The Price To Peace

LONG since I taught my spirit to obey
The Sage's great commandment - to forget ­
And so to lose life's bitterness and fret
And taste its sweetness; and I went my way
Eluding joy and sorrow, grave and gay,
And lived exempt, my being always set
Upon the striking hour, without regret,
Secure, refreshed, remote from yesterday.
But oh my friend, my love, my very dear,
My practised wisdom is a curse to me;
I do forget, and when you are not near
It is, by Heaven, as if you ceased to be;
And I would buy with agony and fear
One hour, one little hour of memory.

How Like A Woman

I WANTED you to come to-day­
Or so I told you in my letter­
And yet, if you had stayed away,
I should have liked you so much better.
I should have sipped my tea unseen,
And thrilled at every door-bell's pealing,
And thought how nice I could have been
Had you evinced a little feeling.

I should have guessed you drinking tea
With someone whom you loved to madness;
I should have thought you cold to me,
And revelled in a depth of sadness.
But, no! you came without delay­
I could not feel myself neglected:
You said the things you always say,
In ways not wholly unexpected.

If you had let me wait in vain,
We should, in my imagination,
Have held, what we did not attain,
A most dramatic conversation.
Had you not come, I should have known
At least a vague anticipation,
Instead of which, I grieve to own,
You did not give me one sensation.

Overheard In A Conservatory

HE (after a pause) : Dear, are you angry?
SHE: Yes, though not at you,
But at myself. Of course, we know it's true
That when a man respects a girl...
HE (interrupting) : I thought
You'd say that. It's the nonsense girls are taught.
You know, as well as I do, I revere
You more than any other woman, dear.
SHE (indignantly) : You'd not have done it to Elfrida Hood.
HE: Immortal gods! I shouldn't think I would.
SHE (haughtily) : If this but seems to you fit food for jest
I say no more. Silence were plainly best.
HE (very seriously) : Dear, if I jest, it is because I read
The hopelessness of aught that I could plead
In your stern eyes, which righteous wrath betray.
Were you another woman, I should say
That you were fair, and I, it seems, was mad,
But that the last long waltz that we had had :
Might very well have turned a wiser head.
A hundred things like this I might have said
To women who would take them as excuse.
You think none possible - so what's the use?
SHE: Then why discuss it further? Let us go.
HE: One minute! I should like you first to know
I did not think that this would be the end
When, two weeks since, you said you'd be my friend.
SHE (reflectively) : Only two weeks.
HE: Not long, 'tis true, and yet,
You've stopped my doing much I should regret.
Nor should I murmur that you teach how far
More hard than others all good women are.
SHE (emphatically) : That is not true, indeed it is not true.
Some men I could forgive this, but not you.
You would go home, and smile, and think I meant­
I viewed it merely as a...
HE (politely) : Precedent!
Was that the word? Indeed, in this respect
You wrong, to say the least, my intellect.
If you forgave me, I should understand
Just what it meant. . .
SHE (hastily) : Oh, please let go my hand!
Here is papa, who comes, I know, to say
That it is late, and time to go away.
HE: I do not care a bit how late it is,
I only know we cannot part like this.
Show me, at least, you do not doubt my sorrow.
SHE (hesitatingly) : Well - come as usual at five to-morrow.

The Woman At The Cross-Roads

(Her lover speaks.)

AN equal love between a man and woman,
This is the only charm to set us free,
And this the only omen
Of immortality.
Only for us the long, long war is over
Between our aspiring spirits,
And all the flesh inherits,
Because, dear saint, your soul no less
Has got a lover,
Than has your body's long slim loveliness.
Ah, my beloved, think not renunciation
Of such a love as ours
Will bring you any strengthening of your powers,
Or calm, or dignity, or peace of mind
To be compared with that which you will find
In love's full consummation.
Talk not to me of other, older ties,
Of duty, and of narrower destinies,
Nor bid me see that we have met too late,
While we have lips and eyes
To kiss and call;
But rather thank our fate,
For this mad gift - that we have met at all.
Come to me then. Ah, must I bid you come?
Your heart is mine. Is then your will so loath?
Leave him from whom your spirit long since fled,
Whose house is not your home; your only home,
Although the same roof never cover both,
Is where I am, until we both are dead.

(Her child speaks.)

Why do you look at me with such a shade
Upon your eyes, so still and steadily?
I am not naughty, but I am afraid;
I know not why.
The world is huge and puzzling and perverse -
Even my nurse,
When most my heart is stirred,
Will put me by, with some complacent word;
Or, if she listens, in a little while
Babbles my deepest secret with a smile,
My mother, oh my mother, only you
Are kind and just and honorable and true.
Others are fond, others will play and sing,
Will kiss me, or will let me kiss and cling;
But only you, my mother, comprehend
How little children feel and love the truth;
Only you cherish like an equal friend
The shy and tragic dignity of youth.

