The Daffodil Fields Part 4

She faded to the memory of a kiss, There in the rough life among foreign faces; Love cannot live where leisure never is; He could not write to her from savage places, Where drunken mates were betting on the aces, And rum went round and s.m.u.tty songs were lifted.

He would not raise her banner against that; he drifted,

Ceasing, in time, to write, ceasing to think, But happy in the wild life to the bone; The riding in vast s.p.a.ce, the songs, the drink, Some careless heart beside him like his own, The racing and the fights, the ease unknown In older, soberer lands; his young blood thrilled.

The pampas seemed his own, his cup of joy was filled.

And one day, riding far after strayed horses, He rode beyond the ranges to a land Broken and made most green by watercourses, Which served as strayline to the neighbouring brand.

A house stood near the brook; he stayed his hand, Seeing a woman there, whose great eyes burned, So that he could not choose but follow when she turned.

After that day he often rode to see That woman at the peach farm near the brook, And pa.s.sionate love between them came to be Ere many days. Their fill of love they took; And even as the blank leaves of a book The days went over Mary, day by day, Blank as the last, was turned, endured, pa.s.sed, turned away.

Spring came again greening the hawthorn buds; The shaking flowers, new-blossomed, seemed the same, And April put her riot in young bloods; The jays flapped in the larch clump like blue flame.

She did not care; his letter never came.

Silent she went, nursing the grief that kills, And Lion watched her pa.s.s among the daffodils.

IV

Time pa.s.sed, but still no letter came; she ceased, Almost, to hope, but never to expect.

The June moon came which had beheld love's feast, Then waned, like it; the meadow-gra.s.s was flecked With moon-daisies, which died; little she recked Of change in outward things, she did not change; Her heart still knew one star, one hope, it did not range,

Like to the watery hearts of tidal men, Swayed by all moons of beauty; she was firm, When most convinced of misery firmest then.

She held a light not subject to the worm.

The pageant of the summer ran its term, The last stack came to staddle from the wain; The snow fell, the snow thawed, the year began again.

With the wet glistening gold of celandines, And snowdrops pushing from the withered gra.s.s, Before the bud upon the hawthorn greens, Or blackbirds go to building; but, alas!

No spring within her bosom came to pa.s.s.

"You're going like a ghost," her father said; "Now put him out of mind, and be my prudent maid."

It was an April morning brisk with wind, She wandered out along the brook sick-hearted, Picking the daffodils where the water dinned, While overhead the first-come swallow darted.

There, at the place where all the pa.s.sion started, Where love first knocked about her maiden heart, Young Lion Occleve hailed her, calling her apart

To see his tulips at The Roughs, and take A spray of flowering currant; so she went.

It is a bitter moment, when hearts ache, To see the loved unhappy; his intent Was but to try to comfort her; he meant To show her that he knew her heart's despair, And that his own heart bled to see her wretched there.

So, as they talked, he asked her, had she heard From Michael lately? No, she had not; she Had been a great while now, without a word.

"No news is always good news," answered he.

"You know," he said, "how much you mean to me; You've always been the queen. Oh, if I could Do anything to help, my dear, you know I would."

"Nothing," she said, much touched. "But you believe-- You still believe in him?" "Why, yes," he said.

Lie though it was he did not dare deceive The all too cruel faith within the maid.

"That ranching is a wild and lonely trade, Far from all posts; it may be hard to send; All puzzling things like this prove simple in the end.

"We should have heard if he were ill or dead.

Keep a good heart. Now come"; he led the way Beyond the barton to the calving-shed, Where, on a strawy litter topped with hay, A double-pedigree prize bull-calf lay.

"Near three weeks old," he said, "the Wrekin's pet; Come up, now, son, come up; you haven't seen him yet.

"We have done well," he added, "with the stock, But this one, if he lives, will make a name."

The bull-calf gambolled with his tail ac.o.c.k, Then shyly nosed towards them, scared but tame; His troublous eyes were sulky with blue flame.

Softly he tip-toed, shying at a touch; He nosed, his breath came sweet, his pale tongue curled to clutch.

