The Baroness of New York :: :: University of Virginia Library

Thou calm contradiction! Thou mystery!
Thou brave cosmopolite; city at sea,
Where beggars squander, and where princes hoard!
Thou mute confusion! Thou babel of tongue!
Thou poem in stones! Thou song unsung!
Thou growth of a night; thou Jonah's gourd!
Thou fair-girdled mistress! The black-bellied ships
From Orient gates gather sweets for thy lips.
Thy tall handmaidens from the West rise up
And they bring thee wine in their golden cup.

O beautiful, long, loved Avenue!
So faithless to truth, and yet so true!
Thou camp in battle with the shouts in air,
The neighing of steeds and the trumpet's blare!
Thou iron-faced sphynx; thy steadfast eyes
Encompass all seas. Thy hands likewise
Lay hold on the peaks. The land and the sea
Make tribute alike, and the mystery
Of Time it is thine. ... Say, what art thou
But the scroll of the Past rolled into the Now?

O, throbbing and pulsing proud Avenue!
Thou generous robber! Thou more than Tyre!
Thou mistress of pirates! Thou heart of fire!
Thou heart of the world's heart, pulsing to
The bald, white poles. So old; so new.
So nude, yet garmented past desire.
Thou tall, splendid woman, I bend to thee;
I love thy majesty, mystery;
Thy touches of sanctity, touches of taint,
So grand as a sinner, so good as a saint.

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PRELUDE.

O avenue, dear as an afternoon dream!
O Avenue, endless as some far beam
From ocean-tossed Argus shot shoreward at night!
O fair as a garden made more than fair
With long walks of lovers in calm delight!
O wild as a woman with long, loosened hair!
O strong and willful as the strange gulf stream,
That floweth and goeth we know not where,
I exult in thy beauty as a lover might
Exult in his bride on her bridal night.

Thou heaven of lights! I stood at night
Far down by a spire where the stars shot through,
Where commerce throbs strong as a burly sea swell,
And searched the North Star. O Avenue!
If the road up to God were thy long lane of light!—
I lifted my face, looking upward and far
By the path of the Bear, underneath the North Star,

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Beyond the gaslights where the falling stars spin,
And lo! no man can tell, guess he never so well,
Where thy gaslights leave off or the starlights begin.

O, Avenue, splendid Fifth Avenue!
Thou world in thyself! Thou more than Rome,
When Rome sat throned and pre-eminent!
Thy spires prick stars in the moon-bound blue
And stand mile-stones on the high road home.
I behold thy strength like a stream's descent
When it flows to the sea filled full to the foam:
My soul it expands as an incense curled,
And proud as a patriot I point the world
To thy achievement and to thine intent.

Dear and delicious, loved Avenue!
I have had my day in the Bois de Bologne,
I have stood very near the first steps of a throne,
I have roamed all cities of splendor through,
I have masked on the Corso; and many bright nights,
I have dashed Rusk bells down a lane of delights;
On gay Rotten Row I have galloped the rounds,
And, too, have made one of a long line of hounds,
But nothing 'neath sun or tide-guiding moor
Approaches thine populous afternoon.

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First Citizen of New York.—But is the lady virtuous?

Second Citizen of New York.—Virtuous! Sir! she is more than virtuous; she is even plain.

I.

Sir Francis had come, the fairest of men,
At least the ladies pronounced him fair,
But none knew whence he had come, or when;
And the cautious banker had said, “beware,”
And a cunning rival had said, “take care,”
And had spread suspicion everywhere.

“And who can he be?” the banker cried,
“Sir Francis Jain,” his daughter replied.
“Sir Francis Jain! Aye, that is plain,
But who the devil's Sir Francis Jain?”

And no man knew him. Men only knew
He strode direct, like a lion, through
The little mouse-traps that society set
To cage the yellow-maned lion in,

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And kept on silent through all their din,
And sad, as of grief he might not forget.
He was careless of honors and careless of rank;
Quite careless of all the world was he;
Careless of gold in heaps in the bank,
Heedless, indeed, of the golden key
That opened all doors of the Avenue,
To welcome this new-named lion through.

And why so careless, and why so cold?
Surely the man had love and to spare,
Surely the man had titles and gold,
Honor at home and everywhere!

Why so heedless of honors, he?
Why so careless of the golden key
That opened the doors of the Avenue
And led the yellow-maned lion through,
Where many a languid maiden's eyes
Glanced suggestions, and hopes and sighs?

The man had all that a man might gain,
In a life's endeavor of strife and pain;
Honor of women and envy of men,
Grace of manner, of speech, and then,
That dash of audacity in his air,

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That vanquishes failure anywhere,
And crowns men kings. Alas! Alas!
Men only count what their fellow has;
They count his gains, but never the cost
Of the jewel, love, that he may have lost.

II.

The season passed and the hero passed,
Passed as hundreds before had done,
Melted away in the summer sun,
Like fairy-frost from your window slant
Where palace and castle and camp are cast
But a night, for the fairy inhabitant.

The season came, and he came again;
Again in the season he galloped through
The populous lane of the Avenue:
Tossing his head and toying the mane,
Galloped the lion, Sir Francis Jain.

His strong, black steed on his haunches thrown,
Struck hard and plunged on the clanging stone,
And threw white foam in the air, and beat

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The upward air with his iron feet
Where the Baroness came. Her marvelous eyes
Were wide with wonder and a sweet surprise.
And then they fell, and the lashes lay
Like dark silk fringes to hide them away;
And her face fell down to her heaving breast,
And silent Sir Francis half guessed the rest.

The man bowed low. Then over his face
There flashed and flooded some sudden trace
Of mad emotion. Quick it passed
As lightning, threading a thunder-blast.
He lifted his hat, turned, bowed again,
Toyed a time with the tossing mane,
Threaded his fingers quite careless through
The curving, waving, silken skein,
Leaned him forward, loosened the rein,
Looked leisurely up the Avenue;
Then smiling on all with a cold disdain,
Forward galloped Sir Francis Jain.

“I will give you house,” said the butterman's son,
Jerking his thumb, as the boor was wont,
Back over his shoulder, at a brown-stone front,
“I will give yon house to anyone

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That tells me who this man may be.
To you, my lawyer, old friend,” said he,
“I will give a job indeed that will pay—
A job that will pay, the very day
You place in my hand the thread to the rein
That will bridle this fellow, Sir Francis Jain.”

Quick, plucking the butterman's son aside,
Then throwing his cane over shoulder and back,
As the man disappeared up the populous track:—
“He rides like the devil!” the lawyer replied,
“But listen to me. Hist! step this way,
I am your man, sir, to make it pay.
I have a secret, and I hold the rein
To bridle your rival, Sir Francis Jain!”

And he plucked the man by the broadcloth sleeve
As he led him aside in the dusky eve.
Then standing aside from the populous place,
The friend looked friend right square in the face.
And the lawyer spoke cautious and wagged his head,
And winked at every slow word he said.

“He rides like the devil. But this is plain,
And men have marked it again and again—

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He walks as if he dragged a chain!
And that is your cue! Sir Francis Jain
Is a convict of Sidney, and has worn a chain!”

The two knaves parted; each went on his way,
In their vulgar parlance, “to make it pay.”
While careless and dauntless the rider dashed on,
Till he plunged in the depths of the Park and was gone.

III.

I like the tortuous paths of Central Park,
Like great, big autographs writ in grass.
Here Pat, indeed, has set his honest mark—
Whate'er his boss, the great, big William has.
I like that spacious Park, so dark at night,
The lover's pride, the tranquil tramp's delight.

Unwatched it lies, and open as the sun
When God swings wide the dark doors of the East.
O, keep one spot of your pent isle, still one,
Where tramp or banker, layman or high priest,

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Meet equals, all before the face of God.
Yea, equals stand upon that common sod
One day, where they shall equals be
Beneath, for aye, and all eternity.

It lies a little island quite above the tide
Of commerce, high above high-water mark;
Go ye, my tramps and shoddies, and abide
Your little hour, equals in the park.

O banker, count some coins for charity!
Put down, O tramp, that bit of conscious pride,
That you have more of out-door air than he!
You both are good to fertilize the ground;
You count about the same when the cholera comes around.

O, crooked, crooked paths where cautious lovers meet
With eyes held down. O, whither tend
Ye paths that neither do begin or end?
Forbidden paths that seem so doubly sweet,
Say, who would seek at all, to make ye straight?
Say, who would seek to find the narrow gate
To enter in, when all the park lies wide
And open as the moon-believing tide?

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Yea, let us linger in this park. To me
It hath a light and roominess. The air
Stirs woman-like and roving as the sea.
A sense of freedom thrills my soul, made free
And full of shoutings, to escape the glare
Of gas, and all the sound of brass
And many tongues the gasping city has—
The hollow, shoddy, sickly shows, and all
The lies that hide behind a brown-stone wall.

'Tis said this park is proud Manhattan's pride;
It is, indeed, a most capacious park.
It looks as long as all the plains, as wide;
That is, if you behold it in the dark.

But there are things that somehow seem to me
Almost as big as this, as worthy boast,
Along that far and unpretending coast;
Things in that far West quite as well to see.
And, come to think of it, perhaps 'twere best,
My proud Manhattan, that you do now go West.

Go West, and see the world you levied on
Through all your pompous years and mocked, meanwhile.

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Go West! aye, go for many a thousand mile.
Yea, you have time to go. Your ships are gone.
Your great sea merchants come from sea no more,
Broad-souled and brave of heart. The little store
Of gold and goods your daring fathers brought
To deck and crown their new Venetian shore,
You fell to gambling for like knaves. You fought
Among yourselves and let your proud ships rot.

Go West. Here once, with high, exalted head
You sat in state beside your white sea door.
You tenfold tribute laid on every shred
That passed you, to or from the new-born, poor,
Dependent West. She comes to you no more
In suppliance now. Behold how we have reared
An hundred high-built capitols. Endeared
Are they by agonies of birth. Aye, true,
Are they, with that vehement truth that you
In cold and cautious commerce never knew.

Go West! Forget thyself and look upon
The middle world a day. This far sea rim,
Half-wrought, at best, lies broken, cold and dim,
As ruins with the fading light withdrawn.
Go West for aye. For there, the favored few

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Of you, who hope to win the world of bliss—
Who will admit there is a better world than this,
Your brown stone town and teeming Avenue—
Will be that much the nearer it, than you
Are now. Therefore, indeed, I think it best
That you go West, or learn to know the West.

IV.

The road of love is a tortuous road,
Sudden and many the turns for all;
An uphill way, with a weary load,
And fatal, indeed, with many a fall:
And giving, at best, but a questionable kiss.
How long he had loved, had followed her
A far off faithfulest worshiper,
Silent and earnest, as true love is,
We may not know; but we find the two
The envied, and adored, of the Avenue.

Little men knew of him; still less
They knew of the dark-browed Baroness,
The beautiful stranger. She that drew

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The veil of mystery close, and dwelt
Alone in splendor at night, and knelt
Each morn at the cross; and forever kept
Her fair face humbled, as one that wept,
As she walked at eve on the Avenue.
Yet busy was all the town to guess
The secrets of this same Baroness.

Yea, busy was fame with her gold, her name,
Her great, proud house on the Avenue;
Her horses in harness of gold that drew
Her lonesome carriage in glory through
The wondering crowd; her maids that came
And spoke no tongue that any man knew;
Her marvelous form, her midnight of hair,
That maddened the vulgar millionaire,
Who guessed that his ladder of gold might reach
To the tallest bough or the fairest peach.

Sir Francis Jain was a hero true
As the old-time heroes. But never yet
Had he breathed his love. Oft had they met
In the eddying whirls of the Avenue;
And oft at morn on her way to prayer
He met her, passed her, hat in air.

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He now made note, as they met, her step
Was scarce so stately; and yet she kept
Her eyes to the ground as she passed to prayer,
And silent and signless she passed him there.

V.

“Twas Popper's reception. Good Mrs. P.
Puffed and inflated herself till she
Was red in the face as a turkey cock.
She strutted and fumed, flew hither and yon,
Rattled her silks and ruffled her lace,
Bawled at her Mary and bullied her John;
Then flew to her drawers and powdered her face,
Then smoothed down her laces, consulted the clock,
And calmly awaited, with half-drooping eyes,
The guest she should welcome with studied surprise.

The skies were serene; not a cloud in the blue.
Yet good Mrs. Popper had thoughtfully set
An awning, that yawned like a fisherman's net,
Far over the pavement. Now this had been done

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With no other sentiment under the sun
Than the fear that some dear gushing guest should get wet.

I resent the suggestion of plebeian curs,
That 'twas done for display. Such a proud soul as hers
Stoops not to such follies as that. And then, who
Could think such a thing of the Avenue?

The thoroughfare flowed like a strong, surging stream,
A figure, mostlike, we have called in before—
Flowed full as a river foam full to the shore,
And the soft, autumn sun fell gorgeously o'er
The long, gleaming lines where glitter and gleam
The black crush of carriages, far flashing back
Their wonder of wealth from the broad, endless track;
And good Mrs. P., with her pump-handle shake,
Her elegant airs, and her large, florid arms,
Smiled down her delight, in a rainbow of charms.

