The new prize and the old prize, when I reach
Another year's experience? -own that each
Equaled
advantage-sportsman's-statesman's tool? That brought me down an eagle, this—a fool!" Into which room on entry, I set down
The lamp, and turning saw whose rustled gown
Had told me my wife followed, pace for pace.
Each of us looked the other in the face.
Why that first struck me, know-not once again
Since the adventure at the porphyry's edge
Three years before, which sundered like a wedge
Her soul from mine,--though daily, smile to smile,
We stood before the public,-all the while
Not once had I distinguished in that face
I paid observance to, the faintest trace
Of feature more than requisite for eyes
To do their duty by and recognize :
So did I force mine to obey my will
And pry no farther. There exists such skill,-
Those know who need it. What physician shrinks
From needful contact with a corpse. He drinks
No plague so long as thirst for knowledge,—not
An idler impulse,--prompts inquiry. What,
And will you disbelieve in power to bid
Our spirit back to bounds as though we chid
A child from scrutiny that's just and right
In manhood? Sense, not soul, accomplished sight,
Reported daily she it was-not how
Nor why a change had come to cheek and brow.)
"Since I could die now of the truth concealed,
Yet dare not, must not die,—so seems revealed
The Virgin's mind to me,--for death means peace,
Wherein no lawful part have I, whose lease
Of life and punishment the truth avowed
May haply lengthen,--let me push the shroud,
Away, that steals to muffle ere is just
My penance-fire in snow! I dare—I must
Live by avowal of the truth--this truth-
I loved you. Thanks for the fresh serpent's tooth
That, by a prompt new pang more exquisite
Than all preceding torture, proves me right!
I loved you yet I lost you! May I go
Burn to the ashes, now my shame you know?”
THOSE ARMS OF EASTERN
WORKMANSHIP.
I think there never was such-how
Horror coquetting with voluptuous
As in those arms of Eastern workmanship
Yataghan, kandjar, things that rend and rip,
Gash rough, slash smooth, help hate
so many ways,
Yet ever keep a beauty that betrays
Love still at work with the artificer
Throughout his quaint devising. Why
prefer,
Except for love's sake, that a blade
should writhe
And bicker like a flame?-now play the scythe
As if some broad neck tempted,—now
And needle off into a fineness lacked For just that puncture which the heart demands?
Then, such adornment! Wherefore need our hands
Inclose not ivory alone, nor gold
Roughened for use, but jewels? Nay,
behold!
Fancy my favorite--which I seem to grasp
While I describe the luxury. No asp
Is diapered more delicate round throat
Than this below the handle! These denote
--These mazy lines meandering, to end
Only in flesh they open--what intend
They else but water-purlings-pale contrast
With the life-crimson where they blend at last?
And mark the handle's dim, pellucid green,
Carved, the hard jadestone, as you pinch a bean,
Into a sort of parrot-bird! He pecks
A grape-bunch; his two eyes are ruby-specks
Pure from the mine: seem this way,-glassy blank,
But turn them,-lo the inmost fire, that shrank
From sparkling, sends a red dart right to aim !
Why did I choose such toys? Perhaps the game
Of peaceful men is warlike, just as men
War-wearied get amusement from that pen
And paper we grow sick of-statesfolk tired
Of merely (when such measures are required)
Dealing out doom to people by three words,
1 signature and seal: we play with swords
Suggestive of quick process. That is how
I came to like the toys described you now,*
Store of which glittered on the walls and strewed
The table, even, while my wife pursued
Her purpose to its ending. "Now you know
This shame, my three years' torture, let me go,——
Burn to the very ashes! You—I lost,
In men is-action prompted by surprise
Of anger: men? nay, bulls-whose onset lies
At instance of the firework and the goad!
Once the foe prostrate,-trampling once bestowed,—
Prompt follows placability, regret,
Atonement. Trust me, blood-warmth never yet
Betokened strong will! As no leap of pulse
Pricked me, that first time, so did none convulse
My veins at this occasion for resolve.
