University of Virginia Library

An autumn twilight on a quiet lake;
A silent house, with more than silence in it;
A boat, and a man resting on his oars;
A woman with him, looking at the shore,
And inland where the house was, and the trees.

Since that was all there was to be a picture
That she was tired of seeing so long, she said:
“Row me into the middle of the lake,
Where there shall be no eyes, or possible ears,
To watch or listen. We are alone, you say;
But we are not alone who are so near
A shore alive with silence. I can hear it,
And feel it holding me. It has cold arms,
Like one of those unnecessary monsters
That God must once have hidden in the sea
Because he was afraid of his own work.
He has done much to make himself afraid,
And more to make us wonder why he does it.
No, I am not afraid. I am only saying
We are too near that house where silence lives.”

“A most unlovely fancy, nevertheless,
For one so lovely as you are,” he said,
And smiled at her: “Well, it will not be noisy
Out there where we are going.”

“We are going
So far,” she said, “that we may not come back;
Or not as we are now.”

“I'll pray for that
While I am rowing; and you may as well
Pray also. There will be no harm in it,
And I shall see you—which is always prayer
For me, and prayer enough. ... So here we are,
With not an ear to listen, or an eye
To watch. My eyes are occupied with you,
But yours are always looking at the water—
As if to see a monster with long arms.
You will not see him—not unless you find
His image in your fancy. By this time
You must have heard an inward little voice,
Saying that you are free.”

“It is too soon,”
She said, “for me to hear too many voices,
Though I can hear a few that follow me.
And there are still our mortuary manners
To be remembered. We are not yet so free
That custom has forgotten us.”

“Not yet;
And I deserve a ribbon and a cross
For not forgetting that. You know by now
A love as careful of its counterfeit
As it was careless of its cost. You know
By now, and with all said, how much there was
Not said—and all for manners. That was right,
And we shall hold ourselves a little closer
For not outreaching death. There was a lapse
That I regret. There was no more than one;
And there was one only because ...”

“Be careful—
Or you will say it badly and be sorry.
And I can see no right that sorrow has
To follow us out here.” She sought his eyes
With hers, and smiled as if to punish him.

“If I was careless once, it was because
Life made you as you are. How, I don't know.
No more have I a knowledge to define
A few not all celestial elements
That I would not see elsewhere than in you.
Although a doctor, I would not remove
Their presence, or transmute them. As you are,
You are more perilous than snakes and lions,
Or anything in the sea; and as you are,
You are more than a man's life; mine, or another's.
You drove me away once, but I came back.
I came because you said you needed me—
Because you called me. I could hear men marching,
And I was all those men. I was an army,
And you the banners that were over me.
In a forgotten tune that you were drumming
On dim keys, aimlessly, in a dark room,
I could hear drums and pipes down all the ages
That I had waited. I had come home again,
Where no home was for me. I could not stay,
And could not go; for there was a man dying,
Unless my skill should save him. It was you
Who called me back again; and we were there,
Together where darkness was. If you had willed it,
You might have driven me into this lake to drown—
Or possibly not quite. We'll say, perhaps,
You might have driven as much of me to die
As would have been worth living, and left the rest
To go on as it might, ingloriously.
Sparing me that, you drove me back to life.
You might have driven me then to anything.
You drove me once to song.”

Waiting, he smiled,
And watched her fingers touching the cold lake
As if it scalded them. “If I did that,”
She said, “there must be power unfound in me,
Deserving a discovery. I daresay
If only more physicians would bring songs,
And sing them to us, they would save more lives.
What song is this of yours that I inspired?
Sing it, or say it. Was I playing it?”

“You played for me unseen; and as you played,
Music made words. I have not written them,
Or said them until now. Their only worth
Is in whatever there is of you in them—
Which, if assayed and analysed, appears
A little playful and equivocal:

‘Any tune in the world would have told him as well
As another of all that was there,
For a beggar with only a story to tell
And a woman with nothing to spare.
But you called, and a king who believed he was dead
Was alive and undying again:
It was you, and the night, and the stars overhead,
And the March of the Cameron Men.’”

“Yes, I remember—now,” she said. “I played it
There in the dark. I don't know where it came from.
Where do things come from that are so forgotten
That we have lost them and the names of them,
And are not sure we had them? You were coming,
And I was calling you with an old tune
That must for years have hidden in my fingers,
Waiting for you to come. Were the stars hidden
From you until you heard it? I hope not.”

