Chapter 5

"Bloomy the world, yet a blank all the same—Framework that waits for a picture to frame."

"Bloomy the world, yet a blank all the same—

Framework that waits for a picture to frame."

And then, sudden as a cry:

"Never the time and the place,And the loved one all together!"

"Never the time and the place,

And the loved one all together!"

She drew a long, shivering sigh, and deliberately thrust the lines out of her mind. Best not to remember them—on such a night! Their edges cut like young grass drawn through careless fingers.

The little new moon was rising higher in the deep, soft blue-darkness of the sky. Margaret looked up at its gleaming curve, and other words of poetry came to her, words she had read once in an old magazine—translated from the Persian:

"Quaffing Hadji-Kivam's wine-cup, there I saw by grace of him,On the green sea of the night, the new moon's silver shallop swim!"

"Quaffing Hadji-Kivam's wine-cup, there I saw by grace of him,

On the green sea of the night, the new moon's silver shallop swim!"

They swung on, like a familiar, wistful, passionate tune:

"Oh, my heart is like a tulip, closing up in time of cold!When, at length, shy Bird of Fortune, shall my snare thy wings enfold?"

"Oh, my heart is like a tulip, closing up in time of cold!

When, at length, shy Bird of Fortune, shall my snare thy wings enfold?"

Footsteps sounded along the walk, the linked steps of two, lingering, yet with the springing fall of youth; then a murmur of voices, girl's and boy's interchanging, lingering, too, and low, weighted, like the footsteps, with the burden of their hour. Margaret drew back a little behind the sapless vine-stems. She knew that she could not be seen in the shadow of the porch, even by a passer far less absorbed than the two who drifted by. She had recognized Frank and Jean at once, and thrilled intimately at the quality of their voices. Both were changed from the careless tones of every day, Frank's husky and strained, Jean's vibrant and tremulous. What they said was quite inaudible—only that betrayingtimbre, conscious and unconscious, hung on the scented air. A single word in the girl's thrilled voice—a sharpened, quivering note of life at high tension—pierced the shadows of the porch:

"—— you ——"

"'You!'" Margaret leaned forward among her shadows, thrusting her clenched hands downward, then pressed them tight upon her heart. "You!" That little key unlocked the flood-gates. The barriers went down, and the tide of passionate loneliness swept her soul.

"You!" she whispered to the fragrant, shimmering, vitalizing night; and the word mocked her, and returned unto her void. She leaned her bosom against the angled surface of the porch-post; she pressed her face among the dry, unbudded vines. The cry went out from her into the empty spaces of the world—a voiceless, hopeless call: "You! you! you! Oh, you who never came to me!"

Her soul was ravaged by that mocking bitterness of loss which comes only to those who have not possessed. She, crying for a lover in the night, she who had never been sought! If ever her shy and homely girlhood might have attracted a youth, poor Margaret's love of poetry would have frightened him away. If the burdened poverty of her maturity might have admitted a suitor, her acquaintance numbered no man who would not have shunned an earnest-minded old maid. And she knew this utterly. A thousand old aches were in the sudden rush of anguish, and shame fought among them. She was shocked and startled at the drip of salt tears down her cheeks, at the heaving of her shaken breast.

She struggled to rebuild her old barriers against the woe—pride, and dignity, and the decent acceptance of one's lot. But those were for the eyes of men and women; and here were no eyes, only night, and the risen sap and the wild heart in her breast. Duty? She had never swerved in doing it, but she thrust the thought by with passionate rebellion at the waste of her in dull service to the outworn lives which neither asked nor could take from her anything but the daily drudgery. She groped for the old humble consolations, tender appreciations, generous friendships, the joy in others' joy. But there the wall had broken through. "I am nothing to them!" thought Margaret bitterly. "Jean will not care to talk to me after to-night. And I can't always kiss other people's babies! I want one of my own!"

The gauzy veil of dream that wrapped her often had fallen from before her eyes. Rent by the piercing beauty of the night, and soaked in her tears, that fragile fabric of vision served no more. Imagined blisses had betrayed her, naked and tender, to the unpitying lash of truth. The remote, the universal, mocked her sore longing for something near and real, of earth and flesh—oh, as welcome in sorrow as in joy!—to be imperiously her own! The river of life dashed by and would not fill her empty cup. The love she loved so had passed her by.

