University of Virginia Library

The Baroness in her parlors lay
Red flushed with conquest of the day.
“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!
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,
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!
“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!”
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
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.
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?
“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!
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.”