'Twas a gorgeous affair, as all such things are,
On the Murray Hill end of the Avenue.
The men were most tall, the women most fair,
In powder and paint. They had slate-penciled hair,

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As frizzled and frowsy, almost, to the view,
As a pure nigger babies. Yet, for all, they were fair;
For all their weak falsehoods in dress and in air,
They were fair as young Junos. Bright gold shone in bar,
And diamonds flashed thick as the meadow sown dew
That mirrors the gold of the morn-minted star.

But what gave a special attraction to
This flashing affair of the Avenue
Was the fact that Sir Francis, the lion, was there.
Sir Francis, the yellow-maned lion, and, too,
The Baroness, belle of the Avenue,
And the love and delight of Sir Francis Jain.
“And who is Sir Francis?” a rival cried.
“Why, Sir Francis Jain,” a lady replied.
“Sir Francis Jain! The Sir Francis Jain
That drags his foot as if dragging a chain?”

Now whether dame Popper, as some others do,
When they go catching lions on the Avenue,
Had written Sir Francis the belle would be there,
And dying to see him. Then, with the same pen,
Ere the ink was well dry on the letter just done,
Had written this belle that this bravest of men

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Was coming to meet her, I cannot declare.
I give you the facts, you can read as you run.
The lover was there, the lady was there;
And Popper was proud, as the lady was fair.

VI.

The belle? Let me see, I described her before—
Not so? You forget. You would have once more
The chronicle; have me tell o'er and o'er
Her manifold charms; to read all through
The book of her excellence; to tell anew
The beauty, the love, and the charities done
By this wildest yet gentlest soul under the sun.
You would have it all o'er again, because
She was so lovely to see, and was
So girt in majesty, grace; and, oh!
Because sweet heaven did pity her so.

She was dark as Israel; proud and still
As the Lebanon trees on Palatine hill.
She stood as a lone blown palm that grew
In middle desert for the shelter of men

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From moving sand and descending flame.
Her name, Adora. Her plain, simple name,
Meant nothing at all until after you
Had seen her face, her presence, and then
From that day forth it had form, and meant
The fairest thing under the firmament.

Her name was as language, and when men knew
No word in all tongues to give utterance to
Their grandest conception of beauty, she
Stood up in their souls, calm, silently,
And filled the blank with her simple name.
And ever at mention or thought of her
Men grew in soul as a growing flame
When dying embers on the altar stir
In the priestess' hands, and all life through
They lived the nobler for the love they knew.

Her history! Nay, there was nought of it,
So far as men knew, save that which was writ
On her marvelous face. She had dwelt with woe,
She had walked in shadows so long, so far,
They lay on her breast like an iron bar.
The dark of trouble hung over her hair
Like a widow's veil. The touch of care

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Had chilled her soul like an early snow
On the Autumn heights when the brooks creep slow,
And the quails pipe solemn and far and low.

A touch of tenderness lay over all
Her deed or utterance. And yet the strength
Of desert lion that strides full length
From jungle at night, with velvet foot-fall,
Was bounded within her bosom. The touch
Of Time was not on her. She was as one
That once uprose before the early sun,
And ere the fervid sun had wrested much
From day, and ere her heart had given proof,
Had woven through life's tangled warp and woof.

And yet she was not taught at all, or skilled
In complex life. Her true strength lay
In splendid scorn of little things. All day
Her spirit seemed some oily essence spilled
On stormy waters of the Avenue.
And this the wild, strong woman, so self willed
That dwelt the outer world! Ah, well she knew
That candor and the upward life of truth,
That made, yet marred, her splendid, stormy youth,
Matched not with craft! With calm adroitness she

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Wove round herself a matchless mystery;
And so sat, sphinx-like, silent and alone,
Resolving conquest, in ways her own.

Sir Francis did adore her. This she knew,
For certainly comes such knowledge to
A great-souled woman. He stood wide aloof,
But yet his calm eyes lifted, followed through
The tangle of crowds, in eternal proof
Of patient devotion, where e'er she passed.
He turned, as bethinking himself at last,
Sighed, as from habit, and passed on through
The crowd, and stood full front face to
That advocate seen on the Avenue.

VII.

And the lawyer bowed: “Sir Francis, I think.”
And he turned a quid in his mouth with a wink,
Then dropped his eyes to the floor again,
To a foot that dragged as if dragging a chain:

“Now you are a nobleman. Pardon me,
If business and pleasure must blend in one,

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But I am in search of a nobleman's son;
And the thought has occurred that you might be he.
No? but business is business. Pardon me, pray—
Stay, stay but a moment. Perhaps it will pay.”

And he looked right straight at the turning guest,
And he reached a broad hard hand to his breast.
“Now here's an estate that is waiting an heir;
A noble estate that lies over the sea,
Of a great Irish lord that is just deceased,
And I am an advocate. Now answer fair,
And square, if your lordship should be so pleased,
The questions I ask. 'Twixt you and me,
Your answers shall rest till your dying day,
And I think your lordship can make it pay.”

Then the butterman's son of the Avenue,
In swallow-tailed clothes and two-buttoned kids,
Came forward and languidly lifted his lids
And stared as if staring Sir Francis through,
And the lawyer went on. “I think that you
Might have met this heir in Australia; he, too”—
The shot struck centre. As pale as a ghost
Sir Francis started, stood close to the wall,

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Then lifting his two hands let them fall
Both helpless down, and stood still as a post.

Then the advocate laughed, laughed low and deep,
A deep and a devilish laugh laughed he,
And he seemed to take no note at all
Of the stranger's start and deep agony,
But he turned to the crowd with his back to the wall;
And he spoke of the weather, of the crowd together
That jostled each other like silly sheep,
In the sociable jam; of scandal and tea,
Of tea as weak as water could be,
Of scandal as strong as alcohol.

Sir Francis now gathered his strength at last,
And pale and silent he would have passed;
But the man reached out and laid hold his breast
In vulgar pretence of a friendly request
That he would linger, and so held him fast
With hand and eye, and Sir Francis Jain
Stood bound as bound with a twice-linked chain.

“Nay, wait, Sir Francis, a stranger are you
On this fast and fashionable Avenue.

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And I have a fancy that you some day
Might choose to marry, and make it pay.

“For you, Sir Francis, I have no doubt,
Like all foreign noblemen, are seeking out
Some oil man's daughter, some dealer in cheese,
In rags, in offal, or in what you please,
Only that she has plenty of tin—
Nay, nay, Sir Francis. Stop, sir! Stay!
These marrying men they make it pay.
And that you may not be taken in,
Why, I will tell you, Sir, while you wait,
Of their moral characters—that is, their estate.

“That milk-white maiden parading there
With painted brows and slate-pencilled hair,
Is heiress to millions. Just wait for the day
She can lift her face in her prayers and say
‘Our Father in heaven,’ in a double sense,
And she, she can handle her weight in gold.
Then it's something to know that her parents are old,
And can die and be buried at the slightest expense.
Particularly now, as they make it pay,
Cremating, at a dollar and sixty cents.

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“Stocks? Not in stocks, but commerce. You see,
They made it in commerce of milk. That is,
They bought in the country and sold in the town
For the same price here that they there paid down.
Nay, stop, Sir Francis; stay, listen to me,
And learn the way that men make it pay.
They minted the money! The secret is this,
And it doesn't affect the good name of the daughter;
But New York is an island, an island, you see?
An island! Sir Francis,—surrounded by water.

“That dark, gipsy beauty in screw-heel shoes,
And shoulders thrown forward, Sir Francis, means screws!
That is, her father, a tinker by trade,
One cold, sloppy day when he couldn't get out,
On account of bad shoes, and go howling about,
Sat down in a corner, while this same heiress played
In the ashes beside him, and carelessly made
A sharp pointed screw. Then what did he do?
Why, he went to work, and with that same screw
He screwed himself on to the Avenue.

“Yon east-iron woman means hinges.
Her hardware husband swings open this door;

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In fact, I may mention, there really is more
That hinges and turns on what he arranges
Than turns on returns of elections, twice o'er.

There are women put together with hinges;
God bless them: I pity their lords;
One shrinks at the thought, and one cringes
At the thought of being caught in these hinges
As caught between tackle and cords.

“Yon blonde, so surrounded with half the gay beaux
Of Gotham, good sir, is the Princess of Pills.
She is weighed down with diamonds as dews weight a rose,
She is smothered in satins, in laces, and frills;
She walks through the world with a heavenward nose,
And yet it means pills, sir, nothing pills.
Silks and satins and laces and frills,
Fine French masters and milliner's bills,
Pills, sir! moving and marvellous pills.

“She is wooed by a dozen brave counts who propose
To swallow her pills, her diamonds, her nose,
And all at a gulp without sugar. For, oh!
They adore this fair girl, and her diamonds, so.

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Yet only to think of it! Every bright stone
Must have cost her a million of pills alone.
Pills, pills! How she laughs at life's ills!
A coachman's cockade, a poodle that kills!
Pills, sir! active, industrious pills.

“Horses and houses in blocks and in rows,
She lives in a palace, she lifts her nose
At every man less than a millionaire,
If he be not a prince with a pompous air.
And how do you say they make it pay?
Pills, sir! active, industrious pills!
Pills that are doing both night and day,
Pills that work while their masters play.

“And yet my lady with the lifted head,
The palaces high and the broad, rich lands,
The upward nose with its rose of red,
The broad flat foot and the bony hands—
She is not happy. For all her pills,
For all her finery, for all her frills,
I pity, indeed, my Princess of Pills.

“For all her wooings and chances to wed,
For all her wealth and her heavenward head,

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She is not happy. Prince de Hotelle,
The proud Italian who learned his airs
In lighting his master's guests up stairs,
Is gone! and the gossips they laugh and tell
How her father refused him for fear his bills
Might swallow up all his industrious pills.

“That woman that waddles so crabwise there,
And toddles and puffs and pushes the crowd,
Means oil. 'Tis oozing from out her hair.
And why does she dress so large and so loud?
And why does she crowd and elbow through?
Why, she is a light of the Avenue;
A leader of women, the delight of men,
And, learned men say, is sharp with the pen.

“A widow is she of forty and five,
The relict of Septimus Boggs;
A widow is she of proud degree,
And the wealthiest widow alive.
A widow is she, and as you can see,
Her waist is as large as a log's;
Yet she, she is wooed by the wisest men,
For she made her fortune along by the pen.

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“How oily she is! how smiling when
She waddles along in her airy walk!
You hear her grunt when she turns to talk
To one of the wise and the wooing men.
She toddles, she puffs like an engine shunt,
And all Cincinnati is in that grunt,
Now, I say oil made her rich; but then,
She says she made it alone by the pen.

“Oh, she is the wealthiest widow alive,
She is wooed by a thousand men;
A widow is she of forty and five,
And the relict of Septimus Boggs.
A widow is she, and she came to thrive
By making a corner in hogs!—
By cornering all the pigs, and then,
She made her fortune, you see, by the pen.

“Nay, stay! But, sir, if you will begone,
Why I will follow you idly on;
And as we leisurely elbow through
This creme de la creme of the Avenue,
Will tell you of the Popper. Why, sir, you
Have saved her to-day. She was hanging to

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The skirts of society, sir, till you
Came by to-day and so pulled her through.

“No, this is not the best. And yet
It is, some say the very best
Society in all Manhattan.
We have some families we call “old,”
Some sluggish Dutch whose founders sat and
Let the town grow east and west,
The while they sat as old hens set,
And idly hatched their eggs of gold.
So that Manhattan's proudest ones
Are simply, sir, some Dutchman's sons.

“And these same families are so old,
So walled about by bags of gold,
Their wealthy children quite forget
Whether their parents who left them lands
Were gentlemen, or men whose hands
Did open oysters or draw the net,
Or measure peanuts from side stands.

“Indeed, it hardly is settled yet
Whether these gents whose tents were set

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Along the new shore's unclaimed sands,
Were gentle pirates or mere brigands—
The Knickerbockers? The same, but, oh!
They are so respectable, you know,
So very respectable and—slow!

“You hear those bottles just popping, sir,
Back yonder, where Popper now sweats and swears,
And opens his bottles and then declares
To his gathered guests that he brought the wine
Himself, from the cellars of his German friend,
The Baron of Heiderofisterchir?
Well, that is the battle of Murray Hill.
These Poppers they hold the fort. They will
Drink their wine, they will shout and shine
Their day: they will fire at all below
With champagne bottles, who would gladly blow
My lady grand to the moon, and hold
Her place with their new and their greasy gold.”

Sir Francis met, ere he had quite withdrawn,
The Baroness again; again he courtly bowed,
And, lest the knave who followed through the crowd
Might make familiar if he paused, passed on.

135

“You know her then! this wealthy Baroness?
This sort of female Count of Monte Christo?
Why, sir! you writhe, is if you felt distress;
And, sir! what makes you double up your fist so?
She is the grandest in the land, but—well,
We lawyers know some things we never tell.”

VIII.

