How Salvator Won, and Other Recitations

THE WATCHER.

THINK I hear the sound of horses’ feet
Beating upon the graveled avenue.
Go to the window that looks on the street,
He would not let me die alone, I knew.”
Back to the couch the patient watcher passed,
And said: “It is the wailing of the blast.”

She turned upon her couch and, seeming, slept,
The long, dark lashes shadowing her cheek;
And on and on the weary moments crept,
When suddenly the watcher heard her speak:
“I think I hear the sound of horses’ hoofs—”
And answered, “’Tis the rain upon the roofs.”

Unbroken silence, quiet, deep, profound.
The restless sleeper turns: “How dark, how late!
What is it that I hear—a trampling sound?
I think there is a horseman at the gate.”
The watcher turns away her eyes tear-blind:
“It is the shutter beating in the wind.”

The dread hours passed; the patient clock ticked on;
The weary watcher moved not from her place.
The gray dim shadows of the early dawn
Caught sudden glory from the sleeper’s face.
“He comes! my love! I knew he would!” she cried;
And smiling sweetly in her slumbers, died.

FALSE.

ALSE! Good God, I am dreaming!
No, no, it never can be—
You who are so true in seeming,
You, false to your vows and me?
My wife and my fair boy’s mother
The star of my life—my queen—
To yield herself to another
Like some light Magdalene!

Proofs! what are proofs—I defy them!
They never can shake my trust;
If you look in my face and deny them
I will trample them into the dust.
For whenever I read of the glory
Of the realms of Paradise,
I sought for the truth of the story
And found it in your sweet eyes.

Why, you are the shy young creature
I wooed in her maiden grace;
There was purity in each feature,
And my heaven I found in your face
And, “not only married but mated,”
I would say in my pride and joy;
And our hopes were all consummated
When the angels gave us our boy.

Now you could not blot that beginning
So beautiful, pure and true,
With a record of wicked sinning
As a common woman might do.
Look up in your old frank fashion,
With your smile so free from art;
And say that no guilty passion
Has ever crept into your heart.

How pallid you are, and you tremble!
You are hiding your face from view!
“Tho’ a sinner, you cannot dissemble”—
My God! then the tale is true?
True and the sun above us
Shines on in the summer skies?
And men say the angels love us,
And that God is good and wise.

Yet he lets a wanton thing like you
Ruin my home and my name!
Get out of my sight ere I strike you
Dead in your shameless shame!
No, no, I was wild, I was brutal;
I would not take your life,
For the efforts of death would be futile
To wipe out the sin of a wife.
Wife—why, that word has seemed sainted,
I uttered it like a prayer.
And now to think it is tainted—
Christ! how much we can bear!

“Slay you!” my boy’s stained mother—
Nay, that would not punish, or save;
A soul that has outraged another
Finds no sudden peace in the grave.
I will leave you here to remember
The Eden that was your own,
While on toward my life’s December
I walk in the dark alone.

THE PHANTOM BALL.

OU remember the hall on the corner?
To-night as I walked down street
I heard the sound of music,
And the rhythmic beat and beat,
In time to the pulsing measure
Of lightly tripping feet.

And I turned and entered the doorway—
It was years since I had been there—
Years, and life seemed altered:
Pleasure had changed to care.
But again I was hearing the music
And watching the dancers fair.

And then, as I stood and listened,
The music lost its glee;
And instead of the merry waltzers
There were ghosts of the Used-to-be—
Ghosts of the pleasure-seekers
Who once had danced with me.

Oh, ’twas a ghastly picture!
Oh, ’twas a gruesome crowd!
Each bearing a skull on his shoulder,
Each trailing a long white shroud,
As they whirled in the dance together,
And the music shrieked aloud.

As they danced, their dry bones rattled
Like shutters in a blast;
And they stared from eyeless sockets
On me as they circled past;
And the music that kept them whirling
Was a funeral dirge played fast.

Some of them wore their face-cloths,
Others were rotted away.
Some had mould on their garments,
And some seemed dead but a day.
Corpses all, but I knew them
As friends, once blithe and gay.

Beauty and strength and manhood—
And this was the end of it all:
Nothing but phantoms whirling
In a ghastly skeleton ball.
But the music ceased—and they vanished,
And I came away from the hall.

THE KINGDOM OF LOVE.

N the dawn of the day when the sea and the earth
Reflected the sunrise above,
I set forth with a heart full of courage and mirth
To seek for the Kingdom of Love.
I asked of a Poet I met on the way
Which cross-road would lead me aright.
And he said: “Follow me, and ere long you shall see
Its glittering turrets of light.”