She faced the hollowest desolation known to humanity. She had committed no sin; she had been true and tender and faithful; she had not failed in the least and humblest dues of love: yet, now she stood wrapped in torment, and saw, across a great gulf fixed, the joys of love's elect. She stood utterly frustrate and alone—a shared frustration were happiness! Her mental life had been so intensely uncompanioned that she was tortured with doubts of her own reality. What warrant of Being had that soul which could not touch in all the blank, black spaces of the void another soul to give it assurance of itself? What if the aching throat and riven breast were but the phantom anguish of a dream Thing, unpurposed, unjustified, a Thing of ashes and emptiness!

There remained God—perhaps! Was God a dream too? Was there anyYouin all the empty worlds?

She stood quite still, questing the universe for God. She thought of her father's God—the savage Hebrew deity he thought he worshiped, the harsh Puritan formalist who ruled his creed, the hysterical, illogical sentimentalist who swayed his heart. She dropped them all out of her mind. God was not, for her, in the ancient earthquake or fire or whirlwind. But—perhaps—somewhere!

She sank to her knees in the darkness, and, laying her head upon her arms on the railing, sought in her soul for God.

"You are Love," she said. "They say it, but they do not believe it; butIbelieve it. You are Love that creates, and makes glad—and wounds. You are Love that rises in all creatures in spring, and would make all things beautiful and kind. You are Love that gives—and gives itself. You made me to love love and love's uses, and nothing else in the world! You made my life loveless. Why?"

She waited a moment, then, with a sobbing breath of remembrance, "Oh, one spring they nailed you on a cross because you loved too much!"

After that she was very still, her head bent upon her arms, her heart quiet, waiting for the still, small voice, the answer of God.

It came presently, and she knew it was the answer. She accepted it with comfort, and sad pride, and submission, and a slow, strange, white happiness of consecration. The answer came without any words. If there had been words, they might have been, perhaps, like these:

"Bear the pain patiently, my daughter, for life is wrought in pain, and there is no child born without sharp pangs. I have not shut thee out from my festival of spring. Thy part is thy pang. I have given thee a coronal of pain and made thee rich with loss and desire. I have made thee one of my vestals who guard perpetually the hearth-fire which shall not be lit for them. I have denied thee love that love shall be manifest in thee. Wherever love fails in my world, there shalt thou re-create it in beauty and kindness. The vision thou hast, and the passion, are of me, and I charge thee find some fair and sweet way that they perish not in thee. All ways are mine. Be thou in peace."

Margaret rose at length. The moon was gone from the sky, but out of its deep, tender darkness shone the far, dim light of stars. A cool wind touched her cheek, bearing a faint, ethereal odor of blossoms as from a great distance. And upon her face, if one might have seen for the darkness, shone a fine, ethereal beauty far-brought from that great distance which is nearer than hands and feet.

Against the shadowy front of the house opposite, two figures were vaguely discernible, the taller a little darker than the encompassing space, the other a little lighter. As Margaret looked, they melted together, and were no longer two but one.

She smiled in the darkness, very sweetly, and, holding her head high, turned and went quietly into the dark little house.

Work Is a Blessing

By Lafayette Young

Work is a blessing to the human race.

If this had remained a workless world, it would have been a homeless world. The progress of the human race began when work began. When work began, men began to wear clothes; thus progress commenced.

Industry and happiness go hand in hand.

Men who feel that they are doomed to daily toil, and that there is no so-called emancipation from the daily routine, imagine that happiness would be theirs if they did not have to work. The man whose employment compels him to get up at six o'clock in the morning imagines if he could just get out of that slavery he would ask for no greater happiness. But if he ever does reach that condition he will find out what true misery is.

Some years ago the warden of the Iowa penitentiary told me that he had a prisoner serving a long term, who begged a day off. He wanted to stop the regular routine. He wanted to be set free in the courtyard for one day. He wanted to look straight up at the sky, and to breathe the air of the outdoors. I was at the penitentiary the day the prisoner's request was granted, and at ten o'clock the prisoner had grown tired of idleness. The sky had lost its attraction. There was something missing. And he got word to the warden that he wished to be returned to labor.

