 | The select poems of Dr. Thomas Dunn English (exclusive of the "Battle lyrics") |  |
347
THE DRAMA OF THREE.
I sat at the opera; round me there floated,
On great waves of melody, perfect delight;
Where, cloaked and bejewelled, a woman I noted,
Whose charms taught the gazer the music of sight.
So beautiful she as to startle beholders;
Whose eyes in amazement her beauty drank in—
The clear, creamy tint of her neck and her shoulders;
The sensitive nostrils; the curved, dimpled chin;
Lips shaped like a bow; tresses rippling like ocean;
Cheeks where tints of the rose at the will went and came;
Dark eyes that gave token of every emotion,
And melted to softness or kindled to flame.
Yet her beauty to me lacked a touch of the tender;
She seemed all of marble, cold, cruel, and fair,
As her neatly gloved fingers, long, shapely, and slender,
Unconsciously moving, beat time to the air
Which the tenor sang—“La donna è mobile.”
On great waves of melody, perfect delight;
Where, cloaked and bejewelled, a woman I noted,
Whose charms taught the gazer the music of sight.
So beautiful she as to startle beholders;
Whose eyes in amazement her beauty drank in—
The clear, creamy tint of her neck and her shoulders;
The sensitive nostrils; the curved, dimpled chin;
Lips shaped like a bow; tresses rippling like ocean;
Cheeks where tints of the rose at the will went and came;
Dark eyes that gave token of every emotion,
And melted to softness or kindled to flame.
Yet her beauty to me lacked a touch of the tender;
She seemed all of marble, cold, cruel, and fair,
As her neatly gloved fingers, long, shapely, and slender,
Unconsciously moving, beat time to the air
Which the tenor sang—“La donna è mobile.”
And much the face haunted me; not from its beauty,
Though fair to a wonder; but since, deeply lined,
I saw in it selfishness, blindness to duty,
That filled me with pain as I brought it to mind.
And hence a month after, when sudden they called me
To aid a sick child—to be there when it died,
For croup mocks at art—'twas the same face appalled me
That shocked me before with its coldness and pride.
The mother there suddenly summoned from pleasure,
Arrayed in her satins and laces she stood;
Not dazed, as a person who loses a treasure,
But stony in aspect and careless of mood.
To woe, if she felt it, too proud to surrender,
Well-bred, cold and calm, with a self-possessed air,
As when her gloved fingers, long, shapely, and slender,
Unconsciously moving, beat time to the air,
While the tenor sang, “La donna è mobile.”
Though fair to a wonder; but since, deeply lined,
I saw in it selfishness, blindness to duty,
That filled me with pain as I brought it to mind.
And hence a month after, when sudden they called me
To aid a sick child—to be there when it died,
For croup mocks at art—'twas the same face appalled me
That shocked me before with its coldness and pride.
The mother there suddenly summoned from pleasure,
Arrayed in her satins and laces she stood;
Not dazed, as a person who loses a treasure,
But stony in aspect and careless of mood.
348
Well-bred, cold and calm, with a self-possessed air,
As when her gloved fingers, long, shapely, and slender,
Unconsciously moving, beat time to the air,
While the tenor sang, “La donna è mobile.”
She turned to me coldly, and thanked me for service
Well-meaning though useless, and bent o'er the child;
Twitched its damp, tangled hair with a clutch cold and nervous,
Threw quickly around her a glance keen and wild;
Then swept from the chamber, naught further revealing.
When said the old nurse in half-whisper to me,
“She was always a woman without any feeling,
And ne'er loved that baby, you plainly may see.
But not so the father—he fairly adored it;
He'll be wild with despair when its death he is told.”
I sharply rebuked her. “Sir, I can afford it,”
She answered, “that you should esteem me too bold;
But it's true what I tell you, let who will defend her;
Her pleasure abroad, not her home, is her care.”
Then I thought of the fingers, long, shapely, and slender,
Unconsciously making response to the air
When the tenor sang, “La donna è mobile.”
Well-meaning though useless, and bent o'er the child;
Twitched its damp, tangled hair with a clutch cold and nervous,
Threw quickly around her a glance keen and wild;
Then swept from the chamber, naught further revealing.
When said the old nurse in half-whisper to me,
“She was always a woman without any feeling,
And ne'er loved that baby, you plainly may see.
But not so the father—he fairly adored it;
He'll be wild with despair when its death he is told.”
I sharply rebuked her. “Sir, I can afford it,”
She answered, “that you should esteem me too bold;
But it's true what I tell you, let who will defend her;
Her pleasure abroad, not her home, is her care.”
Then I thought of the fingers, long, shapely, and slender,
Unconsciously making response to the air
When the tenor sang, “La donna è mobile.”
They open the hall-door—is that, then, the father?
Death waits for a visit from vigorous life.
No, strangers! What's that from the whispers I gather?
“At the club with a razor”—“Break slow to his wife.”
On disaster there evermore follows disaster—
Wide open the portals! give way in the hall!
The mansion receives for the last time its master;
For the second time Death at the house makes a call.
A shriek! on the stairway a figure descending
Glides and falls on the litter there, reckless and wild.
“O Richard! O Clara! and this is the ending!
Lost, lost! and forever, my husband and child!”
In the street you may hear, where each gaping one lingers,
A dismal hand-organ—strange notes for despair!
Lift her up from the corpse. Ah! those long shapely fingers
Nevermore in this world will beat time to the air
Which the organ plays—“La donna è mobile.”
Death waits for a visit from vigorous life.
No, strangers! What's that from the whispers I gather?
“At the club with a razor”—“Break slow to his wife.”
On disaster there evermore follows disaster—
Wide open the portals! give way in the hall!
The mansion receives for the last time its master;
For the second time Death at the house makes a call.
A shriek! on the stairway a figure descending
Glides and falls on the litter there, reckless and wild.
349
Lost, lost! and forever, my husband and child!”
In the street you may hear, where each gaping one lingers,
A dismal hand-organ—strange notes for despair!
Lift her up from the corpse. Ah! those long shapely fingers
Nevermore in this world will beat time to the air
Which the organ plays—“La donna è mobile.”
| The select poems of Dr. Thomas Dunn English (exclusive of the "Battle lyrics") | |