The gay Mephistophiles still at his side,
Now crooking his thumb over shoulder, he cried;
“And this, Sir Francis, is the kettle drum!
Where brave Sitting Bull would be shamed at the din.
Where tall, childless women in multitudes come,
Who would charm with the cheek, but alarm with the chin.”

And then with his hand to his face, and aside,
He whispered shrill—yet we know he lied.
“These ladies are blesséd as angels be,
They spend their days in driving about
Seeking some suitable object out
To receive their meddlesome charity.

136

“They find some poor, broken horse at a dray.
They gather around in their carriages. They
Are thick and as noisy as crows. Ah, me!
How noble,—and noisy, sweet charity!
They weep o'er the horse; the man they arrest...
A poor wife starves with a babe at her breast.

“And how they do work! that is, with the tongue;
And alone with the tongue. All work, somehow—
Why, even the bearing and rearing of young
They leave to the Dutch and the Irish now.
This city is paved with dead infants!” he cried.
Goodness gracious! don't you think he lied?

“O, give me good mothers. Yea, great, glad mothers.
Proud mothers of dozens, indeed, twice ten;
Fond mothers of daughters and mothers of men,
With old time clusters of sisters and brothers,
When grand Greeks lived like to gods, and when
Brave mothers of men, strong-breasted and broad,
Did exult in fulfilling the purpose of God.

“Yea, give me mothers, grand, old-world mothers,
Who peopled strong, lusty, loved Germany,
Till she pushed the Frank from the Rhine to the sea.

137

Yea, give me mothers to love, and none others;
Blessed, beautified mothers of men for me,
For they, they have loved in the brave old way,
And for this, all honor for aye and a day.

“O ye of the West, the strong-limbed mothers,
Made firmest of foot and most mighty of hand;
Dominion is yours, through the whole, wide land,
To the end of the world. For who but your brothers,
And men of your breasts with the brave warrior's brand
Led down to the sea? Who hewed a red way?
Yea, who are the captains that lead us to-day?

“Ye Cyprians of fashion, ye whited, cursed mothers!
Yea, cursed as the Christ cursed the barren fig tree,
With your one sickly branch where a dozen should be;
It were better ye bide as the Capuchin brothers,
Or, millstone at neck, ye be thrown in the sea.
Ye are dried up peppers in a dried up pod.
Ye are hated of men, and abhorred of God!”

138

IX.

This Mephistopheles now turned,
As if the whole gay world was spurned
As something quite beneath his care,
And said, with philosophic air:
“The fight goes on from year to year.
Yet bye and bye the Poppers will
Surrender and pass quite away;
As water finds its level. Still
In humbler spheres will they recount the day,
To wond'ring friends, and, sighing, say
How, once, great men on Murray Hill
Did pay them court, and how they drew
In wake, the world-famed Avenue.

“In storied countries grand and old,
The Christian had the gates of gold
That wall God's paradise, in view;
But here he has Fifth Avenue.

“Here shine no gates beyond for him;
All else is doubtful, vague, and dim,
The Paynim's roads led e'er to Rome.

139

The goal, the hope, eternal home,
That proud Manhattan has in view,
Is here; this fair Fifth Avenue.

“Lo! here upon this stony height,
The victors of the long, hard fight
With Mammon, where the thousands fell
To fill the trenches, that the few
Might pass to victory and tell
Their triumphs, are entrenched. Behold
Their mighty barricades of gold.”

Sir Francis shrugged and would have passed;
The lawyer clutched and held him fast.
This fellow like a carpet tack
Or cockle burr stuck sharp. Indeed
He was too thin of blood to bleed,
But sucked his fellow's blood. In fact
He was a vampyre: brown and wan
He was about the throat; a bat,
A hungry, sharp-nosed, smelling rat:
A man of fashion, yet the slave
Of getting, getting, getting on:
A dangerous and clever knave;

140

A crooked, ugly, carpet tack,
That was not safe to sit upon.

He was just such a man as you
Might choose in hard extremity to do
Some doubtful enterprise, that lay
Beyond your bound of conscience.
He
Had always character for you.
Since he was now no longer poor,
He kept a character at the door,
As some men keep a carriage. See!
My character! Steel springs! Bran new!

The vilest man, was this same bore;
And I should like to swing him to
The great lamp-post that glares before
His mighty, massive, carven door,
That lords the splendid Avenue,
For telling things so vilely true.

A lawyer? liar? much the same
In practice, quite as well as name.
I did not make him. Hear me through.
I hate him heartily as you,

141

And yet between us, you and I,
No lands or lines in common lie.

I am not of your flock. Drive all
Your sheep in herd from field to stall;
Mark them! brand them! And if one
Dare stand alone, look back, or run,
Give him the dogs!
Nay, let me keep
The bleak, bare hills alone, aloof.
Rather a goat than such a sheep!
A right to laugh; and the room to leap!
Rather the wild, cold crags where I
May dare its height; may strike my hoof—
Wag my head at the world and die.

I am not of you. I love not you.
I hate and abhor your middle-class.
Your mule, that's neither a horse nor ass,
But holds the worst parts of the two.

I hate your middle-men; men who
Are ever striving, straining to
A place they don't fit in. They rise,
They hang between the earth and skies,

142

As hung the prophet's coffin. Lies
Are on their lips, in all their deeds.
Their lives are lies, their hollow creeds
Make infidel, sweet souls that bloom
On humble ground, in lonely gloom.

Write me not of that class. My name,
Thank God, is not of these. I claim
No middle-class or place. I lie
Secure, and shall not fall, for I
Am of the lowliest lot—as low
As God's own sweetest flowers grow.

X.

The Baroness, with heedless air,
Passed on, came back, passed anywhere.
She was as one who moved or stood
At morn in twilight widowhood.
With South-land love in her great eyes,
With beauty that the gods adore,
With wealth that made a vulgar prize,
What wonder that she stood before
The world more fair than all things there?

143

That crowd! It was a stormy crowd!
They elbowed sharp, they shouted loud,
They shamed the loudest auction sale.
The men talked “pay” and “stocks,” and in
The fierce and universal din,
The women rattled spoons and forks,
And reached their necks like lonesome storks,
And tiptoed high as if to hail
In hard distress, some distant sail.

Six horrid fiddlers piped and scraped;
Short, stuffy pipers, puffed and red,
With half the hair blown off the head,
So shiny, white and turnip-shaped—
They puffed their cheeks, they swelled and blew
The louder, as the louder crew
Displayed their rival brass and cheek.
Beware! Beware, when Greek meets Greek.
But O, take care when ass meets ass
In braying rivalry of brass.

They blew as if for life or death,
And when they stopped to catch their breath,
An artificial singing-bird,
Just such as are forever heard

144

Along the upper, German Rhine,
In third-class drinking-sheds of wine,
Sprang up from artificial vine,
And trilled so shrill, so sharp, that you
Had thought your poor head split in two.

Sir Francis, with distempered air,
And something touching on despair,
Shook off the bore and elbowed through,
And sought dame P. to say adieu.
The man was at his side again—
“I pray your pardon, Sir Francis Jain,
But see those dozens of young men there?
These gay young bloods, who live to chew,
And squirt ambier on the Avenue,
And strut striped clothes like convicts through
The walks of the city? Well, every one
Is somebody's son, sir, somebody's son.
When that is said, all's said and done;
Each one is known as somebody's son.”

“The daughters are splendid, fair, honest, and true,”
Yet as full of old Nick, I promise you,
In an innocent way, as you can think.
You see you blonde, in a group of men?

145

She is pure as jolly; and just as bright!
Well, she has confessed that many a night
She scarce has been able to sleep a wink,
But nearly all night has laid awake
Regretting that there were only ten
Of the holy commandments for men to break.”

Sir Francis, disgusted and firmer now,
Pushed him aside, with gathered brow,
And down the hall sought hat and cane.
There was to him a sense of shame
In mixing in this bedlam.
Vain
He tried to escape the man who came
Still at his elbow, with that same
Infernal smile.
“I say, you can
Do worse than wed that tall brunette
I saw you ogle. Eh! Sir Jain?
To wed that lady, sir, would pay
As well, or better, than finding the man
For the Irish estate. And then, they say,
The girl's in the market right smart. And yet
She's hardly a girl, if the gossips speak true,
And now, Sir Jain, if I speak plain,

146

I beg your pardon. But a girl to me
Is hardly a girl, be she never so young,
Never so gracious of air and tongue,
Who has, on the very same Avenue
Where she is residing, a husband or two.”

His rage was like the thunder's fall;
His glare was like a leaping fire.
Swift up the hall, swift down the hall,
Sir Francis glanced, and left and right,
And not a woman was then in sight.
With not a single word to say,
Like fair Apollo, he struck the liar,
Clutched hat and cane and strode away.

He reached the door, passed proudly through,
Then down the ample steps, and on
And up the teeming Avenue.
Yet ere the man was fairly gone,
He heard behind a hoarse, loud cry,
As one made wild with rage and pain,
That called out, clanged out cruelly;
“Sir Francis Jain! Sir Francis Jain!
You walk as if you dragged a chain!”

147

XI.

And here we leave the lovers. He,
Sad-browed and sorrowful. And she?
No one might guess. Why, you might gaze
And gaze upon her great, proud face,
So sphynx-like fixed for all the days,
And read not any sign or trace
Of love or faith, or hope or hate,
Or aught save fixedness, as fate.

Sometimes the best of any town
Is quite outside the town; the trees,
The park, the wide, wild rim of seas,
The glade, the sloping hill, the down;
Indeed, the dens of brick and clay,
And dirty cobble stones, dismay
A soul untrained through life to these.

And so, ofttime, the brightest side
Of some great house, my gay young friend,
Is its outside. The wounded pride,
The strife, the struggle to the end,

148

That high-set mention, may be won,
The doubtful triumph, sure defeat,
The slow advance, the swift retreat,
The broken hearts, the souls undone—
Outside! outside, in God's glad sun!

When Sabbath blesses us with rest,
When beauteous woman is most blest,
When church-blessed people crowd and teem,
And tide and flow like some strong stream,
All still as spirits in a dream—

When spring-time sunbeams strike us, bold
And strong as toppled beams of gold;
When spires uplift and point us to
The starry steeps of God, and through
All peril; when we rise and pour
On tranquil Sundays from church door—

When white-winged ships drift dreamily,
Or shoot like shuttles fro and to,
Across great streets that stretch far down
To seas on either side the town;
When skies are bound in spotless blue;

149

When ships tend seaward ceaselessly,
Sail forth to pure white polar seas,
Bring fruit from farthest Sicilies,
Bring pinky coral from south deeps,
Where everlasting silence sleeps,
To this new Venice of the sea;
O then go forth, proud-souled, and view
This glorious, full, Fifth Avenue!

And go exulting, proud, and true,
To this great land that nurtured you;
Yea, go full-hearted, loving, fond,
And loyal to your land! for you
May range all peopled regions through,
May seek all cities, far or near,
Beyond the seas and still beyond,
Yet you shall never find one peer
To this proud scene so near your home.
The crowded carnival of Rome,
That Saturn crowns each vernal year,
Knows nothing in its proudest day
Like this magnificent display
Of men and maidens moving through
This populous, proud Avenue.

150

Yea, I have tracked the hemispheres,
Have touched on fairest land that lies
This side the gates of Paradise;
Have ranged the universe for years,
Have read the book of beauty through
From title-leaf to colophon,
While pleasure turned the leaves.
Yet on
This island bank your bark should strand,
Your feet should cleave this solid land;
That you may live, alone to view
The glory of this Avenue.

Go ye, and wander if you will,
For grace in far-off countries. Still,
When every foreign land is trod,
I know ye will return, and you
Will lift your hands, protesting there
Was never yet a scene so fair
This side the golden gates of God.

Such women! And such waists! Such arms!
Such full development of charms!
Such matchless, moving loveliness!
Such sweeping grace! Such gorgeous dress!

151

Such eyes! Such little feet! and such—
Such everything! It is too much!
It drives one wild to sit and write
Of so much beauty, when one might—
But never mind. Go thou and view
The glory of the Avenue!

How peaceful and how perfect all!
A rustle as of rustling trees
When crisp-curled autumn leaflets fall;
A murmur like the lull of bees
In Californian flower field
On purple afternoons.
You hear
No lifted voice affront the ear,
Or sword-like tongue clang battle-shield.
Columbia's low-voiced women call,
Or answer back to ardent loves,
Like cooing, changeful-throated doves,
On far, faint, wooded waterfall;
And this you hear, and that is all.

What long, long, endless, lovely lines
Of moving beauty reaching down
Like benedictions through the town!

152

What pride! What glory mantles all!
What gorgeous garmenting of tall,
Majestic Junos! Beauty shines
From every speaking paving-stone
As beauty never spake or shone.

What rainbow-colors! Lines of clothes!
Not clothes-lines! No! but now suppose,
Sartor Resartus, quaint Carlisle,
Stands looking up this many a mile
Of moving beauty; and suppose
He puts his finger to his nose,
And, smiling, with that cynic smile,
Divests them there of all their clothes?

