 | The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman |  |
ESTELLE
“How came he mad?”—
Hamlet.
Hamlet.
Of all the beautiful demons who fasten on human hearts
To fetter the bodies and souls of men with exquisite, mocking arts,
The cruellest, and subtlest, and fairest to mortal sight,
Is surely a woman called Estelle, who tortures me day and night.
To fetter the bodies and souls of men with exquisite, mocking arts,
The cruellest, and subtlest, and fairest to mortal sight,
Is surely a woman called Estelle, who tortures me day and night.
The first time that I saw her she passed with sweet lips mute,
As if in scorn of the vacant praise of those who made her suit;
A hundred lustres flashed and shone as she rustled through the crowd,
And a passion seized me for her there,—so passionless and proud.
As if in scorn of the vacant praise of those who made her suit;
404
And a passion seized me for her there,—so passionless and proud.
The second time that I saw her she met me face to face;
Her bending beauty answered my bow in a tremulous moment's space;
With an upward glance that instantly fell she read me through and through,
And found in me something worth her while to idle with and subdue;
Her bending beauty answered my bow in a tremulous moment's space;
With an upward glance that instantly fell she read me through and through,
And found in me something worth her while to idle with and subdue;
Something, I know not what: perhaps the spirit of eager youth,
That named her a queen of queens at once, and loved her in very truth;
That threw its pearl of pearls at her feet, and offered her, in a breath,
The costliest gift a man can give from his cradle to his death.
That named her a queen of queens at once, and loved her in very truth;
That threw its pearl of pearls at her feet, and offered her, in a breath,
The costliest gift a man can give from his cradle to his death.
The third time that I saw her—this woman called Estelle—
She passed her milk-white arm through mine and dazzled me with her spell;
A blissful fever thrilled my veins, and there, in the moonbeams white,
I yielded my soul to the fierce control of that maddening delight!
She passed her milk-white arm through mine and dazzled me with her spell;
A blissful fever thrilled my veins, and there, in the moonbeams white,
I yielded my soul to the fierce control of that maddening delight!
And at many a trysting afterwards she wove my heart-strings round
Her delicate fingers, twisting them, and chanting low as she wound;
The rune she sang rang sweet and clear like the chime of a witch's bell;
Its echo haunts me even now, with the word, Estelle! Estelle!
Her delicate fingers, twisting them, and chanting low as she wound;
The rune she sang rang sweet and clear like the chime of a witch's bell;
Its echo haunts me even now, with the word, Estelle! Estelle!
405
Ah, then, as a dozen before me had, I lay at last at her feet,
And she turned me off with a calm surprise when her triumph was all complete:
It made me wild, the stroke which smiled so pitiless out of her eyes,
Like lightning fallen, in clear noonday, from cloudless and bluest skies!
And she turned me off with a calm surprise when her triumph was all complete:
It made me wild, the stroke which smiled so pitiless out of her eyes,
Like lightning fallen, in clear noonday, from cloudless and bluest skies!
The whirlwind followed upon my brain and beat my thoughts to rack:
Who knows the many a month I lay ere memory floated back?
Even now, I tell you, I wonder whether this woman called Estelle
Is flesh and blood, or a beautiful lie, sent up from the depths of hell.
Who knows the many a month I lay ere memory floated back?
Even now, I tell you, I wonder whether this woman called Estelle
Is flesh and blood, or a beautiful lie, sent up from the depths of hell.
For at night she stands where the pallid moon streams into this grated cell,
And only gives me that mocking glance when I speak her name—Estelle!
With the old resistless longing often I strive to clasp her there,
But she vanishes from my open arms and hides I know not where.
And only gives me that mocking glance when I speak her name—Estelle!
With the old resistless longing often I strive to clasp her there,
But she vanishes from my open arms and hides I know not where.
And I hold that if she were human she could not fly like the wind,
But her heart would flutter against my own, in spite of her scornful mind:
Yet, oh! she is not a phantom, since devils are not so bad
As to haunt and torture a man long after their tricks have made him mad!
But her heart would flutter against my own, in spite of her scornful mind:
Yet, oh! she is not a phantom, since devils are not so bad
As to haunt and torture a man long after their tricks have made him mad!
| The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman | |