Part 6

She cried it so loud that her voice went in To find where my two friends were; So Morgan came, and Fingal came, And out we went with her.

’Twas a lonely way for a man to take And a tedious way for three; And over the water, and all day long, They had come for the night with me.

But the girl was dead, as the woman had said, And the best we could see to do Was to lay her aboard. The north wind roared, And into the night we flew.

Four of us living and one for a ghost, Furrowing crest and swell, Through the surge and the dark, for that faint far spark, We ploughed with Azrael.

Three of us ruffled and one gone mad, Crashing to south we went; And three of us there were too spattered to care What this late sailing meant.

So down we steered and along we tore Through the flash of the midnight foam: Silent enough to be ghosts on guard, We ferried the dead girl home.

We ferried her down to the voiceless wharf, And we carried her up to the light; And we left the two to the father there, Who counted the coals that night.

Then back we steered through the foam again, But our thoughts were fast and few; And all we did was to crowd the surge And to measure the life we knew;--

Till at last we came where a dancing gleam Skipped out to us, we three,-- And the dark wet mooring pointed home Like a finger from the sea.

Then out we pushed the teetering skiff And in we drew to the stairs; And up we went, each man content With a life that fed no cares.

Fingers were cold and feet were cold, And the tide was cold and rough; But the light was warm, and the room was warm, And the world was good enough.

And there were the pipes, and there was the punch, More shrewd than Satan’s tears: Fingal had fashioned it, all by himself, With a craft that comes of years.

And there we were together again-- Together again, we three: Morgan, Fingal, fiddle, and all, They were there for the night with me.

AUNT IMOGEN

Aunt Imogen was coming, and therefore The children--Jane, Sylvester, and Young George-- Were eyes and ears; for there was only one Aunt Imogen to them in the whole world, And she was in it only for four weeks In fifty-two. But those great bites of time Made all September a Queen’s Festival; And they would strive, informally, to make The most of them.--The mother understood, And wisely stepped away. Aunt Imogen Was there for only one month in the year, While she, the mother,--she was always there; And that was what made all the difference. She knew it must be so, for Jane had once Expounded it to her so learnedly That she had looked away from the child’s eyes And thought; and she had thought of many things.

There was a demonstration every time Aunt Imogen appeared, and there was more Than one this time. And she was at a loss Just how to name the meaning of it all: It puzzled her to think that she could be So much to any crazy things alive-- Even to her sister’s little savages Who knew no better than to be themselves; But in the midst of her glad wonderment She found herself besieged and overcome By two tight arms and one tumultuous head, And therewith half bewildered and half pained By the joy she felt and by the sudden love That proved itself in childhood’s honest noise. Jane, by the wings of sex, had reached her first; And while she strangled her, approvingly, Sylvester thumped his drum and Young George howled.-- But finally, when all was rectified, And she had stilled the clamor of Young George By letting him go “pig-back” through the hall, They went together into the old room That looked across the fields; and Imogen Gazed out with a girl’s gladness in her eyes, Happy to know that she was back once more Where there were those who knew her, and at last Had gloriously got away again From cabs and clattered asphalt for a while; And there she sat and talked and looked and laughed And made the mother and the children laugh. Aunt Imogen made everybody laugh.

There was the feminine paradox--that she Who had so little sunshine for herself Should have so much for others. How it was That she could make, and feel for making it, So much of joy for them, and all along Be covering, like a scar, the while she smiled, That hungering incompleteness and regret-- That passionate ache for something of her own, For something of herself--she never knew. She knew that she could seem to make them all Believe there was no other part of her Than her persistent happiness; but the why And how she did not know. Still none of them Could have a thought that she was living down-- Almost as if regret were criminal, So proud it was and yet so profitless-- The penance of a dream, and that was good: Even her big bewhiskered brother Giles Had called her in his letter, not long since, A superannuated pretty girl; And she, to do the thing most adequate, Had posted back sarcastic sheets enough To keep the beast in humor for a month. But her sister Jane--the mother of little Jane, Sylvester, and Young George--may, after all, Have known; for she was--well, she was a woman.