XII.

And yet how lonely is all this!
More lone than middle forest is,
If strange, and worn, and weary you
Move down this mighty Avenue.

I do remember long ago,
A boy, by Leman's languid flow,
Alone, alone! God, how alone!

153

To land and language all unknown.
I strolled so wearily and slow,
And sad as after death. The crowd
Was gay, and populous, and loud.

Alone and sad I sat me down
To rest on Rousseau's narrow Isle,
Below Geneva. Mile on mile
And set with many a shining town,
Tow'rd Dent du Midi danced the wave
Beneath the moon.
Winds went and came,
And fanned the stars into a flame.
I heard the loved lake, dark and deep,
Rise up and talk as in its sleep.
I heard the laughing waters lave
And lap against the farther shore,
An idle oar, and nothing more,
Save that the Isle had voice, and save
That round about its base of stone
There plashed and flashed the foamy Rhone.

A stately man, as black as tan,
Kept up a stern and broken round
Among the strangers on the ground.

154

I named that awful African
A second Hannibal.
I gat
My elbows on the table, sat
With chin in upturned palm to scan
His face, and contemplate the scene.
The moon rode by a star-crowned queen.
I was alone. Lo! not a man
To speak my mother tongue. Ah me!
How more than all alone can be
A man in crowds. Across the Isle
My Hannibal strode on.
The while
Diminished Rousseau sat his throne
Of books, unnoticed and unknown.

This strange, strong man, with face austere
At last drew near. He bowed; he spake
In unknown tongue. I could but shake
My head. Then, half a-chill with fear
I rose, and sought another place.
Again I mused. The kings of thought
Came by, and on that storied spot
I lifted up a tearful face.

155

The star-set Alps they sang a tune
Unheard by any soul save mine.
Mont Blanc, as lone and as divine
And white, seemed mated to the moon.

The past was mine, strong-voiced and vast:
Stern Calvin, strange Voltaire, and Tell,
And two whose names are known too well
To name, in grand procession passed.

And yet again came Hannibal,
King-like he came, and drawing near,
I saw his brow was now severe
And resolute. In tongues unknown
Again he spake. I was alone,
Was all unarmed, was worn and sad;
But now, at last, my spirit had
Its old assertion.
I arose,
As startled from a dull repose.
With gathered strength I raised a hand,
And cried, “I do not understand.”

His black face brightened as I spake;
He bowed; he wagged his woolly head;

156

He showed his shining teeth and said,
“Sah, if you please, dose tables here
Am consecrate to lager-beer;
And, sah, what will you have to take?”

Not that I loved that colored cuss—
Nay! he had awed me all too much—
But I sprang forth, and with a clutch
I grasped his hand, and holding thus,
Cried,
“Bring my country's drink for two!”
For oh! that speech of Saxon sound
To me was as a fountain found
In wastes, and thrilled me through and through.

On Rousseau's Isle, in Rousseau's shade,
Two pink and spicy drinks were made;
In classic shade, on classic ground,
We stirred two cocktails round and round.

XIII.

The Baroness in her parlors lay
Red flushed with conquest of the day.

157

“And he is mine!” She half arose
From couch of gold and silken snow
At thought of it.
The proud repose
That comes to voyagers who know
The land is theirs, illumed her face.
“Good Christ, it were a lusty race,
That I did run for name and place!
To name myself the Baroness!
To seek the proudest city out!
To come a stranger in disdain,
Proud scorning all life's littleness;
To dare it all! to never doubt!
To reach mine own strong, right hand out,
And clutch this lion's yellow mane!

“I am the Baroness du Bois!
Aye, that is good! from wood and vine
I drew my line. My crest should be
An arrow cleaving through a tree,
For even all earth's wooden walls
Shall not defeat. My burning brow
Shall bear his coronet. My halls,
My marble halls, shall shout with joy!
My firm feet shall not falter now!

158

Why turn me back? My slopes of pine
Henceforth shall be a land forgot.
I know them not, I know them not.
My face shall front the rising sun,
My feet shall measure conquests run.
If I must make a long, strong race,
What good that I turn back my face
Each day, to see the distance done?

“Yet, Christ! I almost wish again
That seat in heart-sick loneliness,
Quite at the bottom round, that I
Might scorn again to climb so high,
Or seek with burning eagerness
A worthless coronet. My breast
Disdains deceit! I cannot rest.

“But he is mine! Sir Francis Jain,
My lion with the yellow mane,
Ere yet another month betide
Shall take me close, his bosomed bride. ....
And Doughal?
God! the thought of it!”
She sprang full statured in the air.
She shook her mighty storm of hair,

159

And trembled as in ague fit—
“I cannot, cannot, cannot tear
His memory, the love, the hate,
The everlasting hate I bear
This man, from out my heart, go where
I may.”
Her two clasped hands fell down.
Her face forgot its dark, fierce frown,
And sad and slow she shook her head.
“O, if, indeed, it were but hate!
But love and hate do intertwine,
A serpent, and a laden vine.
But where is Doughal?
He is dead!
Thank God, the man is dead! and I
Am free as any maid to wed.
And if he be not dead, what then?
Do I not hate him with a hate
That will not let me hesitate
Now at the last?
Above all men
I hate this cursed, cold man who fled,
And left me in the flame to die. ...
And he is dead, thank God, is dead!

160

“And if he be not dead, but rise
Some day to front me? I can say,
Can look right squarely in his eyes,
Before Sir Francis, any day,
And say, my lord, this fellow lies!

“But then my letters! and the face
I painted on that quaint gold-plate!
Ah, curse that childish face! I hate
That priest who taught my hand to trace
Its silly lineaments. But fate
Has been my friend. I still will dare
And trust to fate, and leave the care
To circumstance.
“Now shall I wed
This baronet, and so shall be
Indeed a rightful Baroness.
Yea, be the thing I do profess,
Where no man's tongue may question me;
And in some new, far home forget
That love which comes to haunt me yet.
Yea, Doughal, Doughal, he that fled,
And left me in the flame, is dead,
Is dead! is dead! thank God, is dead!”

161

She sank upon her couch. She drew
Her round arms up right full, and threw
Them forth, and sighed and caught her breath
As one that waked from sleep-like death.
She straightened long limbs in repose,
Her long, strong fearless limbs that grew
To God's perfection, where they knew
No bridling. Her dark lids did close
In lovely languor, and she lay
As one that would forget alway.

But vain she wooed her soul's repose.
She turned, and on her round arm rose,
And touched a bell. “How thick this air!
Pray place a pastille on the marble there,
Within the alcove. Why, my wood—
Nay, heed me not. Why do you stare?
My mind resumes its savage mood,
My soul takes on the elements
Of storm and battle and events
'Twas chiefest of. ... Nay, nay, my mind
Went back to my ancestral land,
And I fell dreaming of the grand
Old forest, and of hound and hind

162

Afar. Ah! thank you.
Turn that chair
A shade more mellow from the light,
A footstool, now. Now loose my hair
And fan me leisurely. To-night
I would you had some great romance,
Of Sappho, Dido, or, perchance,
Some later lover; one who knew
The purple glory of proud blood,
And lived and died for sweet love's sake ...
Pray make that bird be silent!
Take
This mantle, girl, of silk and gold,
And throw it over him, and hold
His pretty song a prisoner ...
Where was I? Oh, the lovers. You,
I think, have read Zenobia through
These three nights past. Yet as for her—
She hardly made my strong blood stir—
You see her picture there? And there
Is Sappho, Egypt. Everywhere
Grand, storied, pictures of the great
Of my own sex, who knew to hate,
Or love, which is indeed the same,
Yet not one shade that bears man's name.

163

Read me some reckless love and true;
Some star-touched woman's soul, that drew
Earth's magnets to its stormy height.
Yea, give me tiger's meat to-night;
Some Cleopatra who disdained
All little ways of life, and grew
To top the pyramids, and reigned,
Still reigns a wider realm than all
Rome ever knew in rise or fall.

“Come, wheel my cushion softly, far
To yon dim alcove, where the light
Falls freely, and the lofty frown
Of pictured Hercules in war
Shall look my restless spirit down.
And hush my longings for the night.

“There! let me rest. Unloose my gown.
My heart, my very soul seems bound
And bridled in these silken ropes
And corded things. O, my free woods!
My raging seas! my flowing floods!
My wood-built vales. ... my dreams, my hopes—
There, there! go, go! I bade you go
Long since. Why stare you so?

164

“O, heaven! If I had but one
To talk to of my battles done.
But one poor mind to sympathize,
Or understand my hopes or fears,
Or know why tears, hot, drowning tears,
Come sometime tiding to my eyes.....
Not one to love.
I cannot buy
With all this wealth one soul to trust,
And to the bitter end I must
Live out this gilded, splendid lie.

“That mocking, flaunting moonlight falls
With brazen harshness through the gold
And damask of yon curtain's fold,
And flaunts me in my very halls.

“And all this richly-figured floor
That sinks like velvet to my feet
Lies stiff, as if my winding-sheet.....
That moonlight lies like bright steel bar
And heavy on my heart. Afar
I hear the rolling town once more
Strike steel to stone.
“O, God! to sleep!

165

O that my weary feet could stray
But once again in that vast deep
And distant wild land of delight,
Where men take hardly note of night
And night deals generous with day.
I will return again—nay, nay!
What queen shall rule this realm but I?
Who looks back perishes! My way
Lies open and inviting now.
My feet are strong; upon my brow,
My dark and ample brow is set
The brightest star in social sky,
And it shall wear the coronet.

“My soul, stay with me, nor forget:
Stay with me, nor return again
To land of seas and wild, white rain,
Until I gain the coronet;
Let Doughal sleep his well-earned sleep
With wild beasts 'neath the sundown deep.
My face is front, my brow is set
For conquest and a coronet.”

166

XIV.

Two strange ships on an unknown sea,
That counter sail, to God knows where,
May meet, but pass not instantly.
The very fact of being there
Proves them of common lot, a life
In battled elements and strife;
And they will break their loneliness,
And bow white sails across the sea,
Though they should prove, at last, to be
But common in their dark distress.
Two ships oft met on this lone main;
The Baroness, Sir Francis Jain.

How these digressions do disgust
And weary you! You much mistrust
The man has little fruit to show
Who plucks wild flowers as you go,
And loiters at his garden gate,
And seems to halt and hesitate
To lead right up the path to where
His fruits hang ripest and most fair.

167

We will return, and not again
Depart the path. Perhaps with pain
I see the dull conclusion. I
Would dally by the way, would lie
Forever on the common grass,
And let the vulgar, panting pass.

Nay, haste not like the hired slave;
Take life's good as you go, my friend.
Haste not, haste not. Behold! the end
Of each man's road is in a grave.

XV.

Sir Francis and his lady fair
Rode far from out the Park and town.
A star was in her midnight hair,
Her hand shone with a starry stone
That lit their bridle path at night.
Like some tall shepherd, shepherding
His flock upon the soundless flood,
A far ship anchored, tall and white.
The snapping bat was on the wing,

168

A dog howled from the distant wood;
And right and left, and white and lone,
Some mighty marbles ghostly stood.

'Twas night, and yet it was not dark.
They long had passed broad Central Park;
And yet they rode on silently,
Until the great, white-girdled moon,
As soft as summer afternoon,
Came wheeling up the sea, and lay
Her broad, white shoulders bare as day;
As if at some fair, festal ball
Of gathered stars at carnival.

He reined, he turned him home at last,
Yet scarce a word his lips had passed.
And at his side his lady, she
Rode silent and as wrapt as he;
Rode still and constant, as if she
Had been his guardian angel, bound
To lead him through some dark profound.

His soul was as some ship that drew
All silent through the burst of seas,
Pursuing some far distant star

169

That spun unfixed forever through
The boundless upper seas of blue.
She seemed so near, and yet so far.
Just now she seemed as near as woe;
Just now she seemed as far as though
They dwelt in the antipodes.

They silent rode. She looked away,
As one that had no word to say.
She had her secret, this he knew;
Yet ofttime in the night alone,
He waked and wondered if the true
And heart-pent history was known—
If painted in its blackest hue,
'Twould make a shadow to his own.

Two strange, uncommon souls were these
That silent sailed uncompassed seas.
Far out from any ship or shore,
Far out from reef or breakers' roar.
Where ships of commerce never drew
A keel, these two ships crossed, and knew
Each other as they sailed alone,
And on, to under worlds unknown,

170

O golden, sacred silentness!
Take thou the silver coin of speech,
And bribe your way to hearts, so less
Than hearts the silences shall reach.

Two strangers rode in silence down
Against the sounding, teeming town;
Two strangers. Yet two souls that knew
Heart histories far better than
The wisest and profoundest man
That ever read earth's archives through.

Didst ever think how souls have size
And weight and measure in God's eyes,
So other than the weight and span
And measure given them by man?

Why, there be hunchback souls that stand
Beside tall souls, broad-browed and grand;
And these bend ever, and look down
Upon the great soul's rumpled gown,
And see upon its trail a stain,
Obtained, perchance, in some great fight,
In silent battle for the right;

171

And then they mock and make complain,
And wagging point the world the stain.