(the woman answers her lover.)

All my life long, I think I dreamed of this.
Even as a girl, my visions were of you.
Alas, I grew incredulous of bliss;
And now too late, too late, the dream comes true.
Sweet are the charms you offer me, my lover,
To read the riddle of the universe,
And in your arms I should not soon discover
Our old, old mortal curse.
And yet I put them by, because I trust
In other magic, far beyond the ken,
Even of you, the tenderest of men,
In spells more permanent than any sorrow,
Which bind me to the past, and make to-morrow
My own, although I sleep it through in dust,­
The revelation which to every woman
Her children bring,
Making her one not only with things human, -
With every living thing,
For only mothers raise no passionate cry
Against mortality;
For only they have learned the reason why
It is worth while to live; and presently,
Seeing nature's meaning, are content to die.

Forsaking All Others Part 4

I

WAYNE was looking near and far
After the theatre to find his car.
He had taken his wife to the play that night;

Broadway was glittering hard and bright
With every sort of electric light­
Green and scarlet and diamond-white;
And moving letters against the sky
Told you exactly the reason why
This or that was the thing to buy.
And suddenly there at his side was Nell
Vainly seeking her car as well
They talked. for a moment... of meeting again...
And how were Edward and Ruth, and then
'I wonder,' said Nell, 'if you ever see
My lovely friend...' 'You mean,' said he,
'That blue-eyed lady I once sat next.. '
'Exactly,' said Nellie. 'I feel so vexed
With Lee. I haven't seen her this season,
And between you and me, I know the reason.'
'Do you indeed? ' said Wayne.'Oh, yes,'
Nell answered. 'I know... at least I guess.
When a woman like that whom I've seen so much
All of a sudden drops out of touch,
Is always busy and never can
Spare you a moment, it means a MAN.'

Wayne did not smile. 'I am sure you are
Right,' he said. 'Do you go so far
In the magic art as to tell us who
The man may be? ' 'I certainly do,'
Said Nell. 'It's that handsome young romantic
Doctor who's driving the ladies frantic,
So that they flock to be cured in shoals
And talk of nothing but sex and souls,
And self-expression, and physical passion..
Of course, no wonder the man's the fashion.'

'Does Mrs. Kent flock? ' 'Oh, no, I meant
They've called him in to take care of Kent.
Imagine the long deep conversations,
The tears, the intimate revelations...
I wish to all ladies, lonely and sad,
Tied to a husband hopelessly mad
A handsome psychiatrist... good or bad.
Oh, there's my car,' and so with a gay
Good night to Wayne she was driven away.

People will come for miles, they say,
To see a man burnt at the stake, yet none
Turned in that crowd to look at one
Standing quietly burning there,
Suffering more than a man can bear,
Consumed with hideous inner fire,
Believing his love a cheat and a liar...
Believing the moment that Nell had spoken,
For that day of all days Lee had broken
A date... at the time he had thought it queer,
And now, by God, it was perfectly clear,
Perfectly clear, no doubt whatever...
A doctor, handsome and young and clever,
With all this rotten erotic learning....

Strange indeed that no head was turning
To watch this gentleman quietly burning,
In a trance of pain he heard Ruth say:
'Well, dear, what did you think of that play? '

II

'HOW could you think such a thing? '
'Try to forgive if you can.'
'Spoiling our beautiful Spring! '
'Well, I am only a man.'

'I will forgive, if I can.'
'Jealousy made me insane.'
'I never spoke to the man.'
'I'll never doubt you again.'

'Jealousy made you insane.'
'Lee, you have much to forgive.'
'Oh, never doubt me again.'
'Never as long as I live.'

'Jim, I have much to forgive.'
'Yes, but I've suffered like hell.'
'Trust me as long as you live.'
'Dearest, I love you too well.'

'Poor darling, going through hell.'
'Spoiling our beautiful Spring.'
'I also love you too well.'
'How could I think such a thing? '

III

LOVERS after a quarrel say to each other lightly:
'Dear, we are closer than ever: I love you better by far;
After the rainstorm is over, the sun shines even more brightly...'
Poor pitiful lovers, trying to hide the unsightly
Stain on the surface of love... the ineffaceable scar.

IV

THE Spring was over, and Summer far advanced,­
Lee spent many a hidden week in town,
Days long and enchanted, and nights entranced,
But one thought would not down:

'Is he content with this snatched and broken life? '
She thought, 'when we might be free?
He cannot love that dowdy middle-aged wife.
Does he really love me? '

She was not burnt by jealousy sudden and hot,
But poisoned and chilled that he would not break
A meagre tie to a wife she knew he could not
Love, - yet would not forsake.

One night at her window, looking over the Park,
With his strong hand on her shoulder prest,
And a thunder-cloud rolling up out of the dark,
Rolling out of the West,

Suddenly she heard herself quoting Macbeth:
' 'To be thus is nothing, but to be safely thus.' '
He answered after a pause on a long-drawn breath:
'Safety is not for us.'