He gazed at her uncertainly, and answered
As a man willing still to be assured:
“There was more hidden from me than the stars,
And you know that. All that I'm seeing now,
All that I waited for, and has been waiting,
Was hidden; and I was hidden from myself.
God, what it is for me to see you here—
You here, alone! I said there was an army
Marching along with me to find you there
That night, and so there was. It was an army
Of new days to be born of joy and hope,
A phantom regiment of realities
That now are—almost real. I hesitated
For the same reason that bewilders me
In seeing you here and saying it is you.
It may be well for us that we know slowly
What sorrow teaches; we know better then
What peace and freedom are when they are ours.
And freedom now is not for us alone;
For there's another free, there in that house—
The same house where I came and found you waiting.
You had been angry and implacable
So long before, and for so long been silent,
That I was nothing till I was a king:

‘In your smile was a gift of ineffable things,
And of more than all scholars have learned.
In a palace where beggars were richer than kings
There was more to be given than earned.
Not a murmur remained of a storm that was past,
Or of why it had happened, or when.
You had called, and he came; and he found you at last
In the March of the Cameron Men.’

“You are still giving, and more than I shall earn
If I live always. Love has a way sometimes
Of giving and of hiding what it gives
Until it withers and is not the same—
Yet this is not an hour for telling you
So much less than you know. It seized me then,
Much as another stanza that I made
Came out of nowhere—and, as one too many
Has always done, troubled the other two
Until it recognized itself and vanished,
Leaving the two sufficient. Now you know
The sort of minstrel I might be, if urged,
And honor me the more as a physician.
You may as well rejoice within you also,
For your sake and for my sake, and for his,
For what has come to be ... God, is it you—
At last! A smile would make me sure of you.
I am not asking you to laugh, you see—
Not now. Are you afraid I do not know?
Are you afraid that I'll forget myself
And be a fool—with him there, in that house?
No, I shall not do that.”

“I'm not afraid,”
She said, and smiled for him. “But I am hearing
The marching feet of all those Cameron Men.
They are going, I suppose, to kill somebody,
Or to be killed themselves. I wonder why
So many of our songs and melodies
That help us to forget, and make us happy,
Are born of pain, and oftener of defeat
Than victory. I believe those lines of yours
Told all you knew, all you will ever know,
About the melancholy why of things—
Out of which hope was born.”

“They were not made,”
He said, “to make you melancholy. Rather
I fancied you might recognize in them
A triumph coming to you from a distance,
Through a long darkness, to an open door
In your unhappy house. If you had been
Away from there, there would have been no house
Worth coming to; and if you had not smiled,
I should have gone again. Did you hear nothing
In those poor lines of mine to tell you so,
And make you happier for not sending me
Away from a closed door? Nature has done,
Since then, only as much as you have prayed for
With all but words. There was no need of words
To speak a wish or make a purpose clear
While you had eyes to ask. Did you get nothing
Of joy, or of release, or of thanksgiving
Out of those lines of mine?”

“Surely I did,”
She said, “But you said only some of them.
I shall be surer when I have them all
Of what it is they say, and of what music
It was that I was making when you came.
Men marching all go somewhere—some to freedom,
Some to captivity, and some to death.
The dead are free, I hope. I wish we knew.
Or—no, perhaps, I don't. Tell me the rest
Of that so joyful song you made for me
About those marching men. You should have said
It ended there, or should have given me all
There was of it to hear. Never since God
Made the first heart and ears that felt and waited,
Was anything not revealed less perilous
For leaving it half said.”

He studied her
And tried to laugh, but his accomplishment
Was only a small broken sound of doubt.
“Was it a woman who was saying that?”
He asked; and with a shrug that was a sort
Of answer to himself, he hesitated.
“There was an end of it that went like this,”
He said, “but it was meaningless to me,
As it will be to you. When a thing's done,
Only a novice goes on doing it:

‘When he left you again there were stars in the way
Of his eyes, and he wandered alone
In a dream that would mock him for many a day
With a music unheard and unknown;
Till at last he awoke, and remembered, and found
All there was that remained of it then.
There was only the sound of the world going round,
And the March of the Cameron Men.’

“Nothing, you see, to scare you or disturb you.
Nothing—or no more than a footed fancy
Chasing its tail. I would have let it go
And lost it as a vagrant—willing enough
To see no more of it. But I'll obey
My lady's humor when she bids me serve,
Although her whim may whistle me to danger.
There is no danger now. Why do you gaze
At everything but me? Why do you look
So long across the lake to see that house?
You cannot see it. There are too many trees.
And even if you should find it, and be in it,
You would be there alone. He is not there.
There's only an old garment all worn out—
A body that he was glad to leave behind.
What is he now but one far more a theme
For our congratulation than our sorrow?
There was no happiness in him alive,
And none for you in your enduring him
With lies and kindness. It was a wrong knot
You made, you two; and one knot more or fewer,
In a world where there are still so many knots,
Will be forgotten and will not be found
In the large histories. Why are you looking
At that place, always? Men will come tomorrow
And carry him away to his last home,
And to his first. There was no home on earth
For him, and none for you while he was here.
What is it makes you seek so curiously
For what you would not see if it were there?”