Young George, however, did not yield himself To nourish the false hunger of a ghost That made no good return. He saw too much: The accumulated wisdom of his years Had so conclusively made plain to him The permanent profusion of a world Where everybody might have everything To do, and almost everything to eat, That he was jubilantly satisfied And all unthwarted by adversity. Young George knew things. The world, he had found out, Was a good place, and life was a good game-- Particularly when Aunt Imogen Was in it. And one day it came to pass-- One rainy day when she was holding him And rocking him--that he, in his own right, Took it upon himself to tell her so; And something in his way of telling it-- The language, or the tone, or something else-- Gripped like a baby’s fingers on her throat, And then went feeling through as if to make A plaything of her heart. Such undeserved And unsophisticated confidence Went mercilessly home; and had she sat Before a looking glass, the deeps of it Could not have shown more clearly to her then Than one thought-mirrored little glimpse had shown, The pang that wrenched her face and filled her eyes With anguish and intolerable mist. The blow that she had vaguely thrust aside Like fright so many times had found her now: Clean-thrust and final it had come to her From a child’s lips at last, as it had come Never before, and as it might be felt Never again. Some grief, like some delight, Stings hard but once: to custom after that The rapture or the pain submits itself, And we are wiser than we were before. And Imogen was wiser; though at first Her dream-defeating wisdom was indeed A thankless heritage: there was no sweet, No bitter now; nor was there anything To make a daily meaning for her life-- Till truth, like Harlequin, leapt out somehow From ambush and threw sudden savor to it-- But the blank taste of time. There were no dreams, No phantoms in her future any more: One clinching revelation of what was, One by-flash of irrevocable chance, Had acridly but honestly foretold The mystical fulfillment of a life That might have once.... But that was all gone by: There was no need of reaching back for that: The triumph was not hers: there was no love Save borrowed love: there was no might have been.

But there was yet Young George--and he had gone Conveniently to sleep, like a good boy; And there was yet Sylvester with his drum, And there was frowzle-headed little Jane; And there was Jane the sister, and the mother,-- Her sister, and the mother of them all. They were not hers, not even one of them: She was not born to be so much as that, For she was born to be Aunt Imogen. Now she could see the truth and look at it; Now she could make stars out where once had palled A future’s emptiness; now she could share With others--ah, the others!--to the end The largess of a woman who could smile; Now it was hers to dance the folly down, And all the murmuring; now it was hers To be Aunt Imogen.--So, when Young George Woke up and blinked at her with his big eyes, And smiled to see the way she blinked at him, ’Twas only in old concord with the stars That she took hold of him and held him close, Close to herself, and crushed him till he laughed.

THE KLONDIKE

Never mind the day we left, or the way the women clung to us; All we need now is the last way they looked at us. Never mind the twelve men there amid the cheering-- Twelve men or one man, ’twill soon be all the same; For this is what we know: we are five men together, Five left o’ twelve men to find the golden river.

Far we came to find it out, but the place was here for all of us; Far, far we came, and here we have the last of us. We that were the front men, we that would be early, We that had the faith, and the triumph in our eyes: We that had the wrong road, twelve men together,-- Singing when the devil sang to find the golden river.

Say the gleam was not for us, but never say we doubted it; Say the wrong road was right before we followed it. We that were the front men, fit for all forage,-- Say that while we dwindle we are front men still; For this is what we know to-night: we’re starving here together-- Starving on the wrong road to find the golden river.

Wrong, we say, but wait a little: hear him in the corner there; He knows more than we, and he’ll tell us if we listen there-- He that fought the snow-sleep less than all the others Stays awhile yet, and he knows where he stays: Foot and hand a frozen clout, brain a freezing feather, Still he’s here to talk with us and to the golden river.

“Flow,” he says, “and flow along, but you cannot flow away from us; All the world’s ice will never keep you far from us; Every man that heeds your call takes the way that leads him-- The one way that’s his way, and lives his own life: Starve or laugh, the game goes on, and on goes the river; Gold or no, they go their way--twelve men together.

