From out of the throng; and while I drew near He told the crone-as I since have reckoned By the way he bent and spoke into her ear With circumspection and mystery— The main of the lady's history,
Her frowardness and ingratitude;
And for all the crone's submissive attitude
I could see round her mouth the loose plaits tightening, And her brow with assenting intelligence brightening, As though she engaged with hearty good will Whatever he now might enjoin to fulfill,
And promised the lady a thorough frightening. And so, just giving her a glimpse
Of a purse, with the air of a man who imps
The wing of the hawk that shall fetch the hernshaw, He bade me take the gypsy mother
And set her telling some story or other
Of hill or dale, oak-wood or fernshaw,
To while away a weary hour
For the lady left alone in her bower, Whose mind and body craved exertion And yet shrank from all better diversion.
Then clapping heel to his horse, the mere curveter, Out rode the Duke, and after his hollo
Horses and hounds swept, huntsman and servitor, And back I turned and bade the crone follow.
And what makes me confident what's to be told you Had all along been of this crone's devising, Is, that, on looking round sharply, behold you,
There was a novelty quick as surprising: For first, she had shot up a full head in stature, And her step kept pace with mine nor faltered, As if age had foregone its usurpature,
And the ignoble mien was wholly altered, And the face looked quite of another nature,
And the change reached too, whatever the change
Her shaggy wolf-skin cloak's arrangement:
For where its tatters hung loose like sedges, Gold coins were glittering on the edges,
Like the band-roll strung with tomans
Which proves the veil a Persian woman's:
And under her brow, like a snail's horns newly Come out as after the rain he paces,
Two unmistakable eye-points duly
Live and aware looked out of their places. So, we went and found Jacynth at the entry Of the lady's chamber standing sentry ;
I told the command and produced my companion, And Jacynth rejoiced to admit any one, For since last night, by the same token, Not a single word had the lady spoken: They went in both to the presence together, While I in the balcony watched the weather.
And now, what took place at the very first of all, I cannot tell, as I never could learn it :
Jacynth constantly wished a curse to fall On that little head of hers and burn it
If she knew how she came to drop so soundly Asleep of a sudden, and there continue The whole time, sleeping as profoundly As one of the boars my father would pin you 'Twixt the eyes where life holds garrison, -Jacynth forgive me the comparison ! But where I begin my own narration Is a little after I took my station
To breathe the fresh air from the balcony, And, having in those days a falcon eye, To follow the hunt through the open country, From where the bushes thinlier crested The hillocks, to a plain where's not one tree. When, in a moment, my ear was arrested By-was it singing, or was it saying, Or a strange musical instrument playing In the chamber?—and to be certain I pushed the lattice, pulled the curtain, And there lay Jacynth asleep,
Yet as if a watch she tried to keep, In a rosy sleep along the floor With her head against the door;
While in the midst, on the seat of state,
Was a queen-the gypsy woman late, With head and face downbent
On the lady's head and face intent :
For, coiled at her feet like a child at ease,
The lady sat between her knees,
And o'er them the lady's clasped hands met,
And on those hands her chin was set,
And her upturned face met the face of the crone Wherein the eyes had grown and grown
AND HER UPTURNED FACE MET THE FACE OF THE CRONE.
As if she could double and quadruple At pleasure the play of either pupil -Very like, by her hands' slow fanning, As up and down like a gor-crow's flappers They moved to measure, or bell-clappers. I said, "Is it blessing, is it banning, Do they applaud you or burlesque you- Those hands and fingers with no flesh on?" But, just as I thought to spring in to the rescue, At once I was stopped by the lady's expression: For it was life her eyes were drinking From the crone's wide pair above unwinking, -Life's pure fire, received without shrinking, Into the heart and breast whose heaving Told you no single drop they were leaving, -Life, that filling her, passed redundant Into her very hair, back swerving
Over each shoulder, loose and abundant,
As her head thrown back showed the white throat curv
And the very tresses shared in the pleasure,
Moving to the mystic measure,
Bounding as the bosom bounded.
I stopped short, more and more confounded, As still her cheeks burned and eyes glistened, As she listened and she listened:
When all at once a hand detained me, The selfsame contagion gained me, And I kept time to the wondrous chime, Making out words and prose and rhyme, Till it seemed that the music furled Its wings like a task fulfilled, and dropped From under the words it first had propped, And left them midway in the world, Word took word as hand takes hand, I could hear at last, and understand. And when I held the unbroken thread, The gypsy said,—
"And so at last we find my tribe. And so I set thee in the midst, And to one and all of them describe What thou saidst and what thou didst, Our long and terrible journey through, And all thou art ready to say and do In the trials that remain :
I trace them the vein and the other vein
That meet on thy brow and part again, Making our rapid mystic mark;
And I bid my people prove and probe Each eye's profound and glorious globe, Till they detect the kindred spark In those depths so dear and dark,
Like the spots that snap and burst and flee, Circling over the midnight sea.
And on that round young cheek of thine I make them recognize the tinge, As when of the costly scarlet wine They drip so much as will impinge And spread in a thinnest scale afloat One thick gold drop from the olive's coat Over a silver plate whose sheen Still through the mixture shall be seen. For so I prove thee, to one and all, Fit, when my people ope their breast, To see the sign, and hear the call, And take the vow, and stand the test Which adds one more child to the rest-
When the breast is bare and the arms are wide,
And the world is left outside.
For there is probation to decree,
And many and long must the trials be
Thou shalt victoriously endure,
If that brow is true and those eyes are sure;
Like a jewel-finder's fierce assay
Of the prize he dug from its mountain tomb,— Let once the vindicating ray
Leap out amid the anxious gloom,
And steel and fire have done their part,
And the prize falls on its finder's heart;
So, trial after trial past,
Wilt thou fall at the very last
Breathless, half in trance
With the thrill of the great deliverance,
Into our arms for evermore;
And thou shalt know, those arms once curled
About thee, what we knew before,
How love is the only good in the world.
Henceforth be loved as heart can love
Or brain devise, or hand approve!
Stand up, look below,
It is our life at thy feet we throw To step with into light and joy; Not a power of life but we employ
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