Then there be shallow souls that seem
To foam along like shallow stream,
As if they feared the while you would
Forget that they had ever been,
Did they not keep their clang and din:
And, come to think, perhaps, you should.

In middle heaven moved the moon.
Still slow they rode and silently,
Till sudden distant thunder fell
From out fair heaven. Like a knell
Of some departed afternoon,
That dying, leaves a heritage
Of undivided memory
Of most delicious love, it fell
Upon the wrapt Sir Francis Jain
And startled him. He threw the gage
To fate, rose full, clutched at his rein,
Struck heel to flank, threw back his hair,
Spoke loud, and laughed with careless air
Of tempest driving up the skies,
And lifting unto her, his eyes,

172

At touch of large, slant drops of rain,
He gathered up his strength again,
And strange, far thought, that still would roam,
And plunged and led right hard for home.

The desolation of the plain,
The perfect solitude, the reign
Of ghosts and spirits of the dark
Came down. The tempest's wild complain
Was monsterlike. The driving rain
And loud-voiced furies rode the air.
No lamp, no light, stood out that night,
No star in heaven set a mark—
'Twas darkness, darkness, everywhere.
They pierced the middle of the Park.
Their road led underneath the ground;
The arches echoed far, profound.
The winding paths led in and out,
The tempest rode in merry rout;
They rode against the slanting rain,
They rode a circle round and round,
And rode in circle yet again.

And still they rode, still round and round,
By darkling arch, beneath the ground,

173

The while the hoofs kept clanging sound.
At last quite wild and quite worn out,
Sir Francis turned and gave a shout
From underneath an arch. From out
A deeper arch, a cave, hard by,
There came a sharp, responding cry.

“Ho! ho! A call for help. We come!
Come! Up! my comrades; follow me!”
Sir Francis turned his head, and he
Stood still, as one struck stark and dumb;
For lightnings fell in sheets just then,
And showed a line of surly men.

But these Sir Francis heeded not;
His flashing eyes the instant fell
Upon their leader; one who stood
The tallest tree of some dark wood.
He stood as one that time forgot,
Or feared to tackle, or to lay
A hand upon—he stood so well,
That time went by the other way.

And still Sir Francis sat and sat
His steed, and stared and stared thereat.

174

He looked right in the robber's face,
Who stood and boldly stood his place;
The while the men drew circle round,
And made secure their vantage-ground.

Their leader bowed and stepped before
Sir Francis, and laid hold the rein.
He bade the lady pass; she passed,
Then turned, and peering glances cast.
His lifted brow was white and broad,
His presence like a demigod.
He was all coolness—leisure now,
He shook his brown locks from his brow,
Half smiled, and blandly bowed again;
And then he turned, stern raised a hand,
Toward his men, gave some command,
Held high his lamp before Sir Jain,
Half laughed, then smiling, bowed again.

Again he jerked his lantern high,
Half turned, and heard the lady's cry,
The while she sat her steed hard by.
Quite lowly then he bowed once more,
And stepping back, with bended head
And courteous bearing, gaily said

175

He did most certainly deplore
The state of weather; 'twas severe;
A sort of equinox, he thought;
He said to-morrow surely ought
In conscience, to be bright and clear,
For sunshine surely follows rain;
Then turned him to Sir Francis Jain.

He haughty bowed his broad, high head,
And in the Queen's best English, said:
“But now this weather question, sir—
The winds, the rains, the sudden rise
Of choler in the angered skies;
The fall of the barometer,
The storms by land, the calms by seas,
Are fixed by Probabilities!

“You meet your neighbor now at morn,
Shake hands, how-how, then hesitate.
You first look fluttered, then forlorn.
You cannot speak. You know the great
Eternal question now is done.
Six thousand years men met together
And calmly talked about the weather,
But now, the papers run the sun.

176

A man asks, ‘Will it rain to-day?’
Give him two cents and go your way.

“And you, my friend, if you had thought
This evening as you galloped out
And hailed a poor newsboy and bought
A first-class paper, why, no doubt
The small investment, sir, had been
A big investment for your tin.

“And this reminds me, by-the-way,
That tin is what we want. I know,
A very common want to-day.
But so extravagant, and so
Exacting are the ladies, and
So many are the needs of men
To hold respect and have a place
In woman's heart—
Ah! madam, I,
I do assure you, I had rather die
Than make offense, or so disgrace
Myself and fellows, as to stand
In your sweet presence here and say
One word against the sex for which
We hazard all. Yes, madam! you

177

Can hardly think what men pull through
To be illustrious, grand, or rich;
To please you, charm you, win the prize
Of love, in love's enchanting eyes!

“And, sir! I end as I begin,
By hinting, I am out of tin.
But not for self, believe me, sir,
I make demand, but all for her.

“The ships that plow the foamy track,
The mines that open mouths of gold,
The smoke of battle rolling back,
Enshrouding thousands stark and cold,
The tracking of the trackless climes,
The thousand crowns, the thousand crimes
Of man, the woman-worshiper—
All won or done alone for her.

“But, lady, please pass on a pace;
Pray climb that ridge above the moat,
The truth is, being gentle-born, you see,
The presence of a lady's face
It always did embarrass me
Whene'er I meant to cut a throat.

178

“Nay, nay, pass on. I do but jest.
'Tis one of my rough, playful pranks;
I only have a slight request
To make of this, your gallant knight;
And I, in truth, am too polite
To talk of business in the sight
Of ladies. Ah! thanks, madam, thanks!
I will not keep you long. The night
Is damp. Then 'tis so very late,
'Twere impolite to make you wait.

“And now, sir, one word with you, I pray,
Be you banker, merchant, what you may;
I read you truly this prophesy.
And profit who may; it is naught to me;
But go on as you go, and your tramps shall be,
In a few years more, your majority.
Your bold, bad merchants of the vote,
The politician with his hand
Clutched tight around the country's throat,
While helpless millions weeping stand
And shiver in their rags before
The silent, closed, and mouldy door,
Of factory and busy mill,
With loom and spindle rusting still

179

That make sweet melody no more—
These men they nothing risk at all
Save reputation. And take note
That that is most exceeding small.
Now, sir, we pay you our respects
Like men. We rob, but do not lie.
We take your purses openly,
We rob, but also risk our necks.

“Ah! so you would proceed. No doubt!
Nay, stop! Stand sir! Stand! Take out
That quick right hand that you have just
This moment in your bosom thrust!
Take out your hand! No? Shall it be
Purse? or pistol? Look at me!
You see I do not flinch. My face
Is lifted unto yours.
My place
Is peril's front. I know not fear.
You have the drop. Then slay me here,
And gallop into town and they
Will name you hero of the day.

“Now draw! Shoot centre! deadly, true!
What, sir? Your purse! By heaven, you

180

Were born a king! Whom can you be,
To bravely spare a man like me?
Where drew you breath?
I know but one—
But one lone man beneath the sun
Who thus could turn and scornfully
Give back the life that clutched at his,
And with it, purse well filled as this.

“And that one man, he wore a chain
For many a long year at my side
In wild Australia.
And that name?
My true chain-fellow—chained in shame—
I speak it with a lofty pride—
'Twas Jain, Sir Jain! Sir Francis Jain!

“Nay, nay, my lady! Start not so!
No harm shall happen him, I swear.
Stand back, my men! Now may he go;
There is a wildness in his air
That even I would hardly dare
To trifle with
Stand wide, my men,
And lift your hats with gallant grace:

181

We shall not see his like again.
Come! let my lantern strike his face!
Now as he gallops from the place;
And note him well, that after this
No harm shall hap to him or his;
And mark—
By heaven, it is Jain!
'Tis Jain, 'tis Jain! Sir Francis Jain!
Come back! Come, take your gold; why, I—
I would not touch it though I die.

“You will not turn! Then take the right
Upon the rise. You see the light
Above the city's centre rise
Like London, dashing all the skies?
Then ride for that. Ride straight, and you
Will strike the lighted Avenue;
And mind, sir Jain—Sir Francis Jain,
Some morrow eve we meet again.
This ready gold will guide me through;
I, I, the learned young Greek, and you,
The lion of the Avenue;
I, I, the patriot Greek, denied—
Gods! they are gone! hear how they ride!”

182

XVI.

Sir Francis' face was on his hand.
His eyes looked blankly, helpless down;
His brow was dark with sullen frown.
His hair was tumbled wildly, and
His face was flushed as one that wept,
And yet wept not, nor waked, nor slept.

A pistol nestled close beside
A nervous and outreaching hand;
A thing familiar and long tried,
That waited as for some command.

He rose and slowly walked the floor,
Then sat him down and swiftly wrote,
With fevered hand, a hurried note.
Then quick he rose, and clutched and tore
What he had writ, and, still in frown,
Strode long and thoughtful up and down.

At last he stopped, as one outworn,
Sat down, took up the fragments torn,

183

And sadly smiled. And now he caught
Convulsively, as racked with pain,
The pen, spread out the page again,
And wrote as one made mad with thought.

“Farewell, farewell, yet not farewell.
I know the sullen, clanging knell
Of clod on coffin-lid means all
Is over. Yet the bleeding heart
Is oft too wounded to depart,
And so creeps in the buried pall.

“Oh, let my broken heart still true,
Come back with olive branch to rest
From thy proud presence. This were best;
Oh, this were best, indeed, for you.

“Mine ark is as some broken bark,
That ever buffets storm. The dark
Has mantled me. My fluttered dove
Went forth a fond, devoted love.
Now give it peace of death and rest,
Oh, fair and faultless, this were best.

“I loved you, lady—love you now,
With love intensified to pain;

184

But we must never meet again.
I write to give you back your vow.

“Oh, fair, white dove, the olive bough,
Lies deep submerged. My ship drives on
In deluge and in darkness. Night
Has compassed me at last, and now
Must you escape and live. But dawn
Is yours, and days of calm delight.

“Lo! here I sit, forlorn, to-night,
And calmly write and sign for you
Mine own death-warrant.
The disdain
Of universal earth was naught
Had you but hovered in my sight.
I could have lived in you, forgot
The deep indignity, the stain,
The perils my young life passed through,
The hard reproaches and heart pain.
But all is over.
It is due
To your position, and to you,
To tell you I am that same Jain,
The convict Jain, Sir Francis Jain.

185

I bore that name because it was
My noble, gentle, father's name;
A name renounced the day he wed
My mother, and brought on his head
A father's curse.
In pride or shame,
I wore, and I shall wear that name.
I love, I bear that name, because
It was my sire's—all that he
In dying could bequeath to me.

“I would not palliate, nor claim
One touch of tenderness, no tear
From you, fair girl; from any one
Beneath the broad, all-seeing sun.
But I would have you know that name
Is my real name; that it is dear;
That I have worn it e'er, my friend,
Unshamed, and so shall to the end.

“I might have worn a nobler still,
Indeed might now, the lord of Rude.
But mine own proud, impatient will,
It rose and led me on, and hewed
Another path.

186

In solitude
My sire's sire childless weeps,
And waits, and mournful vigil keeps
For my return. I cannot bear
Nor brook the thought to turn me there,
To front again that iron face,
That let my father helpless die
Because he wed a peasant wife,
And chose a lowly walk in life—
That let my dying mother lie
In hovel and alone, while I
For battling for my mother's race
Prayed death from prison and disgrace. ...

“O sea green glory of the sea;
Sweet isle of song and history,
And fair-haired woman, with a grace
Of heaven in thy lighted face—
Thou, Erin, I was true to thee. ...

“We sometimes laugh so loud that we
From very joy must turn and weep.
The world is round. Extremes must meet.
We sometimes mourn so very deep

187

That we do laugh hysterically,
As if the bitter had been sweet.

....“It comes to be my strange belief,
From what my life has heard and seen,
That you may bend your ear, and you
May whisper soft as far-off bird,
Against the wall that lifts between
Intensest joy, intensest grief,
And so be quite distinctly heard.
The world is round. Extremes must meet.
The sweet is bitter; bitter sweet.

“Why, I sit smiling now. The tears
That had been prisoned long, long years,
Hard frozen—that refused to flow
For mine or for my father's woe,
Have flowed to-night in streams above
The grave of this new-buried love. ...

“'Tis pitiful, 'tis painful. Yet
With all this agonized regret,
That all is o'er, there has come
A strange, uncommon sense of rest.
My feet shall rest. My lips be dumb,

188

For earth has nothing I request.
And now to life's conclusion must
My lips be stopped as stopped with dust.

“As one, far traversing the West,
Finds some vast sea and troubled wave,
Some trackless sea of boundless shore
That shuts the world he would explore,
And so sits down and digs his grave,
And calmly waits his final rest,
So I sit waiting, sad, yet fond,
Half glad that earth has naught beyond.

“Not one fair foot-print marks my shore.
The Sea stretched forth his cold, white hands,
And leveled smooth the shining sands
Where your feet passed the day before.
Now all lies blank. I, now, no more
Shall look before. Let me look back
Along my lone life's dubious track.