V
AND from that moment Lee began - not nagging,
She was too wise for that - but she began
A secret steady pull, a silent dragging
To break the other tie that bound this man.

And she would brood, injured, remote, self-centred
At any mention that he had a wife;
And something chill and faintly hostile entered
The magic circle of this hidden life.

O lovers, those legitimately united
In holy wedlock, and less happy, those
Whose troth may never openly be plighted­
(Less happy did I say? Alas, who knows?)

But lovers all, beware, and know the strongest
Of wills may make a strong antagonist:
And that love will not always linger longest
With those who hold it in too clenched a fist.

VI

YET on the whole they were happy, as day by day
The long mysterious Summer passed away.
None guessed their secret - except far off on a shady
Lawn by the coast of Maine, a middle-aged lady
Spending a quiet Summer almost alone
In a great Victorian house of dark gray stone,
Knew as she sat and stared at the cold Maine ocean
Every event, every phase, every emotion
Of that great romance. She knew, none better,
Not by a chance or slip, or anonymous letter,
Not through gossip by any tattler carried,
But because she perfectly knew the man she had married.

VII

'DO not go home for Sunday,
Darling,' Lee's letter said.
'How I hate Friday to Monday!
Stay with me here, instead.
Life is so short, and one day
Soon, we shall both be dead.

'The curse of love like ours
Is that we seem to be
Always cut short by powers
Stronger than you and me.
But if you stayed-what hours,
Glorious, alone and free'

VIII

RUTH in her quiet garden beside the sea
Thinking, 'To-morrow at this time Jim will be
Here at my side. It's something to be a wife -
The background dull and assured of everyday life.
He must come home, whether he wants to or not,
To me, to me... All other women must plot,
Arrange, manoeuver to see him...'

And then behind her
She heard the steps of a servant coming to find her:
A footman stood with a telegram held on a tray:
'Terribly sorry I cannot get away
This week-end. Better luck next. Love. Jim.'

She turned her head to the footman, and said to him,
'Say Mr. Wayne will not be here to-morrow.'
And the man withdrew and left her alone with her sorrow.

The sun went down behind the great blue hill;
And she sat there alone in her garden, perfectly still,
Watching the wraiths of fog blow in like smoke,
And her heart as she sat there gently and quietly broke.

IX

AN August Sunday in town,
The Park all sere and brown,
The noise of wheels died down.

Faint tepid breezes wake
Now and again, and make
Lee's slatted curtains shake.

Now and again in the street
The sound of passing feet,
And church bells, faint and sweet.

Faint bells that ought to mean
A village spire seen
Across a meadow green.

Faint bells... Wayne's early youth....
Going to church... in truth
Going to church with Ruth.

Faint bells, and Lee cries, 'Oh,
How I should like to know
Why bells depress me so! '

X

BEFORE the skulls of Primitive Man,
Lee stood and thought: 'Are we part of a plan
Of Nature's; or are we just a sort
Of Cosmic Coincidence - a sport
Of God - or worse, a sport of chance­
Or of Ether - Nature's great romance?

'How queer it would be, if it turned out we
Were merely eddies - Jim and me
Meaningless eddies in ether swirled
In and out of a meaningless world.
Well, if we are it's nice to think
We've had some moments upon the brink
Of dissolution - of absolute chaos
Moments of joy that well repay us.'

And she paused to note that her fellow eddy
Was fifteen minutes late already.

Waiting she wandered from floor to floor,
Every instant becoming more
Uneasy, and going back to the door,
Where Wayne ought to have been at exactly four.

She went from the skulls of Primitive Man
To the mystic temples of Yucatan,
Or studied gray elephants, vast and haughty,
But with eyes like pigs' eyes, shrewd and naughty,
Flamingoes of beautiful coral pink­
The ancestry of the missing link­
But in between she was always hurrying
Back to the doorway, wondering, worrying -
And then she saw with a horrid sinking
Of heart, it was five! And she went home thinking,
'Something has happened - he's been struck
By a ruthless, rollicking, rumbling truck,
Or crushed by a taxi, and now is lying
In some hospital ward - unknown and dying -
Or if they knew would they send in truth
For me? Oh, no, they would send for Ruth.'

And hurrying fast as the laws enable,
She found a telegram on her table,
Signed as usual, 'J. H. Wayne:'

'Ruth has pneumonia alone in Maine,
Of course I am taking the very first train.
Sorry to miss you before I go.
When I know my plans, I'll let you know.'

The first emotion felt by Lee
Was pure and perfect relief that he
Was safe. And then she felt the force
Of that cruel, domestic calm 'of course.'
And then undeniably into her head
Came the thought unbidden: - 'If Ruth were dead - '
And standing alone: 'Poor thing,' she said