There are millions of men toiling in factories and in mines, laying brick on tall buildings, swinging cranes in the great iron mills, tending the machines in cotton or woolen mills, who think that they would be perfectly happy if they were once perfectly idle. But their experience would be like that of the prisoner's.

What a wretched world this would be without work! How many things we have which are indispensable, that we would not have but for somebody's work. Work has built every great bridge, every great cathedral, every home, large or small. It has made every invention. Work found man in a cave, and put him into a good home. Work has made man decent and self-respecting.

The great nations are the working nations; the great peoples are the working peoples. Nations, like individuals, date their prosperity and happiness from the beginning of work. The start was made when man gave attention to the primal curse of the race recorded in the book of Genesis: "By the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, until thou return to the ground." This mandate has never been repealed. Lazy men in all parts of the world have undertaken to nullify it. The ambition for idleness fills jails and penitentiaries. It causes man to commit forgeries and murders. Every man slugged in a dark alley is put out of the way by some other man desiring money without working for it.

There has been a foolish notion in many countries in regard to labor. They do not consider it dignified. In some countries, missionary families learn that they cannot cook their own victuals without losing caste. In other countries a certain number of servants must be kept if the family would be respected. In our own country there is a false pride in regard to labor. Young men avoid the learning of trades because they do not wish to soil their hands. Laboring men themselves have been guilty of not sufficiently estimating their own callings. They demand the rights of their class, but fail to respect it themselves. This causes many young men to seek some employment which will not soil their hands. Many thousands of young men make the mistake of not having some regular calling, some work which they can do better than anybody else. The man who has a regular trade is never found walking the streets looking for a job. Even when he is called old, he can secure employment.

Industry is indispensable to happiness. Idleness destroys the souls of more young men, and leads to more forms of dissipation, than any other influence.

The experienced mechanic knows how rapidly and joyfully time passes when he is interested in his work. He never watches the clock; to him quitting time comes all too soon.

Labor can be made a joy if man wills it so.

An appreciation of what a man earns and the thought that he can do something with his money, ought to be a part of the happiness of labor. Work develops the man. It develops his appreciation of others. He is likely to be unhappy if he works solely for himself. The Indian hunter, returning from the chase, lays the evidence of his prowess at the feet of his squaw. He is glad that he has accomplished something, and in her eyes he is a hero.

Once I was driving in the Allegheny Mountains in the early summer. Unexpectedly I came to a little cottage almost covered with flowers and vines. A brown-faced woman with pruning shears was at her work. Around her bees were humming, and birds were twittering. I sought to buy some flowers. She said she never had sold a flower in her life. I asked her what induced her to work early and late, cultivating, planting and pruning. She said, "I do this work because I enjoy it, and because my husband and two sons will enjoy these flowers when they come home at night." This woman had the whole philosophy of human happiness. If there are women in heaven she will be there.

Work came as a blessing. It remains as a blessing. It makes us tired so that we can enjoy sleep. We awaken in the morning refreshed for a new day. When kings and queens shall be no more, when autocracy shall end, when the voices of intelligent men and women shall govern, then if work shall be universal, thus satisfying the energy, and giving direction to the ambitions of men, there will be no more wars.

To make work enjoyable, men and women must be proud of it; must not pretend that they are above it; must not apologize for it. Once I was in Holland. I saw women with a peculiar headdress as if they belonged to some lodge. They wore smiling faces. I inquired what their regalia meant, and was told that they were working women of the peasant or some other humble class. They were proud of their position. They were content, with plenty to do. They enjoyed the society of their families and friends. But their happiness consisted in being proud of, and satisfied with, the things they were doing. Who can say that they have not chosen the better part?

September

By Esse V. Hathaway

Blaze on blaze of scarlet sumach,Roadsides lined with radiant gold,Purple ironweed, regal, slender,Rasping locust, shrill and bold.Dusty smell in field and upland,Sky of copper mixed with blue,Life intense as is the weather—Let's away, just me and you!

Blaze on blaze of scarlet sumach,Roadsides lined with radiant gold,Purple ironweed, regal, slender,Rasping locust, shrill and bold.

Blaze on blaze of scarlet sumach,

Roadsides lined with radiant gold,

Purple ironweed, regal, slender,

Rasping locust, shrill and bold.

