The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith :: :: University of Virginia Library

Dressed, like a penitent, in sombre black
That hung about her limp and scrimp, and all
Without relief of ribbon, lace, or tucker,
Collar, or cuff, or any lightsome thing;
Her hair, that wont in regal braid to fold
A shining coronet around her brow,
Stuffed loosely in a net; nor ring nor jewel
Gracing the hand that trembled as it lifted
A book, a pencil, or an ornament,
And could not help but lift them; so arrayed,
A nun-like woman over all dull and sad,
In tragic dress of studied negligence,
Which covered not the less a tragic pain,—
For there are souls that live in symbolisms,
And are most true in most dramatic seeming,—
Thus Rose awaited for the sacrifice.

She could not rest, but paced about the room;
Now drawing curtains close, to dim the light;
Now watching the slow movement of the clock,
Uncertain whether to chide its tardy pace,
Or its unfeeling haste; now sitting down,
Holding her side, or white, spasm-choking throat;
And anon starting up to stamp and frown,
With flashing look defiant, saying “I will”;
But soon she drooped her head, and sobbed, “I cannot;

God, pity me, a creature pitiful;
I dare not say, God help me, for this business
Is one He cannot help in. I am to choose
Deliberately the mean life I have proven,
And knowing it so hollow, heartless, vain,
And knowing, too, the better life of love,
And knowing it may break a noble heart,
And make mine own a lean and barren heart,
I am to seal a covenant with darkness,
And sign mine own death-warrant. Can I do it?
Is there no hope, no other way but this,
As they all tell me?—how I hate them all!
Why was there none to back my better thought,
And help the struggling spirit to do right?
O father, mother, brother, why do all
Forsake me? ply me so with reasons strong
To play the baser part? Was ever girl
So hard beset with preachers of a lie?
Was ever girl so drawn by cords of love
To break the cord of Love? Or can it be,
As they do all aver, and I myself
Half feel, yet hate myself for feeling it,
That this poor world of Custom is my Fate;
That I must be what yet I scorn to be;
That empty as it is, it is my all;
That I should only wreck another soul,
Trying another life;—that I have lost,
With their upbringing, simple womanhood
And patient strength of love? Too late, too late!
That is his step, his ring. I know them well,
As the fond wife her husband's foot-fall kens,
Home-coming while she watches for his coming.
Ah me! how often I have sat intent
To hear it, while they thought I heeded them
Dully haw-hawing, which he never did;
Stupidly flattering, which he never did;
Or peddling in the devil's small-ware, gossip
And innuendo, which he never did;
For he is gracious, generous, and true:
And all the time my spirit was not here,
But hovering by the door, and out and in,
And, hungering for him, hated them the more.
And now I shake and shiver like a rush
To hear the step which I shall hear no more.
No more! he will not see me any more!
No more! and I must snap with mine own hand
The gold-thread in my life, and make it all
Leaden and passionless for evermore!
I hate it all; I'll do some wicked thing,
I know, ere all is ended. How I dread
The future they have fashioned out for me,
And fierce rebellion of the best in me
Against the doing what is bound on me!
Heaven help me to be true at least to him
When falsest to myself; my way is hard.”
Then she sat down, and was composed and calm
To look at, as a marble monument.

LOQUITUR ROSE

Nay, sit down there, and touch me not:
I am not worthy; and I feel
In my shamed soul the leprous spot
Burn in thy presence. I would kneel,
Or put my neck beneath thy heel,
If Nature had her way, and youth
Its old simplicity and truth:
But the wolf's gnawing we conceal
'Neath a surface passionless, bland, and smooth.

No more ashamed of doing wrong,
We are ashamed of feeling right,
Ashamed of any feeling strong,
And of all shame ashamèd quite:
And I am like the rest; the light
Laughter of fools arrests my shame
And self-contempt and bitter blame:
So we must meet as if the might
Of passion and pain were an empty name.

Ah me! 'tis hard for me to speak,
And will be hard for you to hear;
Yet do not comfort me, nor seek
To soothe one pang or stay one tear.—
No fear of that, alas! no fear;
More like to scorn me for the lot
Which I have chosen; yet scorn me not;
I've been so happy, being so dear;
Yet I'd rather be hated than quite forgot.

I've been so happy, and can be
No more as I have been again;
And my most cherished memory
Henceforth shall be my keenest pain.
I have been loved; that will remain
The treasured thought of all my prime,
The treasured grief of all my time;
And I have loved, and not in vain,
Though my Love, in Love's vision, was almost crime.

I loved above myself—above
Mine own capacity of soul,
As one that with an earthly love
Seeks Heaven, yet spurns its high control.
I did aspire unto the rôle
Of a great blessedness, unmeet
For such as me. 'Twas very sweet,
While the dream lasted round and whole,
But the sorrow of waking is more complete.