They rubbed his head, and Mary went her way, Counting the dreary time, the dreary beat Of dreary minutes dragging through the day; Time crawled across her life with leaden feet; There still remained a year before her sweet Would come to claim her; surely he would come; Meanwhile there was the year, her weakening father, home.

Home with its deadly round, with all its setting, Things, rooms, and fields and flowers to sting, to burn With memories of the love time past forgetting Ere absence made her very being yearn.

"My love, be quick," she moaned, "return, return; Come when the three years end, oh, my dear soul, It's bitter, wanting you." The lonely nights took toll,

Putting a sadness where the beauty was, Taking a l.u.s.tre from the hair; the days Saw each a sadder image in the gla.s.s.

And when December came, fouling the ways, And ashless beech-logs made a Christmas blaze, Some talk of Michael came; a rumour ran, Someone had called him "wild" to some returning mail,

Who, travelling through that cattle-range, had heard Nothing more sure than this; but this he told At second-hand upon a cowboy's word.

It struck on Mary's heart and turned her cold.

That winter was an age which made her old.

"But soon," she thought, "soon the third year will end; March, April, May, and June, then I shall see my friend.

"He promised he would come; he will not fail.

Oh, Michael, my beloved man, come soon; Stay not to make a home for me, but sail.

Love and the hour will put the world in tune.

You in my life for always is the boon I ask from life--we two, together, lovers."

So leaden time went by who eats things and discovers.

Then, in the winds of March, her father rode, Hunting the Welland country on Black Ned; The tenor cry gave tongue past Clencher's Lode, And on he galloped, giving the nag his head; Then, at the brook, he fell, was picked up dead.

Hounds were whipped off; men muttered with one breath, "We knew that hard-mouthed brute would some day be his death."

They bore his body on a hurdle home; Then came the burial, then the sadder day When the peaked lawyer entered like a gnome, With word to quit and lists of debts to pay.

There was a sale; the Foxholes pa.s.sed away To strangers, who discussed the points of cows, Where love had put such glory on the lovers' brows.

Kind Lion Occleve helped the maid's affairs.

Her sorrow brought him much beside her; he Caused her to settle, having stilled her cares, In the long cottage under Spital Gree.

He had no hope that she would love him; she Still waited for her lover, but her eyes Thanked Lion to the soul; he made the look suffice.

By this the yearling bull-calf had so grown That all men talked of him; mighty he grew, Huge-shouldered, scaled above a hundred stone, With deep chest many-wrinkled with great thew, Plain-loined and playful-eyed; the Occleves knew That he surpa.s.sed his pasture; breeders came From far to see this bull; he brought the Occleves fame.

Till a meat-breeding rancher on the plains Where Michael wasted, sent to buy the beast, Meaning to cross his cows with heavier strains Until his yield of meat and bone increased.

He paid a mighty price; the yearling ceased To be the wonder of the countryside.

He sailed in Lion's charge, south, to the Plate's red tide.

There Lion landed with the bull, and there The great beast raised his head and bellowed loud, Challenging that expanse and that new air; Trembling, but full of wrath and thunder-browed, Far from the daffodil fields and friends, but proud, His wild eye kindled at the great expanse.

Two sc.r.a.ps of Shropshire life they stood there; their advance

Was slow along the well-gra.s.sed cattle land, But at the last an end was made; the brute Ate his last bread crust from his master's hand, And snuffed the foreign herd and stamped his foot; Steers on the swelling ranges gave salute.

The great bull bellowed back and Lion turned; His task was now to find where Michael lived; he learned

The farm's direction, and with heavy mind, Thinking of Mary and her sorrow, rode, Leaving the offspring of his fields behind.

A last time in his ears the great bull lowed.

Then, shaking up his horse, the young man glowed To see the unfenced pampas opening out Gra.s.s that makes old earth sing and all the valleys shout.

At sunset on the second day he came To that white cabin in the peach-tree plot Where Michael lived; they met, the Shropshire name Rang trebly dear in that outlandish spot.

Old memories swam up dear, old joys forgot, Old friends were real again; but Mary's woe Came into Lion's mind, and Michael vexed him so,