“Twelve,” he says, “who sold their shame for a lure you call too fair for them-- You that laugh and flow to the same word that urges them: Twelve who left the old town shining in the sunset, Left the weary street and the small safe days: Twelve who knew but one way out, wide the way or narrow: Twelve who took the frozen chance and laid their lives on yellow.

“Flow by night and flow by day, nor ever once be seen by them; Flow, freeze, and flow, till time shall hide the bones of them; Laugh and wash their names away, leave them all forgotten, Leave the old town to crumble where it sleeps; Leave it there as they have left it, shining in the valley,-- Leave the town to crumble down and let the women marry.

“Twelve of us or five,” he says, “we know the night is on us now: Five while we last, and we may as well be thinking now: Thinking each his own thought, knowing, when the light comes, Five left or none left, the game will not be lost. Crouch or sleep, we go the way, the last way together: Five or none, the game goes on, and on goes the river.

“For after all that we have done and all that we have failed to do, Life will be life and the world will have its work to do: Every man who follows us will heed in his own fashion The calling and the warning and the friends who do not know: Each will hold an icy knife to punish his heart’s lover, And each will go the frozen way to find the golden river.”

There you hear him, all he says, and the last we’ll ever get from him. Now he wants to sleep, and that will be the best for him. Let him have his own way--no, you needn’t shake him-- Your own turn will come, so let the man sleep. For this is what we know: we are stalled here together-- Hands and feet and hearts of us, to find the golden river.

And there’s a quicker way than sleep?... Never mind the looks of him: All he needs now is a finger on the eyes of him. You there on the left hand, reach a little over-- Shut the stars away, or he’ll see them all night: He’ll see them all night and he’ll see them all to-morrow, Crawling down the frozen sky, cold and hard and yellow.

Won’t you move an inch or two--to keep the stars away from him? --No, he won’t move, and there’s no need of asking him. Never mind the twelve men, never mind the women; Three while we last, we’ll let them all go; And we’ll hold our thoughts north while we starve here together, Looking each his own way to find the golden river.

THE GROWTH OF “LORRAINE”

I

While I stood listening, discreetly dumb, Lorraine was having the last word with me: “I know,” she said, “I know it, but you see Some creatures are born fortunate, and some Are born to be found out and overcome,-- Born to be slaves, to let the rest go free; And if I’m one of them (and I must be) You may as well forget me and go home.

“You tell me not to say these things, I know, But I should never try to be content: I’ve gone too far; the life would be too slow. Some could have done it--some girls have the stuff; But I can’t do it: I don’t know enough. I’m going to the devil.”--And she went.

II

I did not half believe her when she said That I should never hear from her again; Nor when I found a letter from Lorraine, Was I surprised or grieved at what I read: “Dear friend, when you find this, I shall be dead. You are too far away to make me stop. They say that one drop--think of it, one drop!-- Will be enough,--but I’ll take five instead.

“You do not frown because I call you friend, For I would have you glad that I still keep Your memory, and even at the end-- Impenitent, sick, shattered--cannot curse The love that flings, for better or for worse, This worn-out, cast-out flesh of mine to sleep.”

THE SAGE

Foreguarded and unfevered and serene, Back to the perilous gates of Truth he went-- Back to fierce wisdom and the Orient, To the Dawn that is, that shall be, and has been: Previsioned of the madness and the mean He stood where Asia, crowned with ravishment, The curtain of Love’s inner shrine had rent, And after had gone scarred by the Unseen.

There at his touch there was a treasure chest, And in it was a gleam, but not of gold; And on it, like a flame, these words were scrolled: “I keep the mintage of Eternity. Who comes to take one coin may take the rest, And all may come--but not without the key.”

ERASMUS

When he protested, not too solemnly, That for a world’s achieving maintenance The crust of overdone divinity Lacked aliment, they called it recreance; And when he chose through his own glass to scan Sick Europe, and reduced, unyieldingly, The monk within the cassock to the man Within the monk, they called it heresy.