Yet do not let me wholly pass
Out of your mind, though I must be
Apart from your true life, alas!
And from a meaner level see,
As one looks where the stars go free,
Its struggle brave and triumph great,
For you will strive and conquer Fate:
And think not bitterly of me
When you take to your bosom a worthier mate.

But let me speak all I must say,
For I must say it, though my heart
Protests with an indignant nay!
And loathes to play the ignoble part.
Ignoble it is: I have no art
To picture wrong as it were right;
But if I sin I sin outright,
And know it sin, and know the smart
Will follow as surely as day and night.

I hate a sham; let bad be bad,
And good be good for evermore:
Who doeth right, let him be glad,
Knowing the good he liveth for;
Who doeth wrong, let him, too, pour
Unshrinking light upon his ill,
And do it with determined will:—
Our devil clings to his rôle of yore,
And is fain to play the good angel still.

I had a schoolmate once—a girl
Much like myself, not very good,
Nor very bad; no precious pearl,
Or perfect flower of womanhood;
But one that graced and understood
Our pleasant, artificial life,
And would have made a charming wife,
Had she been only gaily wooed
By a fine red-coat and a drum and fife.

But there came one across her way—
A Priest: a grave, high-thoughted man,
Who did not lag behind his day,
But bravely dared to lead the van
Of Progress: with a lofty plan,
Not counting for himself the price,
Up the great stair of Sacrifice,
Trod by the meek and lowly One,
He would lead our gay world into Paradise.

He came across her path, and she
Caught up his dream, and dreamt awhile;
She came across his path, and he
Found dreams angelic in her smile;
He had no knowledge, she no guile:—
Leave that to satire-novels; both
But dreamt a happy dream, not loath;
There was no woman's art or wile
When she gave to him freely her plighted troth.

And for a while she strove to live
His life, and meekly played her part;
And for a while she tried to give
Not service only, but her heart
To sacred work and thought and art;
To help the poor, the sick to cheer,
And breathe sweet love instead of fear
Into our worship, and impart
To all men the feeling that God was near.

Why do I dwell on this? Because
'Twas not herself, but he that spoke
In her. And soon there came a pause
In her hot zeal. The spell was broke,
And once more, her old self awoke
With yearning for the former days,
The laughter crisp, the empty praise,
The dressing, dancing, and the flock
Of butterflies sunning them in her rays.

Then by and by, in her old place
We met her; first, a matron meek,
Come to diffuse a light of grace;
But for this task she was too weak,
When guardsmen gathered round to seek
The old smiles, and the banter light,
And midnight chatter sparkling bright
With airy bubbles; while a bleak
Loneliness reigned in her home all night.

What would you? There was nothing wrong
In our sense, only flirting gay.
Meanwhile the grave priest went along,
With heavy heart, his weary way,
Heavier-hearted every day,
Till, as a shield for her good name,
Weary and dreary he, too, came
To ball and rout and drum and play;
And she squandered his life in her reckless game.

His vow to cherish her he deemed
First of all duties binding; so
The glorious dream which he had dreamed
Of a great battle with sin and woe,
And dealing them a deadly blow,
With a brave woman by his side,
Became a mournful strife to hide
A broken heart, nor let her know
How the hope and the light of his life had died.

Now, hear me: I too had my dream,
The which I fondled day and night,
It shed upon my life the gleam
Of a new world of truth and right;
Nor all in vain, for in its light
I see as I had never seen
Before; I see that life is mean
Without the purpose and the might
Of a noble Faith, and a Hope serene.

And yet 'tis but a dream with me,
Vague, feeble, and unsolid: I
Am of the world, worldly; I can see;
Admiring still, the vision high,
And feel the sentiment and sigh
Of truer nature in my breast,
Our artificial world confessed
A proven vanity and lie,—
But the owl sees the sunshine and winks in its nest.

I am not fit to live your life,
I am not meet to share your thought,
I am not able for the strife
Of any high and glorious lot,
I am not worthy to be brought
Into companionship of those
Who heed not custom as it goes,
Who heed not what opinions float,
Who heed but the light that high Reason throws.

I will not be to you a care,
A burden only changed for death;
I will not be to you a snare,
As she was to the Priest of Faith;
You shall not tremble lest the breath
Of slander dim a wife's pure name,
And feeling shame deny the shame,
And sadly smiling bear the scaith
Of a nature too shallow to get much blame.

Nay, think not these are motives good
Framed but to hide the ill I do,
Nor drive me to a bitter mood
When my sore heart would most be true
And faithful and tender unto you.
I have done wrong, and hide it not,
But yet it was not in my thought;
And bitterly your heart would rue
Blending me with your life and lot.

