Songs of the Silent World, and Other Poems Part 4

AN APRIL GUST.

It shall be as it hath been.

All the world is glad and green-- Hush! Ah, hush! There cannot be April now for you and me.

Put your finger on the lips Of your soul; the wild rain drips; The wind goes diving down the sea; Tell the wind, but tell not me.

Yet if I had aught to tell, High as heaven, or deep as h.e.l.l, Bent the fates awry or fit, I would find a word for it.

Oh, words that neither sea nor land Can lift their ears to understand!

Wild words, as dumb as death or fear, I dare to die, but not to hear!

THE ANSWER.

"That we together may sail, Just as we used to do."

Carleton's Ballads.

And what if I should be kind?

And what if you should be true?

The old love could never go on, Just as it used to do.

The wan, white hands of the waves That smote us swift apart, Will never enclasp again, And draw us heart to heart.

The cold, far feet of the tides That trod between us two, Can never retrace their steps, And fall where they used to do.

Oh, well the ships must remember, That go down to the awful sea, No keel that chisels the current Can cut where it used to be.

Not a throb of the gloom or the glory That stirs in the sun or the rain, Will ever be _that_ gloom or glory That dazzled or darkened--again.

Not a wave that stretches its arms, And yearns to the breast of the sh.o.r.e, Is ever the wave that came trusting, And yearning, and loving, before.

The hope that is high as the heavens, The joy that is keen as pain, The faith that is free as the morning, Can die--but can live not again.

And though I should step beside you, And hand should reach unto hand, We should walk mutely--stifled-- Ghosts in a breathless land.

And what if I should be kind?

And though you should be true?

The old love could never, never Love on as it used to do.

THORNS.

As we pa.s.s by the roses, Into your finger-tip Bruise you the thorn.

Quick at the p.r.i.c.k you start, Crying, "Alas, the smart!

Farewell, my pleasant friend, Wisely our way we wend Out of the reach of roses."

Oh, we pa.s.s by the roses!

Where does the red drop drip?

Where is the thorn?

What though 'tis hid and pressed Piercing into my breast?

Scathless, I stretch my hand; Strong as their roots I stand, And dare to trust the roses.

THE INDIAN GIRL.

A PICTURE BY WALTER SHIRLAW.

She standeth silent as a thought Too sacred to be uttered; all Her face unfurling like a flower That at a breath too near will shut.

Her life a little golden clock Whose shining hands, arrested, stay Forever at the hour of Love.

She doubts, she dares, she dreams--of what?

I ask; she, shrinking, answers not, She swims before me, dim, a cup Of waste, untasted tenderness.

I drink, I dread, until I seem (Myself unto myself) to be He whom she chose, and charmed--and missed, On some faint Asiatic day Of languorous summer, ages since.

SEALED.

"Shall I pour you the wine," she said, "The wine that is rare and red?

Sweeter the cup for the drop."-- "But why do you shrink and stop?"

"The seal of the wine Has a sacred sign; I am afraid," she said.

"I love and revere You more for your fear, Than I do for your wine," he said.

GUINEVERE.

Of Guinevere from Arthur separate, And separate from Launcelot and the world, And shielded in the convent with her sin, As one draws fast a veil upon a face That 's marred, but only holds the scar more close Against the burning brain--I read to-day This legend; and if other yet than I Have read, or said, how know I? for the text Was written in the story we have learned, Between the ashen lines, invisible, In hieroglyphs that blazed and leaped like light Unto the eyes. A thousand times we read; A thousand turn the page and understand, And think we know the record of a life, When lo! if we will open once again The awful volume, hid, mysterious, Intent, there lies the unseen alphabet-- Re-reads the tale from breath to death, and spells A living language that we never knew.

This that I read was one short song of hers, A fragment, I interpret, or a lost Faint prelude to another--missing too.

She sang it (says the text) one summer night, After the vespers, when the Abbess pa.s.sed And blessed her; when the nuns were gone, and when She, kneeling in her drowsy cell, had said Her prayers (poor soul!), her sorrowful prayers, in which She had besought the Lord, for His dear sake, And love and pity of His Only Son, To wash her of her stain, and make her fit On summer nights, behind the convent bars And on stone-floors, with bruised lips, to pray Away all vision but repentance from her soul.

When, kneeling as she was, her limbs Refused to bear her, and she fell afaint From weariness and striving to become A holy woman, all her splendid length Upon the ground, and groveled there, aghast That buried nature was not dead in her, But lived, a rebel through her fair, fierce youth; Aghast to find that clasped hands would clench; Aghast to feel that praying lips refused Like saints to murmur on, but shrank And quivered dumb. "Alas! I cannot pray!"

Cried Guinevere. "I cannot pray! I will Not lie! G.o.d is an honest G.o.d, and I Will be an honest sinner to his face.

Will it be wicked if I sing? Oh! let Me sing a little, of I know not what; Let me just sing, I know not why. For lips Grow stiff with praying _all_ the night.

Let me believe that I am happy, too.

A blessed blessed woman, who is fit To sing because she did not sin; or else That G.o.d forgot it for a little while And does not mind me very much.

Dear Lord,"

(Said Guinevere), "wilt thou not listen while I sing, as well as while I pray? I shall Feel safer so. For I have naught to say G.o.d should not hear. The song comes as the prayer Doth come. Thou listenest. I sing." ...