lips like flame.
And twined once more, mouth fused to mouth,
Before the bitter three months’ drouth.
She passed. Her candle shot with flares
The creaking mystery of the stairs.
The trooper watched each darling tread.
“A good night’s rest!” the farmer said.
“And where sleep I?” his guest spoke free,
Oh white was William Habberton!
“Soft, soft and deep your bed shall be!
And you shall wake when day’s begun!”
“Rest in the Blue Room as you may;
I’ll light you on your lonely way.”
The lantern like a secret fear,
Whispered and guttered at his ear.
The shadows mouthed at him to stay,
He staggered upward on his way.
Below, the house grew black and still,
As listening stood Habberton.
The moonlight’s daggers stabbed the sill.
The dark wind rustled and was gone.
Then slowly, slowly, up the stair
One trod as if he trod on air.
The wavering silence closed around
A ghost that shook at every sound.
Up to the Blue Room’s door he passed,
Gripping the blade unsheathed at last.
· · · · ·
Dawn filled the air with fire and foam
When William Habberton came home.
But sun had warmed the drowsy flies
Before he met his daughter’s eyes.
A new-got purse knocked at his side;
Oh rich was William Habberton!
“You’ve mounted roses like a bride.
Take heed they be not withered soon.”
· · · · ·
The dry leaves whirled in yellow and brown
Like the tattered rags of a beauty’s gown.
And a chattering wind piped loud of snows
As the year went out as a sunset goes.
But Habberton’s farm was heavy with dread,
And Elsie Habberton lay in bed,
And fought for breath with the gloom o’erhead.
For fever came, and a shadow came;
Her hot lips writhed to speak its name;
Till the sick fit passed and left her lame.
Bent as a windblown tree and weak,
But her soul was steel and her eyes were bleak.
“Wait you no more for hoofs to near?”
Thus mockingly spoke Habberton,
“And where’s the picture of your dear
That kissed you in the August sun?”
Her breast her shaking hands did feel,
Where something stung them like a weal,
—She ground the picture under heel.
And the glad wind, and the loud rain
Beat at the shuttering eaves in vain,
And the aching summer comes again.
The grain stands high in the meadow now,
Save for one spot untouched by plow
Where two rocks meet on the hillside’s brow.
“Habberton, lend me your powder horn!
For barren rocks I’ll promise you corn!”
Answered Habberton, heavy of hand,
“I do as I please with my own land!”
And he strikes the stones with his oaken stick,
And a strange sound rings—and his smile turns sick.
III
The new years pass like a quick-turned page,
And Habberton’s daughter links hands with Age.
Dusk and dawn, and new tasks are hers,
And the hot thoughts fade and remembrance blurs,
And her hate is starving and scarcely stirs.
For after the dust of twenty years
Her eyes have begun to remember tears.
The air was heavy with rain and Spring,
Still strong was William Habberton,
The black steeds made the coulters ring,
Plowing beneath a watery sun.
And at sunset Habberton stands alone,
And strains at the weight of a buried stone.
“Corn shall sprout from the stubborn clay,
For the rest has moldered with years away.”
The stones are rolled to the edge of the fen.
He turns to the stilts of the plow again.
His daughter nears where the earth lies red,
And swiftly the furrow drives ahead.
Till the sharp blade crashes through crunching bone.
And a white thing rolls where the clods are thrown.
And crackling under the leader’s shoe
Is a tarnished button, a scrap of blue.
Like icy wind his daughter spoke,
“Your plow is chained to a deadly yoke!”
Her fingers clawed within his coat.
His own knife gripped him at the throat.
“Rusty and dull, drive true, drive true!
You shall drink long for the work you do!”
She flung him at the horses’ feet.
“Lie there who dared to touch my sweet!”
The whip slashed down as she whispered low,
“And now the plow, and now the plow!”
And over him, struggling, mad and seared,
The horrible mace of the plow upreared.
... Dumb she drove to the western gate.
“Fate and the furrow have cloven straight.”
“Long to wait for the sheriff’s men.
I will go back to my youth again.”
Up to the curb she reeled and sank.
And the red knife nuzzled and tore and drank.
... A sallow moon swam over the rise ...
And the horses stamped and rolled their eyes
At the coming and going of the flies.
Habberton’s plow.
John made it
William stayed it.
Sharp the blade it bears till now!