Therefore my dream I must dispel,
Therefore my love I must refuse;
It was a sweet and tender spell
Of soft enchantment I did use:
I was to blame; I therefore lose
The one great bliss I ever knew,
The false love which yet made me true,
Bathing me in its cleansing dews
But I know it grew irksome already to you.

Nay, don't deny it; it was right;
You could not help it; I have seen
Often the anxious, doubtful light
Of those true eyes when I have been
Showing a nature small and mean;
I've watched the shadow of regret,
The pleading look when our looks met,
The pain and fear you fain would screen,—
And I could not be other, and cannot yet.

And then, too, though I am not old,
I know my years are more than thine;
And that quaint thing, your sister, told,
By many an angry look and sign,
That she did more than half divine
That I, in wanton idlesse, angled,
And had, with crafty art, entangled
Your love, and strained upon the line,
Nor cared how your heart was torn and mangled.

Little she knew—but let that pass;
Perhaps I played at love; perhaps
The game to earnest grew, alas!
Ere I could mark the gradual lapse.
The unnoticed tide crept up the gaps,
And circled us with foaming sea,
And there was no escape, and we,
Enforcèd, clasped the love that wraps
Forgetfulness in its ecstasy.

Yet mine is not a love like thine,
Which brooks no rival, fears no ill,
Which time would mellow like old wine,
Which hath no separate end or will,
And is content with loving still.
Such life would grow insipid soon
To me, and tiresome as a tune
Ground on a barrel-organ, till
A change were as welcome as flowers in June.

It should not, but I know it would;
It seems as if some evil spell
Were on me, holding me from good,
And from the peace unspeakable;
There is that in me like a bell
Cracked in the belfry, where it swings
Shaming its office, for it rings,
For Christmas cheer and passing knell,
The same false note for all truest things.

Women are fickle—I am more;
Women are contrary—I am worse;
Even ficklest women can adore,
And in adoring gain a force
Which holds them to a stedfast course;
But I've no reverence; mine eyes
Have only learnt to criticise,
To find out flaws, and trace their source,
And to weary of folk that are good and wise.

I love enough to part with pain,
But not enough to wed thee poor;
I dare not face the way of men
Who nobly labour and endure,
Seeking a great life high and pure.
But I have one true purpose yet;
I will not lead thee to forget
The splendid hope of glory sure,
Which was all your thought until we two met.

Ah! you will not believe the truth,
Because it shows me poor and mean;
You've dreamt that I am all in sooth,
Which I have dreamt I might have been;
And should, perhaps, if I had seen
In early years the generous life
Of aspiration high, and strife
For truth and love and faith serene,
Which oft you have pictured for you and your wife.

But this it was not mine to see;
A household ours where Home is not,
We carp and criticise, and we
Never do anything we ought.
Ah! happy was your sister's lot!
My brother idles, trifles, spends,
And here he borrows, there he lends,
And I, like him, have never thought
Of doing a thing that makes or mends.

Yet we must eat and drink and dress,
And drive in carriages, and ride
In Rotten Row, and crush and press,
Bejewelled at St. James's, tied
Fast to the chariot of our pride,
Have spacious rooms, and sumptuous fare,
And waiting-maids and grooms to share
Our vicious idleness, and hide
The dull stupid ennui shot with care.

It's all a lie, this life we lead;
And breeds in all of us sloth and sin;
The coachman wigged and tippeted,
The maid who cannot sew nor spin,
The brawny giant that let you in,
Who should have been a grenadier,
They're good for nothing before a year,
Save lazy gossip, tippling gin,
And keeping a tap-room, and drawing beer.

How could I hope to escape the taint?
I've not escaped it—I am just
Like all the rest, on folly bent.
Like all the rest—devoured with rust
Of idleness; a hollow crust
Of sentiment, and surface wit,
And scraps of knowledge. I am fit
For no brave life of love and trust,
Or a home where the lamp of truth is lit.

You think I draw my portrait ill,
Beclouded by some fitful mood;
And fancy you could raise me still
Into a nobler world of good.—
'Tis kindly meant; but as I brood
Over the thought, I seem to see
You failing of your destiny;
And for myself I never could
Live the life you have pictured to me.

I could not bear the poky rooms
Where Bloomsbury students talk and smoke,
I'd sicken at the steamy fumes,
The maid-of-all-work would evoke;
I'd sooner hear a raven croak
Than hearken to the flow of wit,
And watch the gleams of genius flit,
While shabby artist fellows broke
The silence with laughter loud and fit.