And soon in the distance a city shone fair.
“Look yonder,” he said; “how it gleams!”
But alas! for the hopes that were doomed to despair,
It was only the “Kingdom of Dreams.”
Then the next man I asked was a gay Cavalier,
And he said: “Follow me, follow me;”
And with laughter and song we went speeding along
By the shores of Life’s beautiful sea.

Then we came to a valley more tropical far
Than the wonderful vale of Cashmere,
And I saw from a bower a face like a flower
Smile out on the gay Cavalier.
And he said: “We have come to humanity’s goal:
Here love and delight are intense.”
But alas and alas! for the hopes of my soul—
It was only the “Kingdom of Sense.”

As I journeyed more slowly I met on the road
A coach with retainers behind.
And they said: “Follow me, for our Lady’s abode
Belongs in that realm, you will find.”
’Twas a grand dame of fashion, a newly-made bride,
I followed, encouraged and bold;
But my hopes died away like the last gleams of day,
For we came to the “Kingdom of Gold.”

At the door of a cottage I asked a fair maid.
“I have heard of that realm,” she replied;
“But my feet never roam from the ‘Kingdom of Home,’
So I know not the way,” and she sighed.
I looked on the cottage; how restful it seemed!
And the maid was as fair as a dove.
Great light glorified my soul as I cried:
“Why home is the ‘Kingdom of Love!’”

UNDER THE SHEET.

HAT a terrible night! Does the Night, I wonder—
The Night, with her black veil down to her feet
Like an ordained nun, know what lies under
That awful, motionless, snow-white sheet?
The winds seem crazed, and, wildly howling,
Over the sad earth blindly go.
Do they and the dark clouds over them scowling,
Do they dream or know?

Why, here in the room, not a week or over—
Tho’ it must be a week, not more than one—
(I cannot reckon of late or discover
When one day is ended or one begun),
But here in this room we were laughing lightly,
And glad was the measure our two hearts beat;
And the royal face that was smiling so brightly
Lies under that sheet.

I know not why—it is strange and fearful,
But I am afraid of her, lying there;
She who was always so gay and cheerful,
Lying so still with that stony stare:
She who was so like some grand sultana,
Fond of color and glow and heat,
To lie there clothed in that awful manner
In a stark white sheet.

She who was made out of summer blisses,
Tropical, beautiful, gracious, fair,
To lie and stare at my fondest kisses—
God! no wonder it whitens my hair.
Shriek, oh, wind! for the world is lonely;
Trail cloud-veil to the nun Night’s feet!
For all that I prized in life is only
A shape and a sheet.

HIS YOUTH.

YING? I am not dying. Are you mad?
You think I need to ask for heavenly grace?
I think you are a fiend, who would be glad
To see me struggle in death’s cold embrace.

“But, man, you lie! for I am strong—in truth
Stronger than I have been in years; and soon
I shall feel young again as in my youth,
My glorious youth—life’s one great priceless boon.

“O youth, youth, youth! O God, that golden time,
When proud and glad I laughed the hours away.
Why, there’s no sacrifice (perhaps no crime)
I’d pause at, could it make me young to-day.

“But I’m not old! I grew—just ill, somehow;
Grew stiff of limb, and weak, and dim of sight.
It was but sickness. I am better now,
Oh, vastly better, ever since last night.

“And I could weep warm floods of happy tears
To think my strength is coming back at last,
For I have dreamed of such an hour for years,
As I lay thinking of my glorious past.

“You shake your head? Why, man, if you were sane
I’d strike you to my feet, I would, in truth.
How dare you tell me that my hopes are vain?
How dare you say I have outlived my youth?

“‘In heaven I may regain it?’ Oh, be still!
I want no heaven but what my glad youth gave.
Its long, bright hours, its rapture and its thrill—
O youth, youth, youth! it is my youth I crave.

“There is no heaven! There’s nothing but a deep
And yawning grave from which I shrink in fear.
I am not sure of even rest or sleep;
Perhaps we lie and think, as I have here.

“Think, think, think, think, as we lie there and rot,
And hear the young above us laugh in glee.
How dare you say I’m dying! I am not.
I would curse God if such a thing could be.

“Why, see me stand! why, hear this strong, full breath—
Dare you repeat that silly, base untruth?”
A cry—a fall—the silence known as death
Hushed his wild words. Well, has he found his youth?

WANTED—A LITTLE GIRL.

HERE have they gone to—the little girls
With natural manners and natural curls;
Who love their dollies and like their toys,
And talk of something besides the boys?

Little old women in plenty I find,
Mature in manners and old of mind;
Little old flirts who talk of their “beaux,”
And vie with each other in stylish clothes.

Little old belles who, at nine and ten,
Are sick of pleasure and tired of men;
Weary of travel, of balls, of fun,
And find no new thing under the sun.

Once, in the beautiful long ago,
Some dear little children I used to know;
Girls who were merry as lambs at play,
And laughed and rollicked the livelong day.

They thought not at all of the “style” of their clothes,
They never imagined that boys were “beaux”—
“Other girls’ brothers” and “mates” were they;
Splendid fellows to help them play.

Where have they gone to? If you see
One of them anywhere send her to me.
I would give a medal of purest gold
To one of those dear little girls of old,
With an innocent heart and an open smile,
Who knows not the meaning of “flirt” or “style.”

TWO SINNERS.

HERE was a man, it was said one time,
Who went astray in his youthful prime.
Can the brain keep cool and the heart keep quiet
When the blood is a river that’s running riot?
And boys will be boys, the old folks say,
And a man is the better who’s had his day.

The sinner reformed; and the preacher told
Of the prodigal son who came back to the fold.
And Christian people threw open the door,
With a warmer welcome than ever before.
Wealth and honor were his to command,
And a spotless woman gave him her hand.

And the world strewed their pathway with blossoms abloom,
Crying, “God bless layde, and God bless groom!”

There was a maiden who went astray,
In the golden dawn of her life’s young day.
She had more passion and heart than head,
And she followed blindly where fond Love led.
And Love unchecked is a dangerous guide
To wander at will by a fair girl’s side.

The woman repented and turned from sin,
But no door opened to let her in.
The preacher prayed that she might be forgiven,
But told her to look for mercy—in heaven
For this is the law of the earth, we know:
That the woman is stoned, while the man may go.

A brave man wedded her after all,
But the world said, frowning, “We shall not call.”

MEG’S CURSE.

HE sun rode high in a cloudless sky
Of a perfect summer morn.
She stood and gazed out into the street,
And wondered why she was born.
On the topmost branch of a maple-tree
That close by the window grew,
A robin called to his mate enthralled:
“I love but you, but you, but you.”

A soft look came in her hardened face—
She had not wept for years;
But the robin’s trill, as some sounds will,
Jarred open the door of tears.
She thought of the old home far away;
She heard the whir-r-r of the mill;
She heard the turtle’s wild, sweet call,
And the wail of the whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will.

She saw again that dusty road
Whence he came riding down;
She smelled once more the flower she wore
In the breast of her simple gown.
Out on the new-mown meadow she heard
Two blue-jays quarrel and fret,
And the warning cry of a Phœbe bird:
“More wet, more wet, more wet.”

With a blithe “hello” to the men below
Who were spreading the new-mown hay,
The rider drew rein at her window-pane—
How it all came back to-day!
How young she was, and how fair she was;
What innocence crowned her brow!
The future seemed fair, for Love was there—
And now—and now—and now.

In a dingy glass on the wall near by
She gazed on her faded face.
“Well, Meg, I declare, what a beauty you are!”
She sneered, “What an angel of grace!
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
What a thing of beauty and grace!”
She reached out her arms with a moaning sob.
“Oh, if I could go back!”
Then, swift and strange, came a sudden change;
Her brow grew hard and black.

“A curse on the day and a curse on that man,
And on all who are his,” she cried.
“May he starve and be cold, may he live to be old
When all who loved him have died.”
Her wild voice frightened the robin away
From the branch by the window-sill;
And little he knew as away he flew,
Of the memories stirred by his trill.

He called to his mate on the grass below,
“Follow me,” as he soared on high;
And as mates have done since the world begun
She followed, and asked not why.
The dingy room seemed curtained with gloom;
Meg shivered with nameless dread.
The ghost of her youth and her murdered truth
Seemed risen up from the dead.

She hurried out into the noisy street,
For the silence made her afraid;
To flee from thought was all she sought,
She cared not whither she strayed.
Still on she pressed in her wild unrest
Up avenues skirting the park,
Where fashion’s throng moved gayly along
In Vanity Fair—when hark!

A clatter of hoofs down the stony street,
The snort of a frightened horse
That was running wild, and a laughing child
At play in its very course.
With one swift glance Meg saw it all.
“His child—my God! his child!”
She cried aloud, as she rushed through the crowd
Like one grown suddenly wild.

There, almost under the iron feet,
Hemmed in by a passing cart,
Stood the baby boy—the pride and joy
Of the man who had broken her heart.
Past swooning women and shouting men
She fled like a flash of light;
With her slender arm she gathered from harm
The form of the laughing sprite.

The death-shod feet of the mad horse beat
Her down on the pavings gray;
But the baby laughed out with a merry shout,
And thought it splendid play.
He pulled her gown and called to her: “Say,
Dit up and do dat some more;
Das jus’ ze way my papa play
Wiz me on ze nursery floor.”

When the frightened father reached the scene,
His boy looked up and smiled
From the stiffening fold of the arm, death-cold,
Of Meg, who had died for his child.
Oh! idle words are a woman’s curse
Who loves as woman can;
For put to the test, she will bare her breast
And die for the sake of the man.

A FABLE.

OME cawing Crows, a hooting Owl,
A Hawk, a Canary, an old Marsh-Fowl,
One day all met together
To hold a caucus and settle the fate
Of a certain bird (without a mate),
A bird of another feather.

“My friends,” said the Owl, with a look most wise,
“The Eagle is soaring too near the skies,
In a way that is quite improper;
Yet the world is praising her, so I’m told,
And I think her actions have grown so bold
That some of us ought to stop her.”

“I have heard it said,” quoth Hawk with a sigh,
“That young lambs died at the glance of her eye,
And I wholly scorn and despise her.
This and more, I am told, they say;
And I think that the only proper way
Is never to recognize her.”

“I am quite convinced,” said Crow with a caw,
“That the Eagle minds no moral law;
She’s a most unruly creature.”
“She’s an ugly thing,” piped Canary Bird;
“Some call her handsome; it’s so absurd—
She hasn’t a decent feature!”

Then the old Marsh Hen went hopping about;
She said she was sure—she hadn’t a doubt—
Of the truth of each bird’s story;
And she thought it her duty to stop her flight,
To pull her down from her lofty height,
And take the gilt from her glory.

But, lo! from a peak on the mountain grand,
That looks out over the smiling land,
And over the mighty ocean,
The Eagle is spreading her splendid wings—
She rises, rises, and upward swings,
With a slow, majestic motion.

Up in the blue of God’s own skies,
With a cry of rapture, away she flies,
Close to the Great Eternal.
She sweeps the world with her piercing sight;
Her soul is filled with the Infinite
And the joy of things supernal.

Thus rise forever the chosen of God,
The genius-crowned or the power-shod,
Over the dust-world sailing;
And back like splinters blown by the winds,
Must fall the missiles of silly minds,
Useless and unavailing.

THE WAY OF IT.

HIS is the way of it, wide world over,
One is beloved, and one is the lover,
One gives and the other receives,
One lavishes all in wild emotion,
One offers a smile for a life’s devotion,
One hopes and the other believes.
One lies awake in the night to weep,
And the other drifts off in a sweet, sound sleep.

One soul is aflame with a godlike passion,
One plays with love in an idler’s fashion,
One speaks and the other hears.
One sobs “I love you,” and wet eyes show it,
And one laughs lightly, and says “I know it,”
With smiles for the other’s tears.
One lives for the other and nothing beside,
And the other remembers the world is wide.

This is the way of it, sad earth over,
The heart that breaks is the heart of the lover,
And the other learns to forget.
“For what is the use of endless sorrow?
Though the sun goes down, it will rise to-morrow;
And life is not over yet.”
Oh! I know this truth, if I know no other,
That passionate Love is Pain’s own mother.

THE SUICIDE.

AST was the wealth I carried in life’s pack—
Youth, health, ambition, hope and trust; but Time
And Fate, those robbers fit for any crime,
Stole all, and left me but the empty sack.
Before me lay a long and lonely track
Of darkling hills and barren steeps to climb;
Behind me lay in shadows the sublime
Lost lands of Love’s delight. Alack! Alack!

Unwearied, and with springing steps elate,
I had conveyed my wealth along the road.
The empty sack proved now a heavier load:
I was borne down beneath its worthless weight.
I stumbled on, and knocked at Death’s dark gate.
There was no answer. Stung by sorrow’s goad,
I forced my way into that grim abode,
And laughed, and flung Life’s empty sack to Fate.

Unknown and uninvited I passed in
To that strange land that hangs between two goals,
Round which a dark and solemn river rolls—
More dread its silence than the loud earth’s din.
And now, where was the peace I hoped to win?
Black-masted ships slid past me in great shoals,
Their bloody decks thronged with mistaken souls.
(God punishes mistakes sometimes like sin.)