“Nothing. I thought I heard those Cameron Men.
Are they to march as long as I'm alive—
And over my grave, perhaps? ... Yes, I remember.
You asked a question that has had no answer.
Nothing—except that once I married him,”
She said, and waited with inquiring eyes.
She touched again the cold lake with her fingers,
And shivered as if she were there alone.
“A woman's fancy would go back to that,”
Said he, “and make her say it as a duty.
Her way of never letting go a thing
That's gone would make of healing and escape
A pleasant incubus to bite her dreams.
I have known prisoners, free at last, not wholly
At ease with freedom, or at home with it.”

“What had your lawless friends been at,” she asked,
“To be so loth to walk abroad again?
Had they been killing men? Had they been doing,
Not quite with our precaution and finesse,
What you and I have done so delicately?
Why start? We are free now, and are alone
On a cold lake; and a lake has no ears.”

She pierced him with a look that blinded him
Until he saw that she was humorous,
Whereat he smiled at her uncomfortably,
And partly laughed at her. “My faults,” he said,
“Are numerous and acknowledged, and are mine
For penance or for pardon, as may be.
I have seen opportunity like water
Flow through my fingers when I might have held it;
I have been told the word I should have said,
And have been silent when I might have said it;
With a short road before me, I have followed
Trails that have ended only in the long
Forlorn way of return; with my eyes open,
I have walked into brambles and been scratched.
I am not blameless; I am not unsinged,
Or spotless, or unbitten. Have I said so?
Yet there is more of me than my mistakes,
Or you and I would hardly be together
Here in the middle of this chilly lake,
With night soon covering us. There's more of me,
Be sure, than a man asking for a woman
Who would not have him if she doubted him.
I'm farther from the pliocene than that;
And you would soon see in my care for you
How much of care there is in a man's love
When it is love—which is a little more
Than any myopic science isolates
With so much carnal pride. Now you are smiling—
Either because you doubt me, or believe
My doubts are talking. There is more of me,
I hope, than a pathetic mechanism
Grinding itself to nothing. Possibly not,
But let me say there is; and let me feel
Inside me that I've done more good than harm,
With my mistakes and opportunities
All marked against me on the other side.
Leaving an inventory to your fancy,
I'll only say that I see many alive
Who might be dead if I had never lived.
Some I have saved who might have loved me more
If I had let them go as they were going.
Sometimes I have imagined I was God,
And hesitated. I have seen the end,
Before their trial, of last and desperate
Experiments, and I have not suborned
The best of me in hastening nature's worst
Indignities of anguish and despair
To nature's end. I have done this before;
And if again—I shall have killed no man.”

Once more she touched the water with her fingers,
And in the twilight smiled admiringly.
“A man's precision in extremities
Would say all that,” she said, “and would forget
How it might sound if on a judgment day
Some God, or some inflexible magistrate,
Without your genius in the differences,
Might hear it and then make you say it over.
Your chivalry says ‘I’—and mine says ‘we.’
We have not killed him. We have let him die.
And we shall find him as we left him there.
He will not hear the sound of our return,
But we shall hear those Cameron Men, I think,
Still marching, always marching. I can hear them
Where we are now. You may have summoned them
With those last lines of yours—that meant so little
To you that you would rather not have said them
Aloud to me. Why do you think you made them?
Or, if they made themselves, what right had they
To make a music that in you already
Was marching when I called for you to come?”

A laughter for a moment in her eyes
Was like a flash of cruel triumph passing,
At which he scowled and wondered, and then smiled—
As the betrayed and the defeated smile.
“You have not scored so unapproachably
As to be laurelled or to live in song—
Or not for that,” he said. “Am I the first
Who has confessed unwittingly misgivings,
Or premonitions, or the still small voice
That a man hears when he stakes everything
On Fate—whose name is yours? In face of all
The fairness of your magnanimity,
I'll still say that I did it. You are free.
I did it more for you than for my love—
Or so I did believe ... God—is it you
That I am looking at! Are we alone—
Here on this lake together, and at last
With all that was intolerable behind us?
You are not thinking. You are only free,
And are not yet aware of what it means.”

