MY LADY OF VERNE
It all comes back as the end draws near;
All comes back like a tale of old!
Shall I tell you what? Will you lend an ear?
You, with your face so stern and cold;
You, who have found me dying here. . . .
Lady Valora's villa at Verne—
You have walked its terraces, where the fount
And statue gleam and the fluted urn;
Its world-old elms, that are avenues gaunt
Of shadow and flame when the west is a-burn.
'Tis a lonely region of tarns and trees,
And hollow hills that circle the west;
Haunted of rooks and the far-off sea's
Immemorial vague unrest;
A land of sorrowful memories.
A gray sad land, where the wind has its will,
And the sun its way with the fruits and flowers;
Where ever the one all night is shrill,
And ever the other all day brings hours
Of glimmering hush that dead dreams fill.
A gray sad land, where her girlhood grew
To womanhood proud, that the hill-winds seemed
To give their moods, like melody, to;
And the stars, their thoughts, like dreams love dreamed—
The only glad thing that the sad land knew.
My Lady, you know, how nobly born!
Greatly born, with a head that rose
Like a dream of empire; love and scorn
Made haunts of her eyes; and her lips—twin bows
Of bloom, where wit was a pleasant thorn.
And I—oh, I was nobody: one
Her worshiper merely; who chose to be
Silent, seeing that love alone
Was his only badge of nobility,
Set in his heart's escutcheon.
How long ago does the springtime look,
When we wandered away to the hills! the hills,—
Like the land in the tale in the Fairy-book,—
Gold with the gold of the daffodils,
And gemmed with the crocus by bank and brook!
When I gathered a branch from a hawthorn tree,
For her hair or bosom, from boughs that hung
Odorous of Heaven and purity;
She thanked me smiling; then merrily sung
This song while she laughingly looked at me:—
“There dwelt a princess over the sea—
Oh fair was she, right fair was she—
Who loved a squire of low degree,
Of low degree,
But wedded a king of Brittany—
Ah, woe is me! is me!
“And it came to pass on the wedding day—
So people say, I have heard say—
That they found her dead in her bridal array,
Her bridal array,
And dead her lover beside her lay—
Ah, well-away! away!
“A sour stave for your sweets,” she said,
Pressing the blossoms against her lips:
Then petal by petal the branch she shred,
Snowing the blooms from her finger-tips,
Tossing them down for her feet to tread.
What to her was the look I gave
Of love despised!—Though she seemed to start,
Seeing; and said, with a quick hand-wave,
“Why, one would think that that was your heart,”
While her face with a sudden thought grew grave.
But I answered nothing. And so to her home
We came in the eve; slow-falling, clear
With a few first stars and a crescent of foam,
The twilight dusked; and we heard from the mere
The distant boom of a bittern come.
Would you think that she loved me?—Who could say?—
What a riddle unread was she to me!—
When I kissed her fingers and turned away
I wanted to speak, but—what cared she,
Though her eyes looked soft and she bade me stay!
Though she lingered to watch me—That might be
A slim moonbeam or a shred of haze,—
But never my Lady's drapery
Or wistful face!—in the woodbine maze.
Valora of Verne—why, what cared she!
So the days went by, and the Summer wore
Its hot heart out; and, a mighty slayer,
The Autumn harried the land and shore,
And the world grew red with its wrecks; then grayer
Than ghosts of the dreams of the nevermore.
The sheaves of the Summer had long been bound;
The harvests of Autumn had long been past;
And the snows of the Winter lay deep around,
When the hard news came and I knew at last;
And the reigning woe of my heart was crowned.
So I sought her here: the old Earl's bride:
In the ancient room, at the oriel dreaming,
Pale as the blooms in her hair; and, wide,
The dented satin, flung stormily, gleaming
Like beaten silver, twilight-dyed.
I marked as I stole to her side that tears
Were vaguely large in her beautiful eyes;
That the loops of pearls on her throat, and years-
Old lace on her bosom were heaved with sighs:
And I said to her softly:—“It appears”—
Then stopped with, it seemed, my soul in my eyes—
“That you are not happy, Valora of Verne!
There is that at your heart which—well, denies
These mocking mummeries.—Live and learn!—
And is it the truth or only lies?—
“You must hear me now! whom I oft with my heart,—
In words of the soul, that are silent in speech,—
Whispered my love; too sacred for art;
But yours never heard—for I could not reach
Yours in that world of which you are part.
“That world, where I saw you as one afar
Sees palms and waters, and knows that sands,
Pitiless sands, before him are;
Yet follows ever with reaching hands
Till he sinks at last.—You were my star,
“My hope, my heaven!—I loved you! . . . Life
Is less than nothing to me!” . . . She turned,
With a wild look, saying—“Now I am his wife
You come and tell me!—Indeed you are learned
In the unheard language of hearts!” . . . A knife,
As she ceased and leaned on a cabinet,—
A curve of scintillant steel keen, cold,—
Fell, icily clashing: a curio met
Among Asian antiques, bronze and gold,
Mystical; curiously graven and set.
A Bactrian dagger, whose slightest prick,
Through its ancient poison, was death, I knew.—
If true that she loved me—then!—And quick
To the unspoken thought she replied, “'Tis true!
I have loved you long, and my soul was sick,
“Sick for the love that has made me weak,
Weak to your will even now!”—And more
She said, in my arms, that I will not speak—
And the dagger there on the polished floor
Ever her eyes, while she spoke, would seek.
“‘And it came to pass on the wedding-day’”—
Then my lips for a moment were crushed to hers—
“‘That they found her dead in her bridal array,’”
She sang; then said, “You finish the verse!
Finish the song, for you know the way.”
And I whispered “yes,” for my heart had thought
Her own thought through—that life were a hell
To us so asunder.—And the blade I caught
With a sudden hand; and she leaned; and—well,
What a little wound, and the blood it brought
To crimson her bosom!—I set her there
In that carven chair; then turned the blade,—
With its white-gold handle thick with the glare,
Barbaric, of jewels, wildly inlaid,—
To my breast, for the poisonous point rent bare.
A stain of blood on her breast, and one
Black red o'er my heart, you see.—'Tis good
To die with her here! . . . Does the sinking sun,
Through the dull deep west burst, banked with blood?—
Or is it that life will at last have done? . . .
So you are her husband? and—well, you see,
You see she is dead . . . and her face—how white!
Fate bungled the cards!—did this have to be?—
What matters it now!—For at last the night
Falls and the darkness covers me.