'Twas nice, of course, to hear from you
About their wild Bohemian ways;
One likes to know how people do
Who are not in the world. We gaze
Upon their splendid works, and praise
Their genius, and we long to hear
About their naughty vices dear,
So charming in our books and plays,
Like beings quite in another sphere.

You do not like this tone? I know
You hate a false, affected vein;
What, then, if we were bound to row,
Like galley-slaves, together, twain
Linked each to each by loathsome chain;
And by that union sundered more,
Until the fretting bondage wore
Your heart, and left and aching pain,
As the only trace of the love you bore?

It may not be, it may not be;
'Twere grievous sin in me to wed
A soul to so great misery,
Binding the living with the dead.
And now this parting word is said,
We, being twain, may still love on,
Who, being one, had turned to stone;
We loose our vows, but link, instead,
Our hearts more surely to love alone.

A sad love? Yes! I call to mind,
That fisher-woman long ago
Who, in the storm of sleet and wind,
Lost all her sons at one fell blow—
Three stalwart men. We saw her go,
Don't you remember? with her dead,
Side by side the corpses laid,
Three long black coffins in a row,
On the bench of the boat, head touching head.

Never a word came from her lips;
She took the helm, and bent the sail,
And silently slid by the ships,
Where strong men sob, and women wail;
Across the bar she caught the gale,
And sped on o'er the darkening wave
Into black night: she never gave
One sign, but tearless, hard, and pale,
Sailed with her dead to their father's grave.

And now I go like her, with all
My dead hopes lying cold in me;
The great mist cometh, like a wall
Of darkness, striding o'er the sea;
And all my dead are orderly
Spread out beside me; and I know
That they and I together go
Into the black night, leaving thee,—
I and my dead hopes all in a row:

Into the moonless, starless gloom,
Into the grey and trembling cloud,
Night closing o'er me like a tomb,
The wet mist clinging as a shroud,
And the wind wailing dirges loud:—
Men will call it a wedding gay,
And maids will flutter, priests will pray,
And joy-bells gather the village crowd,
To toast the dead on her bridal day.

Or dead or worse; they drive me mad;
I wot not what the end may be;
And there are times I feel so bad,
And in the shadowy future see,
In dark revenge of misery,
A sinful woman scorning shame,
Spurning a hateful home and name.
I've known such, yearning to be free
That they recked not either of guilt or blame.

I wot not what it means; but now
The stories of your grey North Sea
Keep running in my head, somehow;
And weird and eerie tales they be.
Was it yourself that told it me?
Or some one else?—I do not know—
How 'mong the isles the tide-waves flow,
Like maddened steeds that franticly
Are lashed into fury as on they go;

And how a fisher-lad was once
Caught in the race, and swept away;
And how his oars, by evil chance,
Were reft from him; and how he lay
Helpless among the tossing spray;
And how he saw the grim crags loom,
And heard the big waves crash and boom,
Through mists that darkened on his way,
Darkened and deepened like walls of his tomb;

And how his heart in him grew cold,
As still the boat went hurrying on,
Past foaming skerry and headland bold,
Into the darkness all alone;
And weird, witch forms, with eyes of stone,
Looked on, and mocked with laughter dread,
As hungry waves, like fierce wolves, sped,
And leaped on him; and hope was gone;
And he fain would pray, but cursed instead:

And how he lifted up his hand
To pray or curse, as it might be,
And in that moment grazed the land,
When something smote his palm, and he
Grasped a strong rope unconsciously—
A fowler's rope that dangled there,
Down on his darkness and despair,
Barely dipping the swollen sea—
And the half-uttered curse gasped into a prayer.

Even so am I on fateful tide
Borne on, and by the surges tossed,
And helplessly I rock and ride,
Alone, and in the darkness lost,
Haunted by many a mocking ghost;
No help without, no help within,
Forsaken in my way of sin,
Forsaken by myself the most,
But I reach out in vain through the gloom and the din.

I reach out, but I reach in vain;
No help for me; I touch the shore;
They only push me back again;
The tide sweeps on, the waters roar,
My head is dizzy, my heart is sore;
I reach out, but no help is near,
A cloud is on my soul, and fear,
And hate and madness evermore
Are hissing their whispers in my ear.

There is no cord of life for me
Amid my darkness and despair;
Pity me, look not cold on me;
There's cursing in the heart of prayer,
And cursing in the very air.
Will you not kiss me once? and say
You love me still and ever? Nay?
So be it. Wherefore should I care
To chafe back the life which were better away.

O heart, lie dead, and feel no more;
So best, if I must still live on:
The desert life that lies before
Were best to have a heart of stone.
Now leave me; I would be alone.
You will be happy yet, and free,
And I accept my destiny.
We had a dream, and it is gone;
And I wake, but there's no day breaking for me.