The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton Volume 2 Part 24

"There is nothing to forgive--"

"Then will you shake hands for good-by?" She felt his hand in hers: it was nerveless, reluctant.

"Good-by," she repeated. "I understand now."

She opened the door and pa.s.sed out into the hall. As she did so, Arment took an impulsive step forward; but just then the footman, who was evidently alive to his obligations, advanced from the background to let her out. She heard Arment fall back. The footman threw open the door, and she found herself outside in the darkness.

The End of The Reckoning

VERSE

BOTTICELLI'S MADONNA IN THE LOUVRE.

WHAT strange presentiment, O Mother, lies On thy waste brow and sadly-folded lips, Forefeeling the Light's terrible eclipse On Calvary, as if love made thee wise, And thou couldst read in those dear infant eyes The sorrow that beneath their smiling sleeps, And guess what bitter tears a mother weeps When the cross darkens her unclouded skies?

Sad Lady, if some mother, pa.s.sing thee, Should feel a throb of thy foreboding pain, And think--"My child at home clings so to me, With the same smile... and yet in vain, in vain, Since even this Jesus died on Calvary"-- Say to her then: "He also rose again."

THE TOMB OF ILARIA GIUNIGI.

ILARIA, thou that wert so fair and dear That death would fain disown thee, grief made wise With prophecy thy husband's widowed eyes And bade him call the master's art to rear Thy perfect image on the sculptured bier, With dreaming lids, hands laid in peaceful guise Beneath the breast that seems to fall and rise, And lips that at love's call should answer, "Here!"

First-born of the Renascence, when thy soul Cast the sweet robing of the flesh aside, Into these lovelier marble limbs it stole, Regenerate in art's sunrise clear and wide As saints who, having kept faith's raiment whole, Change it above for garments glorified.

THE SONNET.

PURE form, that like some chalice of old time Contain'st the liquid of the poet's thought Within thy curving hollow, gem-enwrought With interwoven traceries of rhyme, While o'er thy brim the bubbling fancies climb, What thing am I, that undismayed have sought To pour my verse with trembling hand untaught Into a shape so small yet so sublime?

Because perfection haunts the hearts of men, Because thy sacred chalice gathered up The wine of Petrarch, Shakspere, Sh.e.l.ley--then Receive these tears of failure as they drop (Sole vintage of my life), since I am fain To pour them in a consecrated cup.

TWO BACKGROUNDS.

I. LA VIERGE AU DONATEUR.

HERE by the ample river's argent sweep, Bosomed in tilth and vintage to her walls, A tower-crowned Cybele in armored sleep The city lies, fat plenty in her halls, With calm, parochial spires that hold in fee The friendly gables cl.u.s.tered at their base, And, equipoised o'er tower and market-place, The Gothic minster's winged immensity; And in that narrow burgh, with equal mood, Two placid hearts, to all life's good resigned, Might, from the altar to the lych-gate, find Long years of peace and dreamless plenitude.

II. MONA LISA.

Yon strange blue city crowns a scarped steep No mortal foot hath bloodlessly essayed; Dreams and illusions beacon from its keep, But at the gate an Angel bares his blade; And tales are told of those who thought to gain At dawn its ramparts; but when evening fell Far off they saw each fading pinnacle Lit with wild lightnings from the heaven of pain; Yet there two souls, whom life's perversities Had mocked with want in plenty, tears in mirth, Might meet in dreams, ungarmented of earth, And drain Joy's awful chalice to the lees.

EXPERIENCE.

I.

LIKE Crusoe with the bootless gold we stand Upon the desert verge of death, and say: "What shall avail the woes of yesterday To buy to-morrow's wisdom, in the land Whose currency is strange unto our hand?

In life's small market they have served to pay Some late-found rapture, could we but delay Till Time hath matched our means to our demand."

But otherwise Fate wills it, for, behold, Our gathered strength of individual pain, When Time's long alchemy hath made it gold, Dies with us--h.o.a.rded all these years in vain, Since those that might be heir to it the mould Renew, and coin themselves new griefs again.

II.

O, Death, we come full-handed to thy gate, Rich with strange burden of the mingled years, Gains and renunciations, mirth and tears, And love's oblivion, and remembering hate, Nor know we what compulsion laid such freight Upon our souls--and shall our hopes and fears Buy nothing of thee, Death? Behold our wares, And sell us the one joy for which we wait.

Had we lived longer, life had such for sale, With the last coin of sorrow purchased cheap, But now we stand before thy shadowy pale, And all our longings lie within thy keep-- Death, can it be the years shall naught avail?

"Not so," Death answered, "they shall purchase sleep."

CHARTRES.

I.

IMMENSE, august, like some t.i.tanic bloom, The mighty choir unfolds its lithic core, Petalled with panes of azure, gules and or, Splendidly lambent in the Gothic gloom, And stamened with keen flamelets that illume The pale high-altar. On the prayer-worn floor, By surging worshippers thick-thronged of yore, A few brown crones, familiars of the tomb, The stranded driftwood of Faith's ebbing sea-- For these alone the finials fret the skies, The topmost bosses shake their blossoms free, While from the triple portals, with grave eyes, Tranquil, and fixed upon eternity, The cloud of witnesses still testifies.

II.

The crimson panes like blood-drops stigmatize The western floor. The aisles are mute and cold.

A rigid fetich in her robe of gold The Virgin of the Pillar, with blank eyes, Enthroned beneath her votive canopies, Gathers a meagre remnant to her fold.

The rest is solitude; the church, grown old, Stands stark and gray beneath the burning skies.

Wellnigh again its mighty frame-work grows To be a part of nature's self, withdrawn From hot humanity's impatient woes; The floor is ridged like some rude mountain lawn, And in the east one giant window shows The roseate coldness of an Alp at dawn.