Three Women Part 12

_L'Envoi._

Fate, have pity upon my plight, And the heart of my lady to mercy move.

For the saddest words that youth can write Are, "This is a night that is lost to love."

XIII.

As the waves of the outgoing sea Leave the rocks and the drift wood bare, When your thoughts are for others than me, My heart is the strand of despair-- Beloved, Where bleak suns glare, And Joy, like a desolate mourner, gropes In the wrecks of broken hopes.

As the incoming waves of the sea, The rocks and the sandbar hide, When your thoughts flow back to me, My heart leaps up on the tide-- Beloved, Where my glad hopes ride With joy at the wheel, and the sun above In a glorious sky of love.

XIV.

There was a bard all in the olden time, When bards were men to whom the world gave ear, And song an art the great G.o.ds deemed sublime, Who sought to make his willful lady hear By weaving strange new melodies of rhyme, Which voiced his love, his sorrow, and his fear.

Sweetheart, my soul is heavy now with fear, Lest thou shalt frown upon me for all time.

Ah! would that I had skill to weave a rhyme Worthy to win the favor of thine ear.

Tho' all the world were deaf, if thou didst hear And smile, my song would seem to me sublime.

But ah! too vast, too awful and sublime, Is my great pa.s.sion, born of grief and fear, To clothe in verse. Why, if the world could hear And understand my love, then for all time, So long as there was sound or listening ear, All s.p.a.ce would ring and echo with my rhyme.

Such pa.s.sion seems belittled by a rhyme-- It needs the voice of nature. The sublime, Loud thunder crash, that hurts the startled ear, And stirs the heart with awe, akin to fear, The weird, wild winds of equinoctial time; These voices tell my love, wouldst thou but hear.

And listening at the flood tides, thou might'st hear The love I bear thee surging through the rhyme Of breaking billows, many a moon full time.

Why, I have heard thee call the sea sublime, When every wave but voiced the anguished fear Of my man's heart to thy unconscious ear.

Vain, then, the hope that thou wilt lend thine ear To any song of mine, or deign to hear My lays of longing or my strains of fear.

Vain is the hope to weave for thee a rhyme, Or sweet or sad, or subtle or sublime, Which wins thy gracious favor for all time.

Oh, cruel time! my lady will not hear, Though in her ear love sings a song sublime, And my sad rhyme ends, like my love, in fear.

_Bright like the comforting blaze on the hearth, Sweet like the blooms on the young apple tree, Fragrant with promise of fruit yet to be Are the home-keeping maidens of earth._

_Better and greater than talent is worth, And where is the glory of brush or of pen Like the glory of mothers and molders of men-- The home-keeping women of earth?_

_Crowned since the great solar system had birth, They reign unsurpa.s.sed in their beautiful sphere.

They are queens who can look in G.o.d's face without fear-- The home-keeping women of earth._

X.

A man whose mere name was submerged in the sea Of letters which followed it, B. A., M. D., And Minerva knows what else, held forth at Bellevue On what he believed some discovery new In medical Science (though, mayhap, a truth That was old in Confucius' earliest youth), And a bevy of bright women students sat near, Absorbing his wisdom with eye and with ear.

Close by, lay the corpse of a man, half in view.

Dear shades of our dead and gone grandmamas! you Whose modesty hung out red flags on each cheek, Danger signals--if some luckless boor chanced to speak The words "leg" or "liver" before you, I think Your gray ashes, even, would deepen to pink Should your ghost happen into a clinic or college Where your granddaughters congregate seeking for knowledge.

Forced to listen to what they are eager to hear, No doubt you would fancy the world out of gear, And deem modesty dead, with last century belles.

Honored ghosts, you, would err! for true modesty dwells In the same breast with knowledge, and takes no offense.

Truth never harmed anything yet but pretense.

There are fas.h.i.+ons in modesty; what in your time Had been deemed little less than an absolute crime In matters of dress, or behavior, to-day Is the custom. And however daring you may Deem our manners and modes, yet, were facts fully known, _Our morals compare very well with your own._

The women composing the cla.s.s at Bellevue Were young--under thirty; some pleasing to view, Some plain. Roman features prevailed, with brown hair, But one was so feminine, soft eyed and fair That she seemed out of place in a clinic, as though A rose in a vegetable garden should grow.

While her face was intelligent, none would avow That cold intellect dwelt on that fair oval brow, Or looked out of the depths of those golden gray eyes, The color of smoke against clear, sunny skies.