“Yes, I am free—if women are ever free;
And I am thinking—if a woman thinks.
You men, who from your scalps down to your toes
Are built of thought, are still debating it.
But I'll commit myself to your misgivings,
Your premonitions, and your still small voice,
And tell you what I think. ... Horrors—hear that!”

The unearthly ululation of a loon
Tore the slow twilight like a mortal yell
Of madness, till again there was a silence.
“Fate punctuates our words and purposes,
You see, and that was a full stop,” he said:
“It may have been a way of warning you
To say no more—except that you are happy,
Or that you will be when all this is over.
Tomorrow they will carry him away,
Out of that house, to sleep and to be done
With all his persecutions. You are free
Of them all now. And you are free to think—
Of what you will.”

“I'll tell you what I think,”
She said; and her calm eyes were like a child's,
Waiting for the reward of his approval:
“I think that when a woman and a man
Are on their way to make of their two lives
Deliberate and ceremonial havoc,
There's folly in going on if one of them
Sees what's ahead, knowing the other sees it
And shuts his eyes. I have paid once for ruin,
And once will do. I thought, before I thought,
Before I knew, that I could see fair weather
For you and me, and only friendliness
In every natural sign that led me on—
Till I found nature waiting like a fox
For an unguarded pheasant. But I saw it
In time to fly away and save myself,
And, for my flying wisely, to save you.
There are some promises of mine, I know,
And they are best forgotten. If remembered,
They would be treasured more if broken and lost,
Like placeless remnants that are in most houses,
And in most lives. We stare at the old things,
Until they are all blurred with memories
That move and hum for us monotonously,
Like old ghosts playing on forgotten strings
We cannot see or hear. Your sound of the world
Going round is not unlike it.”

A new chill
Now falling on the lake was not so cold
Or certain as a freezing realization
That gripped his heart. What sort of ignominy
Was this that pierced him with an innocence
More venomous than contempt? It was not that,
But might as well be as be what it was.
“You thought, before you thought,” he said at last;
“And when you sent for me, was it before
You thought, or was it after? You should know,
And I should know. Nothing in life appears
To me of more importance than my knowing
Just when it was you called me, and for what.
I saw you, on my journey, in my arms
At a long journey's end, and saw you smiling;
And so you were—and you were in my arms.
Why was all that? Why should I let him die,
But for a vision of lost years filled only
With you, and one of other years before me
That were not to be lost—with you in them.
Was it all shadows, then, before and after,
And all the time? Was it a shadow playing
For me when I came back there in the starlight?
Was it a shadow that inveigled me
To serve as agent of a weariness
That owns no purpose and has no remorse?
I say remorse, for nothing is that's ours,
Not even the gift of love like mine for you,
That has the refuge of too sure a credit
Against the price of time. We gambled there,
And are we both to lose? By God, my lady,
If I have heard you and have learned your language,
A quieter place for you than in his house
Would be a place with him where he has gone.
You should have silent earth, or say the bottom
Of this benevolent lake, where all is quiet.
You will not like that house when he's not there,
More than when he was in it.”

“No,” she said,
And shivered. “I have had enough of it.
I have been there too long. He was a devil,
And should have gone before. God was afraid
To let him live. You would have been afraid,
If you would had made him. As for you and me,
You would have nothing, if you drowned me now,
But sorrow for your work. I should have peace,
But you would only have those marching men
To follow until you tired of them and died.
Would you have that, and would you call it wisdom?
Is it not better to be wise tonight,
And free tomorrow? To be wise and free
Has always been a dream for most of us,
And will remain a dream. Yet for a few—
For you and me—it will be real and easy,
If we will be ourselves. For your heart knows
More than it lets you say—as mine did once,
Before it let me think. His going away
Has left a clearness where it was all fog
While he was here. We shall see better now,
And there will be a time for you to bless me
That all has ended well. Some time or other
We shall see backward to this quiet hour,
Praising our wits because it was so quiet.
There is that loon again!—reminding us,
He says, that we have had his lake too long.”

He sat with his head heavy in his hands,
Gazing at shadows. There was cold within him
Where triumph once alive had no life now.
There was not even anger to arouse it
Into false life again. “God—is it you?”
He said, and was not asking anything:
“And has it come to this? Is this the end?”
“Many have died for less than this, my friend,”
She answered; and her smile was like a blow
Dealt softly on his heart and staying there,
For time to cool and heal. “Now row me back,”
She said: “We must not be here in the dark.
He will be waiting for us, and will do us
No manner of harm. He will be there tonight,
But not tomorrow. We shall all go tomorrow.
I shall remember you, and pray for you;
And I shall always hear the Cameron Men.”