Had that devolved which did not then devolve
Upon me, I had done-what now to do
The man was, crouching by the porphyry vase!”
"No, never! All was folly in his case,
All guilt in mine. I tempted, he complied."
“And yet you loved me?”
"Loved you. Double-dyed
In folly and in guilt, I thought you gave
Your heart and soul away from me to slave
At statecraft. Since my right in you seemed lost,
I stung myself to teach you, to your cost,
What you rejected could be prized beyond
Life, heaven, by the first fool I threw a fond
Look on, a fatal word to."
Love me? Do I conjecture well, or ill?”
Conjecture-well, or ill! I had three years To spend in learning you."
In knowledge, therefore since three years are spent Ere thus much of yourself I learn--who went
Back to the house, that day, and brought my mind
To bear upon your action: uncombined
Motive from motive, till the dross, deprived
Of every purer particle, survived
At last in native simple hideousness,
Utter contemptibility, nor less
Nor more. Contemptibility--exempt
How could I, from its proper due-contempt ?
I have too much despised you to divert
My life from its set course by help or hurt
Of your all-despicable life-perturb
The calm I work in, by-men's mouths to curb,
Which at such news were clamorous enough-
Men's eyes to shut before my broidered stuff
With the huge hole there, my emblazoned wall
Blank where a scutcheon hung,-by, worse than all,
Each day's procession, my paraded life
Robbed and impoverished through the wanting wife
--Now that my life (which means-my work) was grown
Riches indeed! Once, just this worth alone
Seemed work to have, that profit gained thereby
Of good and praise would--how rewardingly!-
Fall at your feet-a crown I hoped to cast
Before your love, my love should crown at last.
No love remaining to cast crown before,
My love stopped work now : but contempt the more
Impelled me task as ever head and hand,
Because the very fiends weave ropes of sand
Rather than taste pure hell in idleness.
Therefore I kept my memory down by stress
Of daily work I had no mind to stay
For the world's wonder at the wife away.
Oh, it was easy all of it, believe,
For I despised you! But your words retrieve
Importantly the past. No hate assumed
The mask of love at any time! There gloomed
A moment when love took hate's semblance, urged
By causes you declare; but love's self purged
Away a fancied wrong I did both loves
--Yours and my own: by no hate's help, it proves,
Purgation was attempted. Then, you rise
High by how many a grade! I did despise--
I do but hate you. Let hate's punishment
Replace contempt's! First step to which ascent-
Write down your own words I reutter you!
'I loved my husband and I hated-who
He was, I took up as my first chance, mere
Mud-ball to fling and make love foul with!' Here Lies paper!
It may this minion from a land of spice, Silk, feather-every bird of jeweled breastThis poniard's beauty, ne'er so lightly prest Above your heart there.".
Dip there the point and write!"
"Thus ?"
It flows, I see.
And she wrote the words. I read them. Then-“ Since love, in you, affords License for hate, in me, to quench (I say) Contempt why, hate itself has passed away In vengeance-foreign to contempt. Depart Peacefully to that death which Eastern art Imbued this weapon with, if tales be true! Love will succeed to hate. I pardon youDead in our chamber!"
True as truth the tale. She died ere morning; then, I saw how pale Her cheek was ere it wore day's paint-disguise, And what a hollow darkened 'neath her eyes, Now that I used my own. She sleeps as erst Beloved, in this your church; ay, yours!
In thought so deeply, Father? Sad, perhaps?
For whose sake, hers or mine or his who wraps
-Still plain I seem to see!-about his head
The idle cloak,—about his heart (instead
Of cuirass) some fond hope he may elude
My vengeance in the cloister's solitude?
Hardly, I think! As little helped his brow
The cloak then, Father-as your grate helps now!
Ogni cencio vuol entrare in bucato.-ITALIAN PROVERB.
MAY I print, Shelley, how it came to pass
That when your Beatrice seemed-by lapse
Of many a long month since her sentence fell—
|