Rhymes Of A Rolling Stone Part 16

The Pa.s.sing of the Year

My gla.s.s is filled, my pipe is lit, My den is all a cosy glow; And snug before the fire I sit, And wait to _FEEL_ the old year go.

I dedicate to solemn thought Amid my too-unthinking days, This sober moment, sadly fraught With much of blame, with little praise.

Old Year! upon the Stage of Time You stand to bow your last adieu; A moment, and the prompter's chime Will ring the curtain down on you.

Your mien is sad, your step is slow; You falter as a Sage in pain; Yet turn, Old Year, before you go, And face your audience again.

That sphinx-like face, remote, austere, Let us all read, whate'er the cost: O Maiden! why that bitter tear?

Is it for dear one you have lost?

Is it for fond illusion gone?

For trusted lover proved untrue?

O sweet girl-face, so sad, so wan What hath the Old Year meant to you?

And you, O neighbour on my right So sleek, so prosperously clad!

What see you in that aged wight That makes your smile so gay and glad?

What opportunity unmissed?

What golden gain, what pride of place?

What splendid hope? O Optimist!

What read you in that withered face?

And You, deep shrinking in the gloom, What find you in that filmy gaze?

What menace of a tragic doom?

What dark, condemning yesterdays?

What urge to crime, what evil done?

What cold, confronting shape of fear?

O haggard, haunted, hidden One What see you in the dying year?

And so from face to face I flit, The countless eyes that stare and stare; Some are with approbation lit, And some are shadowed with despair.

Some show a smile and some a frown; Some joy and hope, some pain and woe: Enough! Oh, ring the curtain down!

Old weary year! it's time to go.

My pipe is out, my gla.s.s is dry; My fire is almost ashes too; But once again, before you go, And I prepare to meet the New: Old Year! a parting word that's true, For we've been comrades, you and I -- _I THANK G.o.d FOR EACH DAY OF YOU_; There! bless you now! Old Year, good-bye!

The Ghosts

Smith, great writer of stories, drank; found it immortalised his pen; Fused in his brain-pan, else a blank, heavens of glory now and then; Gave him the magical genius touch; G.o.d-given power to gouge out, fling Flat in your face a soul-thought -- Bing!

Twiddle your heart-strings in his clutch.

"Bah!" said Smith, "let my body lie stripped to the buff in swinish shame, If I can blaze in the radiant sky out of adoring stars my name.

Sober am I nonent.i.tized; drunk am I more than half a G.o.d.

Well, let the flesh be sacrificed; spirit shall speak and shame the clod.

Who would not gladly, gladly give Life to do one thing that will live?"

Smith had a friend, we'll call him Brown; dearer than brothers were those two.

When in the wa.s.sail Smith would drown, Brown would rescue and pull him through.

When Brown was needful Smith would lend; so it fell as the years went by, Each on the other would depend: then at the last Smith came to die.

There Brown sat in the sick man's room, still as a stone in his despair; Smith bent on him his eyes of doom, shook back his lion mane of hair; Said: "Is there one in my chosen line, writer of forthright tales my peer?

Look in that little desk of mine; there is a package, bring it here.

Story of stories, gem of all; essence and triumph, key and clue; Tale of a loving woman's fall; soul swept h.e.l.l-ward, and G.o.d! it's true.

I was the man -- Oh, yes, I've paid, paid with mighty and mordant pain.

Look! here's the masterpiece I've made out of my sin, my manhood slain.

Art supreme! yet the world would stare, know my mistress and blaze my shame.

I have a wife and daughter -- there! take it and thrust it in the flame."

Brown answered: "Master, you have dipped pen in your heart, your phrases sear.

Ruthless, unflinching, you have stripped naked your soul and set it here.

Have I not loved you well and true? See! between us the shadows drift; This bit of blood and tears means You -- oh, let me have it, a parting gift.

Sacred I'll hold it, a trust divine; sacred your honour, her dark despair; Never shall it see printed line: here, by the living G.o.d I swear."

Brown on a Bible laid his hand; Smith, great writer of stories, sighed: "Comrade, I trust you, and understand. Keep my secret!" And so he died.

Smith was buried -- up soared his sales; lured you his books in every store; Exquisite, whimsy, heart-wrung tales; men devoured them and craved for more.

So when it slyly got about Brown had a posthumous ma.n.u.script, Jones, the publisher, sought him out, into his pocket deep he dipped.

"A thousand dollars?" Brown shook his head.

"The story is not for sale," he said.

Jones went away, then others came. Tempted and taunted, Brown was true.

Guarded at friends.h.i.+p's shrine the fame of the unpublished story grew and grew.

It's a long, long lane that has no end, but some lanes end in the Potter's field; Smith to Brown had been more than friend: patron, protector, spur and s.h.i.+eld.

Poor, loving-wistful, dreamy Brown, long and lean, with a smile askew, Friendless he wandered up and down, gaunt as a wolf, as hungry too.

Brown with his lilt of saucy rhyme, Brown with his tilt of tender mirth Garretless in the gloom and grime, singing his glad, mad songs of earth: So at last with a faith divine, down and down to the Hunger-line.

There as he stood in a woeful plight, tears a-freeze on his sharp cheek-bones, Who should chance to behold his plight, but the publisher, the plethoric Jones; Peered at him for a little while, held out a bill: "_NOW_, will you sell?"

Brown scanned it with his twisted smile: "A thousand dollars! you go to h.e.l.l!"

Brown enrolled in the homeless host, sleeping anywhere, anywhen; Suffered, strove, became a ghost, slave of the lamp for other men; For What's-his-name and So-and-so in the abyss his soul he stripped, Yet in his want, his worst of woe, held he fast to the ma.n.u.script.

Then one day as he chewed his pen, half in hunger and half despair, Creaked the door of his garret den; d.i.c.k, his brother, was standing there.

Down on the pallet bed he sank, ashen his face, his voice a wail: "Save me, brother! I've robbed the bank; to-morrow it's ruin, capture, gaol.

Yet there's a chance: I could to-day pay back the money, save our name; You have a ma.n.u.script, they say, worth a thousand -- think, man! the shame. . . ."

Brown with his heart pain-pierced the while, with his stern, starved face, and his lips stone-pale, Shuddered and smiled his twisted smile: "Brother, I guess you go to gaol."

While poor Brown in the leer of dawn wrestled with G.o.d for the sacred fire, Came there a woman weak and wan, out of the mob, the murk, the mire; Frail as a reed, a fellow ghost, weary with woe, with sorrowing; Two pale souls in the legion lost; lo! Love bent with a tender wing, Taught them a joy so deep, so true, it seemed that the whole-world fabric shook, Thrilled and dissolved in radiant dew; then Brown made him a golden book, Full of the faith that Life is good, that the earth is a dream divinely fair, Lauding his gem of womanhood in many a lyric rich and rare; Took it to Jones, who shook his head: "I will consider it," he said.

While he considered, Brown's wife lay clutched in the tentacles of pain; Then came the doctor, grave and grey; spoke of decline, of nervous strain; Hinted Egypt, the South of France -- Brown with terror was tiger-gripped.

Where was the money? What the chance? Pitiful G.o.d! . . . the ma.n.u.script!

A thousand dollars! his only hope!

he gazed and gazed at the garret wall. . . .

Reached at last for the envelope, turned to his wife and told her all.

Told of his friend, his promise true; told like his very heart would break: "Oh, my dearest! what shall I do? shall I not sell it for your sake?"