And when he made so perilously bold As to be scattered forth in black and white, Good fathers looked askance at him and rolled Their inward eyes in anguish and affright; There were some of them did shake at what was told, And they shook best who knew that he was right.

THE WOMAN AND THE WIFE

I--THE EXPLANATION

“You thought we knew,” she said, “but we were wrong. This we can say, the rest we do not say; Nor do I let you throw yourself away Because you love me. Let us both be strong, And we shall find in sorrow, before long, Only the price Love ruled that we should pay: The dark is at the end of every day, And silence is the end of every song.

“You ask me for one proof that I speak right, But I can answer only what I know; You look for just one lie to make black white, But I can tell you only what is true-- God never made me for the wife of you. This we can say,--believe me!... Tell me so!”

II--THE ANNIVERSARY

“Give me the truth, whatever it may be. You thought we knew, now tell me what you miss: You are the one to tell me what it is-- You are a man, and you have married me. What is it worth to-night that you can see More marriage in the dream of one dead kiss Than in a thousand years of life like this? Passion has turned the lock, Pride keeps the key.

“Whatever I have said or left unsaid, Whatever I have done or left undone,-- Tell me. Tell me the truth.... Are you afraid? Do you think that Love was ever fed with lies But hunger lived thereafter in his eyes? Do you ask me to take moonlight for the sun?”

THE BOOK OF ANNANDALE

I

Partly to think, more to be left alone, George Annandale said something to his friends-- A word or two, brusque, but yet smoothed enough To suit their funeral gaze--and went upstairs; And there, in the one room that he could call His own, he found a kind of meaningless Annoyance in the mute familiar things That filled it; for the grate’s monotonous gleam Was not the gleam that he had known before, The books were not the books that used to be, The place was not the place. There was a lack Of something; and the certitude of death Itself, as with a furtive questioning, Hovered, and he could not yet understand. He knew that she was gone--there was no need Of any argued proof to tell him that, For they had buried her that afternoon, Under the leaves and snow; and still there was A doubt, a pitiless doubt, a plunging doubt, That struck him, and upstartled when it struck, The vision, the old thought in him. There was A lack, and one that wrenched him; but it was Not that--not that. There was a present sense Of something indeterminably near-- The soul-clutch of a prescient emptiness That would not be foreboding. And if not, What then?--or was it anything at all? Yes, it was something--it was everything-- But what was everything? or anything?

Tired of time, bewildered, he sat down; But in his chair he kept on wondering That he should feel so desolately strange And yet--for all he knew that he had lost More of the world than most men ever win-- So curiously calm. And he was left Unanswered and unsatisfied: there came No clearer meaning to him than had come Before; the old abstraction was the best That he could find, the farthest he could go; To that was no beginning and no end-- No end that he could reach. So he must learn To live the surest and the largest life Attainable in him, would he divine The meaning of the dream and of the words That he had written, without knowing why, On sheets that he had bound up like a book And covered with red leather. There it was-- There in his desk, the record he had made, The spiritual plaything of his life: There were the words no eyes had ever seen Save his; there were the words that were not made For glory or for gold. The pretty wife Whom he had loved and lost had not so much As heard of them. They were not made for her. His love had been so much the life of her, And hers had been so much the life of him, That any wayward phrasing on his part Would have had no moment. Neither had lived enough To know the book, albeit one of them Had grown enough to write it. There it was, However, though he knew not why it was: There was the book, but it was not for her, For she was dead. And yet, there was the book.

Thus would his fancy circle out and out, And out and in again, till he would make As if with a large freedom to crush down Those under-thoughts. He covered with his hands His tired eyes, and waited: he could hear-- Or partly feel and hear, mechanically-- The sound of talk, with now and then the steps And skirts of some one scudding on the stairs, Forgetful of the nerveless funeral feet That she had brought with her; and more than once There came to him a call as of a voice-- A voice of love returning--but not hers. Whose he knew not, nor dreamed; nor did he know, Nor did he dream, in his blurred loneliness Of thought, what all the rest might think of him.