“I had a friend, one friend, who stood
Like some high-lifted, lighted tower,
Above the stormy, sea-foam flood
On peril's front, in peril's hour.

189

Oh, lady, know you what it is
To know unskaken soul like this?

“The stakes were freedom and renown.
God's freedom to the grandest race
That ever groaned in the disgrace
Of foreign court and foreign crown.
'Twas freedom or a felon's chain.
We staked and lost. ... We would again.

“My fellow-captive was my friend;
A braver, nobler man than I;
A man who ever sought to die,
And so lives on unto the end.
You ask me where may now abide
This friend so chivalrous, so tried?
This man so braver, nobler born,
Who held all rank in splendid scorn?

“Hold back your face. You may not care
To hear his name and place till you
Have seen how faithful and how true
He was, and what his soul could dare
In deadly circumstance, or how
He grew the knave I find him now.

190

“Why, we were chained—chained hand to hand:
And in this prisonment we grew
In firmer friendship than they knew;
And, spite of hard oppression, stood
Like two tall poplars of the wood,
Half wedded, for he was more grand
Than proudest noble of the land.

“At last one night we broke this chain,
In wild Australian fortress. We
Could only hear the tumbling sea
Break hard against the beetling wall,
And lift and fall, and that was all;
We knew not where we were, no more
Than midnight storm of driving rain
That beat the sea and shook the shore.

“We reckless climbed the beetling wall,
Down which it seemed a ghost would fall.
And when we breathed free air again,
And when we touched the fields and fled,
While I crept by as one nigh dead,
Why, every loose link of my chain,
The iron ball I dragged in pain,

191

He bore upon his shoulders broad
All day, as if some demigod.

“We broke the chains anew, and then
Once more were free, unfettered men.
But cursed chains leave a trail and trace
Sometime, that years shall not efface.

“At last, outworn and faint we stood
Far off against the upland wood,
Where stretched two dim, dividing trails.
One led o'er mountains, one through vales,
And all were as unknown to me
As unnamed isles of middle sea.

“We knew no road, no sign, or chart;
Knew naught at all. We only knew
That there would be a deadly chase
O'er mountain height, by mountain base.
We bore full heritage of hate,
For we were leaders; were the two
That stood as pillars to the gate
Of freedom, while the brave passed through.

“We knew that we must instant part,
Take divers ways, in hopes that one

192

Might grope the tangled jungle through,
And with a bold, unbroken heart
Escape, to undertake anew
The work we nobly had begun.

“He bade me take my choice of trails.
I did refuse. He smiling drew
A halfpence forth, and gaily threw
Our only fortune in the air.
‘Come! choose, my comrade! Heads or tails?’
How he did counterfeit the care
That burrowed deep his mighty heart!
I knew his heart was breaking—knew
The while that all this dash and dare
Was done for me, to make me bear
With fortitude, my further part.
I chose. And so we parted there
That instant, with one last embrace,
All silent, with averted face.

“Through lonely vales he took his flight;
My way led up the mountain height;
And mark what followed: Weak and worn,
My body bent, my bare feet torn,
I sought safe shelter for the night

193

In densest copse along the height,
Where great rocks rose above a cave,
As if to guard some giant's grave.

“I gathered sticks, struck flint and steel,
And when the flames leapt up, behold!
The cave was one vast mass of gold—
More gold than England's vaults conceal!
To only think that all this dross
Depended on a copper's toss.

“I gathered gold. In pain and fear,
I sought the sea with burdened hands—
I bribed my way to better lands;
But secret I returned each year,
To seek my comrade far and wide,
And up and down; and all in vain.
Each year I gathered heaps of gold
From my great coffers hidden deep,
Where spotted tigers house and sleep.
I gave—gave generous and bold
As Cæsar, so to bribe, reward
The sheep-men, officers or guard,
To bring me my lost friend again.

194

They told me he had surely died
From beasts or flood. They lied! they lied.

“Forgive me, love. Yea, pity me.
Man's face is fronted to a wall.
He prophesies to-morrows. All
His days, he plans of days to be;
And yet, poor fool, he cannot see
One inch before, around, or o'er
The wall that circles him. And I
Am even as the blindest. Could
I foreknow that he should rise,
Red-handed, in my road at night,
Arrayed in that dark robber's guise?
This man who erst stood up to die
For honor's sake?
We two once stood
On peril's bristled height alone;
We two, in God's high-lifted light,
Exulting but in purity.
Shall I desert him overthrown?
Forsake my friend because his soul
Is slimed and perishing?
Ah, me!
'Twere base to fly and leave a friend

195

All bleeding on the battle-field,
Without one shelt'ring hand or shield
To help when battle's thunders roll.

“But that were little. Dying there
On glory's front, with trumpet's blare,
And battle's shout blent wild about—
The sense of sacrifice, the roar
Of war, the soul might well leap out—
The snow-white soul leap boldly out
The door of wounds, and up the stair
Of heaven to God's open door,
While yet the hands were bent in prayer.
But ah! to leave a soul o'erthrown,
And doomed to slowly die alone!

“The body is not much. 'Twere best
Take up the soul and leave the rest.
It seems to me the man who leaves
The soul to perish, is as one
Who gathers up the empty sheaves
When all the golden grain is done.

“Farewell! I reach this man the hand
That had been yours, that he may stand.

196

Farewell! Forget me, lest you hear
The world your love insult with sneer.
Farewell; this robber was my friend,
Is now, and shall be to the end.

“Farewell! God help me now. For such
Hard conflicts tide about my heart
That I do hesitate.
The part
Of man is in the ranks to die
Hard battling for the shining right;
But when all things partake a touch
Of darkness and a touch of light,
The skein comes tangled. Then the woof
And warp of life proves reason-proof.
O heaven! for a sword so true
Of edge that I might cleave this through!

“The years lift like a stair. Arise
And climb the stairway to the skies,
And look possession of the world
That lies quite conquered at your feet.
Yet range not far, I do entreat;
Black clouds will cross the fairest skies,
The fullest tides must ebb and flow;

197

The proudest king that e'er unfurled
His banners, met his overthrow.

“Farewell, farewell! for aye, farewell.
Yet must I end as I began.
I love you, love you, love but you—
I love you now as never man
Has loved since man and woman fell,
Or God gave man inheritance,
Or sense of love, or any sense.
And that is why, O love, I can,
Lift up to you my burning brow
To-night, and so renounce you now.”

XVII.

It took two large, brown envelopes,
Of Congress-shape; in fact, such ones
As Congressmen frank home by tons,
To hold this tale of blighted hopes.

He sealed them tight, addressed each one,
Then licked the unlicked Washington,

198

And stamped them fully.
Then he rose
And, feeling really he had done
All things a gentleman could do,
He rolled a cigarette.
Then unto
This fuse he plied a match, and blew
A booming, double volley through
His lifted and beclouded nose;
As if some double-barreled gun
Shot at the ugly world below,
The cold, cold, cruel world, you know.

The letters sent, he paced the floor
Impatiently, and until morn,
As one most hopeless, in proud scorn.
What would she do?
What could he more?
These things he questioned o'er and o'er,
Till morn made answer at the door.

He was as one condemned to death,
Who respite prays, with bated breath,
And clutches quick and breaks the seal
To see what fate may now reveal.

199

He snatched this from the messenger,
And read these hasty lines from her.

“My dear Sir Francis,
Come! O come!
I stand with arms outstretched. The door
Is wider even than before.
My eyes droop down, my lips are dumb,
I walk all time the empty floor.
I will not sit until you come.

“Is love, indeed, a little thing
To be put by at time like this,
While we stand mute and wondering?
O come, Sir Francis! come now, come!
Shall my life round to this small sum?
Shall I make love a trade, and change,
Childlike, for aught that falls amiss,
And range as common women range?

“O, do not think me over-bold!
You say you suffer unto death.
Then this is my excuse. The cold
And cautious world, with poison breath,
I know right well will sentence me

200

To infamy for this. I see
No other road of duty. So I dare
Do that which I deem fit and fair.

“As for the chains and prison's shame,
Take no reproach. 'Tis nobler far
To bear defeat than shine a star
In circled seat of rounded fame.
I reach my hand in trust to you,
I give unshaken faith, the same
As when you rode with shining name,
The lion of the Avenue.

“I give all this, Sir Francis Jain.
Pray hold it not in proud disdain.
And do you know what little task
My love in full return shall ask?

“Why, it is this. When you shall stand
Beside me, and shall hold my hand,
And I shall lift my happy face
Full into yours, O love, then you
Shall promise that if e'er disgrace
Touch me, that you will prove as true.

201

“Think thrice, Sir Francis, ere you speak,
For time is strong and man is weak.
Think thrice, then come, and that shall be
As God's own covenant to me.

“Now bear with truth, and hear me through.
I am a liar, traitor. You
Are truth itself compared to one
Who calls, heart-broken and undone.
Your truth has conquered me, for now
I know that man may keep a vow.

“I am no Baroness. Nay, I
Am an impostor, and the lie
Is crushing me.
There, take it all!
You hold the ladder. Let me fall
Or hold me to my place, and you
Shall be my star the cycles through.

“Ah! you despise me. That you may
Despise me thoroughly, I pray
Hear this. I once was wed
To one I loved as never man
Was loved since history began.

202

He left me to my death. He fled,
But he is dead, thank God, is dead.

“I speak it earnestly. And yet
I cannot, cannot all forget
Of that great love. It comes to me
As climbs some storm-sea o'er the beach;
Yea, comes like some great, tidal sea
And teems and drowns my topmost reach.
You see, O love, I offer you
No virgin love, yet love as true.

“I do confess the world is dear,
For stormed and cruel was my youth;
And now I stand low-humbled here,
Divested of my crown, as one
Who hath some grand reign just begun.
The world is dear; but dearer truth,
If I can find a man as true,
O love, to challenge truth, as you.

“My broken heart, pierced through and through,
Throbs audibly. I would reveal
Its utmost chamber now to you
And not one sacred niche conceal. ...

203

And you have all. My weakness is
A longing for a love like this
God promised me, and for a name,
A proud, fair name. Shall I confess
That this same name, the Baroness,
Was more to me, is dearer yet,
Than gold or lands? A crown of shame,
Alas! shall be my coronet.

“Go save your friend. Give him the hand
That had been mine. Then come to me,
If you, through all eternity,
Would save a soul. I cannot stand
Alone. This well-established lie
Is like a mill-stone to my neck, and I
Must reach some solid shore or die.

“Yet if there lives on all this earth
One man as true, yea, half as true,
Yea, of one-hundredth part the worth
As this same friend that waits for you,
Why come, if you despise me not,
And let us haste, haste, seek the spot
Where he conceals, and reach this man
Two hands; two hands! for surely two,

204

Made strong with love, and reaching so,
Were stronger for his poor soul than
One hand made weak with pain and woe.”

As some brief-banished king that turns
Rejoicing to resume his throne—
As some bright light that leaps and burns
Above the darkness when the blown
Swift winds delight the leaping flame,
Sir Francis, fond and eager came.

For he had groped with sorrow through
The vale of desolation. He
Had learned how rare the fountains are
On life's long, level desert. Few
Had been his friends, and these were far
Away in banishment. He knew,
And strange, indeed, how few there be
Who know how rare is love! Ah me!
Who know the half way worth of it;
Or even love's delightful counterfeit!

205

XVIII.

We may presume Sir Francis swore
To do all she had asked. To stand,
As she had stood, with reaching hand;
To help and to protect, if e'er
Scorn's finger dared to wag at her.
Indeed, no doubt, a great deal more
Was promised her, as he leaned o'er
The weeping Niobe, with all
The sunrise of his golden hair
Spilt down upon the deep nightfall
Of her dark hair, ungathered there.

'Twas very strange. He came that night
As swift as love; so glad, so fleet,
To find her falling at his feet,
Her face all tears, her full neck bare,
And all her black, abundant hair
Torn down and tossed in sorry plight.

'Twas very strange, this nervous fit
Of hers. Perhaps a bit of tact—

206

A woman's little game. In fact,
Had it not seemed so very strange,
And quite outside the common range,
I should not stop to mention it.

As for her reasons, you must know,
I scarce know aught about the sex.
An humble chronicler am I
Of facts. I cannot stop to vex
My brain, by giving reasons why
A woman will do thus and so.

Gods! Come to think of it, you know,
I think that's more than she could do.
But I would just suggest that you
Should bundle up these facts, and go
To some old man in double specs—
Some old, old man, who knows the sex.
Find some experienced old man,
The very oldest that you can.

The morning must succeed the night,
All storms subside. The clouds drive by,
And when again the glorious light
From heaven's gate comes bursting through,

207

Behold! the rains have washed the sky
As bright as heaven's bluest blue.

She would have, weeping, told him all,
Each name, each date, each circumstance,
Her father's crimes, the bloody chance
That brought her fortune, wrought her fall.
But he, he would not hear one word,
Nor scarce believed what he had heard.

“My ships are burned, I break no more
The hush of seas. My friend is found,
And all my life shall now be bound
With thee, and bounded by thy shore.
If your pure heart was pierced with pain
Of love that you can scarce forget,
Remember there is deeper stain
On my fair fame and coronet.”