'Twas a warm woman face, made for fireside nooks, Not a face to be bent over medical books.

There was nothing aggressive in features or form; She was meant for still harbors, and not for the storm And the strife of rude waters. The swell of her breast Suggested love's sweet downy cus.h.i.+on of rest For the cheeks of fair children. Her plump little hands, Seemed fas.h.i.+oned for sewing small gussets and bands And fussing with laces and ribbons, instead Of cutting cold flesh and dissecting the dead.

And yet, as a student she ranked with the first.

But conscience, in labor once chosen, not thirst For such knowledge, had spurred her to action. This day She seemed inattentive, her air was distrait, As if thought had slipped free of the bridle and rein And galloped away over memory's plain.

It was true; it was strange, too, but there in the cla.s.s, While the learned man was talking, her mind seemed to pa.s.s Out, away from the clinic, away from the town, To a New England midsummer garden close down By the salt water's edge; and she felt the wind blowing Among her loose locks as she leaned o'er her sewing, While the voice of a man stirred her heart into song.

She was called from her dream by the clang of the gong Which foretells an arrival at Bellevue. The cla.s.s Was dismissed for the day. In the hall, forced to pa.s.s By the stretcher (low brougham of misery), she Whom we know was Ruth Somerville, looked down to see The white, haggard face of the man whom her mind Had strayed off in a waking day vision to find But a moment before.

The wild, pa.s.sionate cry Which arose in her heart, was held back, nor pa.s.sed by The white sentinels set on her lip. The serene, Lofty look which deep feeling controlled gives the mien Marked her air as she turned to the surgeon and said: "This man lying here, either dying or dead, Was a cla.s.smate, at Yale, of my brother's; my friend Is his wife. Let me stay by his side to the end, If the end has not come."

It was Roger Montrose, Grown old with his sins and grown gaunt with his woes, Lying low in his manhood before her.

His eyes Opened slowly; a wondering look of surprise Met the soft orbs above him. "Ruth--Ruth Somerville,"

He said feebly. "Tell Mabel"--then sighed, and was still.

But it was not the stillness of death. There was life In that turbulent heart yet; that heart torn with strife, Scarred with pa.s.sion, and wracked by the pangs of remorse.

"Death's swift leaden messenger missed in its course By the breadth of a hair," said the surgeon. "The ball Lies in there by the shoulder. His chances are small For a new start on earth. While a sober man might Hope to conquer grim Death in this hand-to-hand fight, Here old Alcohol stands as Death's second, fierce, cruel, And stronger than Life's one aid, skill, in the duel.

You tell me the wife of this man is your friend?

He was shot by a woman, who then made an end Of her own life. I hope it was not----" "Oh, no--no, Not his wife," Ruth replied, "for he left her to go With this other, his victim--poor creature--they say She was good till she met him. Ah! what a black way For love's rose scented path to lead down to, and end.

G.o.d pity her, pity her." "Her, not your friend?

Not his wife?"

There was gentle reproof in the tone Of the staid old physician. Ruth's eyes met his own In brave, silent warfare; the blue and the gray Again faced each other in battle array.

_Ruth:_

I pity the woman who suffered. His wife Goes her way well contented. Love was in her life But an incident; while to this other, dear G.o.d, It was all; on what sharp, burning ploughshares she trod, Down what chasms she leaped, how she tossed the whole world, Like a dead rose, behind her, to lie and be whirled In the maelstrom of love for one moment. Ah, brief Is the rapture such souls find, and long is their grief, Black their sin, blurred their record, and scarlet their shame.

And yet when I think of them, sorrow, not blame, Stirs my being. Blind pa.s.sion is only the weed Of fair, beautiful love. Both are sprung from one seed; One grows wild, one is trained and directed. Condemn The hand that neglected--but ah! pity _them_.

_Surgeon:_

You speak with much feeling. But now, if the friends Of this man are to see him before his life ends I recommend action on your part. His stay On this planet, I fear, will be finished to-day.

A man who neglects and abuses his wife, Who gives her at best but the dregs of his life, In the hey day of health, when he's drained his last cup Has a fas.h.i.+on of wanting to settle things up.

Craves forgiveness, and hopes with a few final tears To wash out the sins and the insults of years.

Call your friend; bid her hasten, lest lips that are dumb, Having wasted life's feast, shall refuse her death's crumb.

_Ruth:_