Not rest and not oblivion I found.
My suffering self dwelt with me just the same;
But here no sleep was, and no sweet dreams came
To give me respite. Tyrant Death, uncrowned
By my own hand, still King of Terrors, frowned
Upon my shuddering soul, that shrank in shame
Before those eyes where sorrow blent with blame,
And those accusing lips that made no sound.

What gruesome shapes dawned on my startled sight!
What awful sighs broke on my listening ear!
The anguish of the earth, augmented here
A thousand-fold, made one continuous night.
The sack I flung away in impious spite
Hung yet upon me, filled, I saw in fear,
With tears that rained from earth’s adjacent sphere,
And turned to stones in falling from that height.

And close about me pressed a grieving throng,
Each with his heavy sack, which bowed him so
His face was hidden. One of these mourned: “Know
Who enters here but finds the way more long
To those fair realms where sounds the angels’ song.
There is no man-made exit out of woe;
Ye cannot dash the locked door down and go
To claim thy rightful joy through paths of wrong.”

He passed into the shadows dim and gray,
And left me to pursue my path alone.
With terror greater than I yet had known.
Hard on my soul the awful knowledge lay,
Death had not ended life nor found God’s way;
But, with my same sad sorrows still my own,
Where by-roads led to by-roads, thistle-sown,
I had but wandered off and gone astray.

With earth still near enough to hear its sighs,
With heaven afar and hell but just below,
Still on and on my lonely soul must go
Until I earn the right to Paradise.
We cannot force our way into God’s skies,
Nor rush into the rest we long to know;
But patiently, with bleeding steps and slow,
Toil on to where selfhood in Godhood dies.

“NOW I LAY ME.”

HEN I pass from earth away,
Palsied though I be and gray,
May my spirit keep so young
That my failing, faltering tongue
Frames that prayer so dear to me,
Taught me at my mother’s knee:
“Now I lay me down to sleep,”
(Passing to Eternal rest
On the loving parent breast)
“I pray the Lord my soul to keep;”
(From all danger safe and calm
In the hollow of His palm;)
“If I should die before I wake,”
(Drifting with a bated breath
Out of slumber into death,)
“I pray the Lord my soul to take.”
(From the body’s claim set free
Sheltered in the Great to be.)
Simple prayer of trust and truth,
Taught me in my early youth—
Let my soul its beauty keep
When I lay me down to sleep.

THE MESSENGER.

HE rose up in the early dawn,
And white and silently she moved
About the house. Four men had gone
To battle for the land they loved,
And she, the mother and the wife,
Waited for tidings from the strife.
How still the house seemed! and her tread
Was like the footsteps of the dead.

The long day passed; the dark night came.
She had not seen a human face.
Some voice spoke suddenly her name.
How loud it echoed in that place,
Where, day on day, no sound was heard
But her own footsteps. “Bring you word,”
She cried to whom she could not see,
“Word from the battle-plain to me?”

A soldier entered at the door,
And stood within the dim firelight:
“I bring you tidings of the four,”
He said, “who left you for the fight.”
“God bless you, friend,” she cried, “speak on!
For I can bear it. One is gone?”
“Ay, one is gone!” he said. “Which one?”
“Dear lady, he, your eldest son.”

A deathly pallor shot across
Her withered face; she did not weep.
She said: “It is a grievous loss,
But God gives His belovèd sleep.
What of the living—of the three?
And when can they come back to me?”
The soldier turned away his head:
“Lady, your husband, too, is dead.”

She put her hand upon her brow;
A wild, sharp pain was in her eyes.
“My husband! Oh, God, help me now!”
The soldier heard her shuddering sighs.
The task was harder than he thought.
“Your youngest son, dear madam, fought
Close at his father’s side; both fell
Dead, by the bursting of a shell.”

She moved her lips and seemed to moan.
Her face had paled to ashen gray:
“Then one is left me—one alone,”
She said, “of four who marched away.
Oh, overruling, All-wise God,
How can I pass beneath Thy rod!”
The soldier walked across the floor,
Paused at the window, at the door,
Wiped the cold dew-drops from his cheek
And sought the mourner’s side again.
“Once more, dear lady, I must speak:
Your last remaining son was slain
Just at the closing of the fight,
’Twas he who sent me here to-night.”
“God knows,” the man said afterward,
“The fight itself was not so hard.”

How Salvator Won, and Other Recitations

About This Book