University of Virginia Library

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 thro' 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 Gipsy 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
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 curving;
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 Gipsy 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 thro' 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
“To satisfy thy nature's want;
“Art thou the tree that props the plant,
“Or the climbing plant that seeks the tree—
“Canst thou help us, must we help thee?
“If any two creatures grew into one,
“They would do more than the world has done
“Though each apart were never so weak,
“Ye vainly through the world should seek
“For the knowledge and the might
“Which in such union grew their right:
“So, to approach at least that end,
“And blend,—as much as may be, blend
“Thee with us or us with thee,—
“As climbing plant or propping tree,
“Shall some one deck thee, over and down
“Up and about, with blossoms and leaves?
“Fix his heart's fruit for thy garland-crown,
“Cling with his soul as the gourd-vine cleaves,
“Die on thy boughs and disappear
“While not a leaf of thine is sere?
“Or is the other fate in store,
“And art thou fitted to adore,
“To give thy wondrous self away,
“And take a stronger nature's sway?
“I foresee and could foretell
“Thy future portion, sure and well:
“But those passionate eyes speak true, speak true,
“Let them say what thou shalt do!
“Only be sure thy daily life,
“In its peace or in its strife,
“Never shall be unobserved;
“We pursue thy whole career,
“And hope for it, or doubt, or fear,—
“Lo, hast thou kept thy path or swerved,
“We are beside thee in all thy ways,
“With our blame, with our praise,
“Our shame to feel, our pride to show,
“Glad, angry—but indifferent, no!
“Whether it be thy lot to go,
“For the good of us all, where the haters meet
“In the crowded city's horrible street;
“Or thou step alone through the morass
“Where never sound yet was
“Save the dry quick clap of the stork's bill,
“For the air is still, and the water still,
“When the blue breast of the dipping coot
“Dives under, and all is mute.
“So, at the last shall come old age,
“Decrepit as befits that stage;
“How else wouldst thou retire apart
“With the hoarded memories of thy heart,
“And gather all to the very least
“Of the fragments of life's earlier feast,
“Let fall through eagerness to find
“The crowning dainties yet behind?
“Ponder on the entire past
“Laid together thus at last,
“When the twilight helps to fuse
“The first fresh with the faded hues,
“And the outline of the whole,
“As round eve's shades their framework roll,
“Grandly fronts for once thy soul.
“And then as, 'mid the dark, a gleam
“Of yet another morning breaks,
“And like the hand which ends a dream,
“Death, with the might of his sunbeam,
“Touches the flesh and the soul awakes,
“Then—”

Ay, then indeed something would happen!
But what? For here her voice changed like a bird's;
There grew more of the music and less of the words;
Had Jacynth only been by me to clap pen
To paper and put you down every syllable
With those clever clerkly fingers,
All I've forgotten as well as what lingers
In this old brain of mine that's but ill able
To give you even this poor version
Of the speech I spoil, as it were, with stammering
—More fault of those who had the hammering
Of prosody into me and syntax,
And did it, not with hobnails but tintacks!
But to return from this excursion,—
Just, do you mark, when the song was sweetest,
The peace most deep and the charm completest,
There came, shall I say, a snap—
And the charm vanished!
And my sense returned, so strangely banished,
And, starting as from a nap,
I knew the crone was bewitching my lady,
With Jacynth asleep; and but one spring made I
Down from the casement, round to the portal,
Another minute and I had entered,—
When the door opened, and more than mortal
Stood, with a face where to my mind centred
All beauties I ever saw or shall see,
The Duchess: I stopped as if struck by palsy.
She was so different, happy and beautiful,
I felt at once that all was best,
And that I had nothing to do, for the rest,
But wait her commands, obey and be dutiful.
Not that, in fact, there was any commanding;
I saw the glory of her eye,
And the brow's height and the breast's expanding,
And I was hers to live or to die.
As for finding what she wanted,
You know God Almighty granted
Such little signs should serve wild creatures
To tell one another all their desires,
So that each knows what his friend requires,
And does its bidding without teachers.
I preceded her; the crone
Followed silent and alone;
I spoke to her, but she merely jabbered
In the old style; both her eyes had slunk
Back to their pits; her stature shrunk;
In short, the soul in its body sunk
Like a blade sent home to its scabbard.
We descended, I preceding;
Crossed the court with nobody heeding;
All the world was at the chase,
The courtyard like a desert place,
The stable emptied of its small fry;
I saddled myself the very palfrey
I remember patting while it carried her,
The day she arrived and the Duke married her.
And, do you know, though it's easy deceiving
Oneself in such matters, I can't help believing
The lady had not forgotten it either,
And knew the poor devil so much beneath her
Would have been only too glad for her service
To dance on hot ploughshares like a Turk dervise,
But, unable to pay proper duty where owing it,
Was reduced to that pitiful method of showing it:
For though the moment I began setting
His saddle on my own nag of Berold's begetting,
(Not that I meant to be obtrusive)
She stopped me, while his rug was shifting,
By a single rapid finger's lifting,
And, with a gesture kind but conclusive,
And a little shake of the head, refused me,—
I say, although she never used me,
Yet when she was mounted, the Gipsy behind her,
And I ventured to remind her,
I suppose with a voice of less steadiness
Than usual, for my feeling exceeded me,
—Something to the effect that I was in readiness
Whenever God should please she needed me,—
Then, do you know, her face looked down on me
With a look that placed a crown on me,
And she felt in her bosom,—mark, her bosom—
And, as a flower-tree drops its blossom,
Dropped me . . . ah, had it been a purse
Of silver, my friend, or gold that's worse,
Why, you see, as soon as I found myself
So understood,—that a true heart so may gain
Such a reward,—I should have gone home again,
Kissed Jacynth, and soberly drowned myself!
It was a little plait of hair
Such as friends in a convent make
To wear, each for the other's sake,—
This, see, which at my breast I wear,
Ever did (rather to Jacynth's grudgment),
And ever shall, till the Day of Judgment.
And then,—and then,—to cut short,—this is idle,
These are feelings it is not good to foster,—
I pushed the gate wide, she shook the bridle,
And the palfrey bounded,—and so we lost her.