He thought a time, then raised his head,
And in a deep, firm voice, he said,
“Now let the dead past bury its dead.
I reach my hand, and over all
I veil the dead past as a pall.

208

“Be tranquil, thou. Persuade thy soul
To peace. My life seems perfect now,
Thy broken life shall be made whole;
My friend shall lift his ample brow,
In time, and climb to better things,
Supported by thine angel wings.”

O, they, indeed, were lovers now,
Fast bound by many a breathless vow
And promise, seal-set, o'er and o'er,
On ruddy lips and lifted brow,
That naught should ever part them more.
The days went by one calm delight,
And night scarce wore the shade of night.

XIX.

There stands a sort of Chinese box,
A pied-house, topt with ginger-bread,
And speckled, as if from a pox.
An imitation, it is said,
Of the Venetian. That may be,
For it looks awfully at sea.

209

O, pity for the decent blocks,
Of square, and, doubtless, honest rocks,
That make this mixed and mottled pox.

O, shade of Michael Angelo,
Whom only death set in the shade!
Forgive my countrymen, and O,
Forget their large contempt of thee;
Forgive their crime's enormity,
In all these piles of bricks displayed.

What shame, what shame, to treat earth so!
My honest builders, do you know
That every bit of brother clay
That builds a wall or paves a way,
Is ever struggling to express
Some gentler form of loveliness?

Behold the beauty of a tree,
A leaf, a bud; and hearken, ye—
The vilest bit of stuff that falls,
Takes form and blossoms, if it can,
Along the lonesome path of man,
And makes earth beautiful to see.
But O, those melancholy walls!

210

'Tis hardly treating with respect
Your brother earth, it seems to me,
To give it such deformity.

I beg your pardon. We return
To our mutton, sheep, or lambs—
The gentle lambs, whom both, I learn,
Are going to the crowded jams
In that pied-house, where men have sent
A thousand pictures to a Fair,
I speak with license, understand;
Perhaps a hundred had been lent,
But then a thousand sounds, in verse,
Or doggerel, or something worse,
More rounded, and a deal more grand.

XX.

A ripple rustled through the crowd,
Then all eyes left the leaning wall,
And all did reach their necks, and all
Did whisper eagerly and loud,

211

She leaned reliant on his arm,
As if she felt that never harm
Or accident or any shame
Could touch her now, whatever came.
She moved beside him like a dream,
And calm as some deep, sea-bound stream.

A dense and crowded night it was.
Now bear in mind, my duty is,
And was, and will be, touching this,
To give the facts, and not the cause.

Well, they were packed and jammed that night,
The noblest of the Avenue,
Till all seemed so uncommon tight,
They scarce could twist them through and through.

I know not why, yet one might guess,
They came that night because they knew
The lion and the lioness
That sultry eve would come to view
These grand gifts of the Avenue.

And this might argue there were spies
To tell not only what they did,

212

But what they meant to do.
The lid
On Dame Pandora's box, or Miss
Pandora, I much fear me, lies
Quite loose and careless; blown about
By any counter winds that rise;
And my conclusion of it is,
The greatest evils she lets out
Are lover's secrets. What say you,
Fair ladies of the Avenue?

The lovers passed from hall to hall,
And sudden, in a bright room, faced
A man, with many a friend around.
'Twas Doughal; he whom we have traced
Through flood and flame; whom we have found
A brigand, cursed, damned and disgraced.
He stood up comely, proud and tall;
A stalwart, sort of second Saul,
A man that overtopt them all.

He seemed to see, yet saw her not;
His eyes ranged distant as his thought,
She started, shrunk back in her place,
As if a flame had struck her face.

213

“'Tis Doughal! and the man does live!
The one man lives that now can give
The lie to my pretentious life,
Before I be Sir Francis wife!

“Now must one perish: 'tis not I,
But cold, cursed, Doughal, that shall die!”

Sir Jain was drunk with love. He bent
His head, his eyes with fond intent
But did not hear her, did not see
Her grief, nor guess her agony.

The two passed on. Her face was white.
Sir Francis nothing saw but light
And love, bright shining like a star
In his broad firmament of bliss.
Men are not shrewd as women are;
A woman feels an atmosphere,
Sees all, where men see naught at all.
Her instincts lead where reasons fall.
Now it may be the reason is,
Her little feet are set more near
The light of golden gates ajar.

214

Sir Francis did not choose just then
To front his friend in crowds of men;
But bided better time and place
To bring the two first face to face.
And so the lovers silent passed.
Her eyes upon the floor steadfast,
Were burning flame. No tear, no sigh,
No livid lip, no pallid brow,
No starting back, no trembling now.
She only murmured, “he must die!”

XXI.

With Doughal stood the advocate,
Quite proud and honored to be seen
In this learned grand Greek's company.
He clutched his button-hole, and he
Clung hard and held him fast as fate,
And glancing 'round, back, and between,
Began all breathless to relate
How this Sir Francis, one midnight,
Was set upon by tramps; how one
Of these same fellows had betrayed

215

The band; that now the trap was laid;
But strangest thing beneath the sun—
And here he clutched him close and tight,
Let fall his voice, looked left and right,
Held close his head, and, whispering, said:
“The leader of this midnight band
And this Sir Jain are hand in hand!”

“A new Dick Turpin,” smiled the man,
And stroked his beard, and stood up tall,
And calmly smiled his scorn on all.
“A poor, weak imitation he.
I hate all copyists.
My plan
Would be to paint a picture; do
A thing original. Now you
Have room to paint eternity,
In this vast land where scarcely yet
God's rounding compass has been set;
And, for a land so very new,
Your skies are glorious to see.

“And yet your silly painters paint
The old Italian figure, saint
And dark Madonna; all outdone

216

The century they first struck oil.
Paint nature, sir; cast off the coil
Of custom. Why paint mortal more,
Where God leads ever on before,
As visible as your broad sun?
Ah no! Your feeble painters paint
Their imitations, till the taint
Of felony attaches.
Be
Patient, sir, and pardon me;
But will you tell me what you call
That red wall-paper that hangs the wall?”

Once more the man glanced left and right,
Then knit his brows from nose to crown,
And then he held a pamphlet out,
And half-way turned to catch the light.
Then with a stiff, important pout,
As if to say, beyond a doubt,
You put it rather strong, read out,
“The Bay of Naples—Loaned by Brown.”

“Not loaned by Brown! Done, you mean?”
“Yes, loaned by Brown, sir. Loaned! You see,
It does not matter here so much

217

Who painted this, or such and such,
Not half so much, sir, as to know
Who owns the picture now. 'Twas seen
Last year, in this same annual show,
Made up, you know, by gen'rous loans,
‘The Bay of Naples—Loaned by Jones.’
'Twas loaned by Smith the year before;
And, this same thing you think a bore,
If you took note, would teach to you
The changes on the Avenue.”

The robber chieftain smiled and cast
The fellow roughly off, and passed
Along the crowd with lifted head.
“A vulgar beast,” he laughing said.
“A knave! to patient stand and hear
A stranger taunt his countrymen,
And all their honest aims in art,
And never dare to take their part.

“This land is fair, but many rocks
Jut out and welcome you with shocks.
The very men a man should meet,
Hide modest in some sweet retreat,
And brass meets brass with knuckled knocks.

218

Yea, 'tis the best land that hath been,
An honest town, with all its din;
A Hercules in lion skin;
A brave young world of manly men
All should be proud to champion.

“This rose tree has its thorns, and he
Is but a prickle on the tree.
As for this crowd, these pictures here,
'Tis but the froth that hides the beer.”
Half laughing thus, in merry mood,
He came to where Sir Francis stood.

XXII.

His lovely lady, from the hour
She came, had felt the tempest lower,
Like black storm banners in the skies,
And had not lifted up her eyes.

Her eyes, her splendid eyes, bent down;
Her large and ever-lifting eyes,
They only felt that sudden frown—

219

She felt his eyes fixed on her there,
Like dead men's eyes in awful stare.
Her rich, red lips fell white with fear,
As breathing deadly atmosphere.

“O come, Sir Francis, take me hence!
This air is poison. Here be men
Who frown like gathered thunder, when
The lightnings sleep. My woman's sense
Perceives it. See! the women stare,
And gather in their garments, where,
A very little time before,
They crowded round me by the score.

“Nay, nay, not that! nor do I fear;
I cling the closer unto you,
For all that men may say or do,
To bring you shame. But I feel here
Some dark, and ghost-filled atmosphere.”

And now they stood the centre floor,
And suddenly all men stood still,
And women stared with common will,
And she crept closer than before.
She lifted up her great, black eyes

220

To his bent eyes, then let them fall—
She only lifted her black eyes
To his bent eyes, and that was all.

'Twas as some covenant of old,
Renewed with every vow re-said.
He bended down his lofty head,
Till her dark hair was dashed with gold.

Above the two the great lights burned,
It seemed with fierce, uncommon glare.
She leaned the closer as they turned;
She gathered close her robes to go,
When quick the stranger from his place
Stepped forth, and glancing in her face,
He cried, half hissed, hystericly,
“My God! Sir Francis, it is she!
My fair wife of the wilderness!
Is this your boasted Baroness?”

XXIII.

Her great, proud, bended eyes no more
Kept sad and frightened to the floor,

221

Beware of those who silent bear
All things; for they all things will dare,
When at the last they feel one touch
Of wrong or tyranny too much.

She stood up taller than before.
She looked him firmly in the face.
She did not speak, and not a trace
Of terror, rage, or aught swept o'er
Her calm, proud soul.
She only drew
Her splendid arm more firmly through
Her lover's, as she raised her head,
And hissing through her teeth, she said,
“He lies! he lies! This stranger lies!
I know him not! ... For this he dies!”

Sir Francis did not hesitate
He made his choice. He knew that fate
Had drawn her sword-line in the sand;
That each man now must play his part,
With earnestness so more than art,
And stepped across with tight-clutched hand.

222

'Twas now much more than life or death.
'Twas love, and no man drew a breath.
They did not stir, nor speak, nor yet
The lady's presence quite forget.
The two men stood, and each did stare,
And glare as rival tigers glare.

Sir Francis looked, to look him through,
Then said, slow whisp'ring, “Who are you?”
“I am that lady's husband, sir,
And will not brook your touch of her!”

Her lover staggered back as though
The man had struck an iron blow.
But instant he recovered.
“I
Must beg that you will see my friend.
I call you liar! to the end
That we may meet, for you must die!
Pray let me pass! Come, Baroness—
Nay, no more words.
To-morrow morn,
Why, we will answer scorn for scorn.
But here are ladies, sir, and you—
Ah! nobly done! and now, adieu.”

223

Then Doughal bowed his face. As one
Who feels that never more the sun
Shall shine for him, he sought the night,
And, homeless, roamed in sorry plight
The narrow streets, and waited morn
And death, less dreadful than this scorn.

“O dear Adora. I would give
The round years of my life to live
But one pure day with thee again.
To sit again in sweet retreat,
To only see thy sacred face,
Uplifting in its childish grace,
While I sat silent at thy feet!
O, I must speak—in vain, in vain!
My hands are cursed with crime, my name
Unstained till now is black with shame.
It is her curse. I feel it now,
It lies like Cain's brand on my brow.
I cannot lift my face, and I
At morn shall take my place to die.”

224

XXIV.

The lady scarce a word had heard.
She seemed as some poor, fluttered bird;
A bird that hurries anywhere
When storm is trembling in the air.

And did he question her that night,
Poor girl in all her sorry plight—
That night, anticipating morn,
Ere he took hurried leave of her?
Of her strange life where passions stir?
Her awful secret, love, or scorn?

I know not that. But I should say
He spoke her gently as before,
And, waiting her own time to speak,
He gently pressed her pallid cheek,
And passed her through her opened door,
And so, descending, sped away
Without one question, aye, without
One touch of disbelieving doubt

225

Or dread, that on the morrow fate
Might smile and make the crooked straight.

The while strong Doughal could not guess
What meant this noble Baroness.
He could not trust his ears, his eyes,
He only saw his splendid queen
Had grown more fair than man had seen
This side the walls of Paradise.

XXV.

I hate reporters, ranging wide
The universe, and mounting all,
And looking down on either side,
Like curving tom-cats on a wall.
Like poor Poe's Raven, first the beak
Is in your heart, and then the cheek!

What chance for romance? Mystery?
I hate astronomers, the fools
That spin the stars by iron rules,
And make this level earth a ball,

226

That tumbles like a bumble-bee,
And bumps among the blossomed stars,
Till some fall, loosened by the jars.

O, that the world were what she seems,
A broad, vast, level land of dreams;
A boundless land, a shoreless sea,
A God-encompassed mystery—
With far edge stretching, climbing to
The sapphire walls of fading blue,
That touch on far eternity!

The old mythology knew one
Who never had been known to sleep,
But saw, as the all seeing sun.
Well, he was a reporter.
He
It was that could not keep
His nose from any mystery.
He must have married, for, I see,
He has a splendid progeny.

O thou that ever tearest down!
Let me bear water in a seive,
Thou curst iconoclast. Let me

227

Walk down my vale of mystery
Untracked, and build my wooded town,
With never sound of hammer. I
Implore you spare me while I live—
Yet spare me chiefly when I die.

Yea, I will bribe you all. But see,
I have not aught to give. Ah, well!
Will speak you warmest rooms in hell,
With south exposure—next to me.

O, God! again to be sincere!
To have a motive, to give o'er
All reckless roaming, to draw near
To Nature's temple, and once more,
With bowed brow, and with naked feet,
Front Nature, awful and austere,
In truth and silentness.
How sweet
Is truth! How cool the leafy path,
The far-off, west-wood hermit hath!
There all is earnest, pure like snow.
But here dwells mockery. Lo!
The dyer's hand takes tinge and hue
Of that he deals in.

228

I was true
To Nature, did not dare to jest
In sacred temples of my West.
But reverence forgets me now,
And here I jest all day: I dare
To laugh, because I do not care
For Aaron's calf, old Egypt's cow,
Or young Manhattan's bull—or bear.

Laugh down the gods. Be brave, and dare
All deities that are not fair.
The men of France are brave. The Main
She hath no braver men to give—
But then their women are so plain,
Their men they scarcely care to live.

Yet still there are some mysteries,
And bloody scenes that no man sees.
For you must know, life's river flows
Slow seaward, bearing floating chips
And paper boats with sunny sail,
That tack about, and shout, and hail,
As changeful as the wind that blows.
Then there be waifs that hug the land,
Frail maids that reach familiar hand,

229

Frail men that lodge by bank and ford;
But this same stream bears silent ships,
In middle sea, strong built and grand,
Broad sombre ships that no men board,
Still muffled ships that no man knows.

XXVI.

The lady at her window kept
Her watch all night, nor waked or slept.
She felt Sir Francis yet would come
To her for mercy. And she knew
The tiger nature then would rise
And light the fury of her eyes,
And that her lips would not be dumb.

One time she rose with hands clasped tight,
And leaning looked far out the night,
And longed that he would come, that she
Might throw her at his feet, and be
Forgiven. Then she turned away
In tears and terror, and did say,

230

“No, no! man's hand hath ever been
Against me. To the bitter end
Must I bear all, without one friend,
Or one to lean upon. Yet, when
All's won; well done ... My heart, what then? ..

“I love poor Doughal, love him true
As lioness with lolling tongue
That crouching licks her fondling young,
Sprawled on his lithe back fanning her,
The while she glares the forest through.
My curse it crushes him. ... and yet
It was deserved. Shall I forget?
No! No! Now let my mad blood stir!
My strong hand clutch the coronet!”

Sir Francis sat alone. His friend,
A strong, brave and accomplished man,
Had come with compliment, and plan
Of meeting in the Park at dawn;
Had done his work in haste and gone
To speak his fellow; to the end,
That no man sighted through the night,
Two dark-winged ships, like birds in flight.

231

'Twas nearing dawn. Yet still alone
Sir Francis sat. His brow was calm,
His face was in his lifted palm,
And all things seemed as still as stone.
His thoughts were all of her.
The Day,
The unboxed freightage there that lay,
Just landed from the ship To Be—
The ship that now had crossed the sea,
That lonesome sea that ever flows
Twixt day and day, that no man knows—
This unpacked freightage there that lay
Held unto him strange merchandise,
And yet he would not lift his eyes.

His thoughts were all of her. No care
Or thought of self intruded there.
His world was all in her. Her name
Was on his lips; like the blown flame
Her form was ever floating there,
More mobile, more majestic, fair,
Than she had ever been before.
She filled all space, possessed the air,
She stood before as to implore,

232

Yet still as silent she did seem,
As star-born beings of a dream.

“Sir Francis Jain! the night is gray
With age. Behold the grizzly dawn
Comes driving up to herald day;
And we must instantly begone.

“All's well! due preparation made
And wise precaution. It is laid
Within the Park, on new ploughed land—
Aye, mind the step! give me your hand—
There! sit you close, draw tight your cloak.
Now as we drive—no! will not smoke?
Ah, yes! this field as I have said—
A splendid place to hide the dead;

“And has been used, as it appears,
For this same thing for years and years.
A splendid thing. But, then, no doubt
The gentlemen take ample care
To not entomb too many there,
Lest some reporter smell them out.

233

“The weapons, pistols. This you know,
I swore to have, or else to fight
The man and bully him all night;
And this, Sir Francis, saves for you
The least of care. For, were you not
Through all, the champion pistol shot,
With half-ounce derringers?
Well, I
Do now confess I had to lie;
Protesting all the while that you
Were as a stranger; that I knew
Not anything about your parts,
Or least attainment in the arts
Of war. But that I did prefer
The stubbed, bull-dog, derringer
—The good saints keep my soul from harm—
Because it was a gentlemanly arm.

“The time is dawn, when we shall see
The first gray sparrow in his tree.
The distance twenty steps; advance,
And shoot, as suits your choice or chance.
But drive, Jehu! The time flies fast.
'Tis evil sign to be the last,
Besides, 'tis scantest courtesy.”

234

XXVII.

The coachman dashed at double pace.
A light struck full Sir Francis' face
And startled him. He had not heard,
He had not heeded one small word,
That his impetuous friend had said.
The beam of light struck like a sword.
He started up, thrust forth his head,
Then clutched his friend in eagerness,
“Stop! stop! I say! that light, that light!
'Tis from my lady's window height,
'Tis from my love the Baroness.

“Nay, stay, I say, one instant stay,
Just where you see that lone light play.
I will uplift my face once more,
This last, and for his life implore.
You do not understand. Yet stay,
There still is time enough to slay.
One instant 'neath that window sill,
Then drive; drive where and as you will.”

235

The iron feet like thunder drew
The fire from the rocks and flew,
Then reined them plunging.
Instantly
That window on the Avenue,
That burned all night, now upward flew,
And quick a dark dear face leaned through.

Her face was pitiful with tears,
Her hands clenched tight. She seemed to be
All shaken with her trouble. There
Were streaks of frost strewn through her hair,
That had not touched her brow before.
He reached his face and did implore
Her mercy for the man.

She threw
Her hands in hatred and despair.
“Go! kill him! kill him dead!” she cried.
“He lives forever in my light,
His shadow makes my life as night.
He stands before me—has for years,
Stood like a bar across the door
Of my existence. Go! God speed
Your hand in this most holy deed!”

236

“You kill my love!” he, pleading, cried.
“This boundless, lawless love, for you
It shall not live this dark deed through.
I tell you, if this man must die,
My love shall die as well, and I
Shall range earth like a frightened ghost,
Despising her I love the most.
This love this night has nearly died”—

“Then let it die quite dead this morn!”
The lady cried, in screaming scorn.
“Yea, I will give it sepulture
In my gold thimble. Nay, a seed,
A hollowed bird-seed, gallant sir,
I surely think me will be all
The tomb a love so frail and small
As this of yours will ever need.”

The window clanged, the light was gone.
The strong steeds plunged and forward flew
The instant, and as if they knew
The bloody mission men were on.
They wheeled, and down the Avenue
They dashed before the near gray dawn.

237

They bent their necks—they fairly flew
Far out the sounding Avenue.

And she, the supple lioness,
With fury tossed, and love and hate,
Scarce knowing what she dared of fate,
Dashed after them. The Baroness
Was her old self. Right well she knew,
To track, to follow, crouch close by
And hear, see all. Her child-life through
Had been but this.
“Now let him die!”
She hissed as from a clump of wood,
Close at their side she leaning stood.

They stood in place, face fronting face;
Both careless quite of what went on
And calmly waiting the full dawn.
Like some tall antique chiseled stone
Tall Doughal stood—stood quite alone.
Some surgeons, as if accident
Had drawn them careless to the place,
With ready lint and implement
Along a hill kept distant pace.

238

No friend had Dougal there. Alone
He stood, as one cast out, unknown;
At last he spake, and slowly said,
In soft, low voice, with bended head:

“I have this one request to make.
A little one. And it is made,
Not, I assure you, for my sake,
But for another's. Let the dead
Walk noiseless down this lane of nights,
With muffled lip and earth-bound breast,
Nor speak to startle love's delights.
My secret and my last request,
Is of your love, the Baroness—
She is a Baroness; no less.”

Two dark eyes glared from out the wood.
Her heart beat tempests where she stood.
And Doughal laid his hand upon
His heart, and tender-voiced went on:
“But briefly, this is my request.
I know that I come here to die,
I know that deadly hand, and I—
No matter. Let my corse be laid,
With this vest buttoned to my breast,

239

Just as it is. Let no man dare
Invade the secret hidden there;
But let me 'neath this same sod rest,
With her dear image on my breast.”

Sir Francis and his second bent
Their heads in quiet, cold consent,
Then lifted hands in firm conclave,
That what he asked they freely gave.
And then he bowed, and only spake—
“Ah, thank you, thank you, for her sake.”

A signal gun far up the Sound,
Like cannon wheels on frozen ground
Came rumbling in.
A little bird
From bunch of grass flew sudden out,
And swinging circled sharp about,
Then tangled in a sprangled tree,
And there, as if the whole world heard,
Began its morning minstrelsy.

Sir Francis' aching brow was wet
With agony.
Could he retire,

240

Now at the last one little pace?
He saw his friend before him stand—
His one true friend of all the land,
The noblest man that ever yet
Had fronted him, stand up to die!
Stand up to die at his own hand,
All mantled in dark mystery.

Could he forgive him? But the world?
Sir Francis smiled. His proud lip curled
To think that he could stop to care
Whether it recked him false or fair;
Valiant-hearted or otherwise,
In its uncertain and jaundiced eyes.

But she! He started at the thought;
He bit his lip and tasted blood.
He shook like sere leaf where he stood.
He caught his breath, for had she not
Cried, kill him, kill him! kill him dead!
He clutched his hand, threw up his head,
Looked at the man, drew hurried breath,
And doomed him in his heart to death.
He pitied him. He prayed; did ask

241

His God's forgiveness with bent head. ...
And then his love for her lay dead,
And duty took his hand and led
The sad man's soul to do his task.

“Time! One!”
Two hands rose high in air;
“And Two!” Two hands fell sloping down,
“And three!” They level fell, and there
Was graveyard silence everywhere
That touched the far-off waking town.

A little bird sat swinging slow
At intervals and singing low,
With head held cutely down sidewise,
And then it stopped and ceased to trill,
And sharply peered with bright pink eyes
As wondering why all was so still.

“Advance! and fire as you will!”
The surgeons stop upon the hill!
Step! step! a puff of smoke! a clear
And sharp shot ringing in the ear,
A left breast lifts as from a ball,
And Doughal totters as to fall:

242

Falls half-way down, comes up again,
Still fronting stern Sir Francis Jain,
And now he towers strong and tall
As if he never more could fall.
And does Sir Jain not flinch or fear?
His foeman draws uncommon near!

Grand Doughal now is stern and grim
With fury that devours him.
“Sir Francis, 'tis your turn to die.
I have reserved my shot, and I
Shall take my time to curse or slay—
You cannot turn, you cannot go,
But you must stand and facing so
Hear all that I may choose to say—
Nay, do not fear reproaches.
I
Have none to give; I wonder why
This shot you sent straight at my heart
Still lets me live to bear this part.
But we will die together now.
Bow down your head; I pray you bow,
And I will give you time to pray;
I beg you, pray. Bow down your head,
And as you pray shall you fall dead.

243

“Why I grow stronger now, and I
Recover from the shock and shot.
Have you request on earth, or aught
Of grace or charity forgot?
I pray you trust them all to me,
For now I feel I shall not die,
My blood comes tiding like a sea,
My heart beats brave, and strong, and free.

“Yea, trust me. It was my request,
That my wife's letters on my breast,
The picture of her saintly face,
This package nestled in its place,
Should with my dust forever rest,
And keep her secrets sacred.
You,
You know what honor is! how true
A true vow is, unto the end,
To her who has been more than friend.

“This package from my breast—why, what?
My God, Sir Francis, what is this?
By all the saints, it is your ball,
That you sent searching for my heart.
I beg your pardon, sir. 'Tis all my fault.

244

This package still will play its part.
I pray your pardon, sir. I had forgot;
You aim at hearts, and never miss.
Sir Jain, you have another shot.”

“My letters? O, my life! My love!”
There came a cloud of long, loose hair,
Two round arms reaching through the air.
“And have you loved me? Is it true,
That still, through flood and fire, you
Have borne these constantly above
Your brave heart, roaming anywhere?

“Sir Francis, friend, O, pity me!
I love this man, have loved him through
All time, and for eternity
Shall love him faithfully and true.”

Two pistols drop upon the ground.
Brave hand to hand each swift extends:
“I lose a bride, I win two friends;
But O, such friends! The wide world round
Knows not their peers,” Sir Francis cries.
“And lady, Baroness, and heir
To titles you will not despise,
Embrace your husband, Lord Adair.”

University of Virginia Library

2. PART II. ON FIFTH AVENUE.