Dusty smell in field and upland,Sky of copper mixed with blue,Life intense as is the weather—Let's away, just me and you!

Dusty smell in field and upland,

Sky of copper mixed with blue,

Life intense as is the weather—

Let's away, just me and you!

Two men speaking to each other

Host and Houseguest

"I say, old top, I wish you wouldn't be continually kissing the wife. I think once when you come and once when you go quite sufficient."

"But, my dear man, I can't wear myself out coming and going all the time just to please you."

—From "Judge." Copyright by Leslie-Judge Co.

The Poet of the Future

By Tacitus Hussey

Oh, the poet of the future. Will he come to us as comesThe beauty of the bugle's voice above the roar of drums—The beauty of the bugle's voice above the roar and dinOf battle drums that pulse the time the victor marches in?—James Whitcomb Riley.

Oh, the poet of the future. Will he come to us as comes

The beauty of the bugle's voice above the roar of drums—

The beauty of the bugle's voice above the roar and din

Of battle drums that pulse the time the victor marches in?

—James Whitcomb Riley.

"Oh, the poet of the future!" Can anybody guessWhether he'll sound his bugle, or she'll wear them on her dress;An' will they kinder get their themes from nature, second hand,An' dish 'em up in language that plain folks can't understand?There's a sight of this 'ere po'try stuff, each year, that goes to waste,Jest a-waitin' fer a poet who has the time and tasteTo tackle it just as it is, an' weave it into rhyme,With warp and woof of hope and love, in life's swift loom of time.An' mebbe the future poet, if he understands the thing,Won't start the summer katydids to singin' in the spring,Jest like the croakin' frog; but let the critter wait at most,To announce to timid farmers that "it's jest six weeks till frost."The katydid and goldenrod are partners in this way:They sing and bloom where'er there's room, along life's sunny way;So I warn you, future poet, jest let 'em bloom an' liltTogether—don't divorce 'em. That's jest the way they're built.In order to be perfect, the future poet shouldKnow every sound of nature, of river, lake an' wood,Should know each whispered note and every answerin' call—He should never set cock-pheasants to drummin' in the fall."Under the golden maples!" Not havin' voice to singThey flap their love out on a log quite early in the spring;For burnin' love will allus find expression in some way—That's the style thatthey'veadopted—don't change their natures, pray.I cannot guess just what the future poet's themes may be;Reckon they'll be pretty lofty, fer, as anyone can see,The world of poetry's lookin' up an' poets climbin' higher;With divine afflatus boostin' them, of course they must aspire.The poets of the good old times were cruder with the pen;Their idees weren't the same as ours—these good old-fashioned men—Bet old Homer never writ, even in his palmiest day,Such a soul-upliftin' poem as "Hosses Chawin' Hay.""Hosses" don't know any better out in the Hawkeye State—Down to Boston now, I reckon, they jest simply masticate.The poet of the future'll blow a bugle, like as not—Most all us modern poets had to blow fer what we've got.To keep the pot a-b'ilin' we all have to raise a dinTo make the public look our way—an' pass the shekels in.The scarcity of bugles seems now the greatest lackThough some of us keep blowin' 'thout a bugle to our back.The poet of the future! When once he takes his themeHis pen will slip as smoothly as a canoe glides down stream.He'll sing from overflowin' heart—his music will be free—Would you take up a subscription fer a robin in a tree?He'll never try to drive the Muse, if he doesn't want to go,But will promptly take the harness off—er drive keerfull an' slow—When po'try's forced, like winter pinks, the people's apt to know itAn' labor with it jest about as hard as did the poet.

"Oh, the poet of the future!" Can anybody guess

Whether he'll sound his bugle, or she'll wear them on her dress;

An' will they kinder get their themes from nature, second hand,

An' dish 'em up in language that plain folks can't understand?

There's a sight of this 'ere po'try stuff, each year, that goes to waste,Jest a-waitin' fer a poet who has the time and tasteTo tackle it just as it is, an' weave it into rhyme,With warp and woof of hope and love, in life's swift loom of time.

There's a sight of this 'ere po'try stuff, each year, that goes to waste,

Jest a-waitin' fer a poet who has the time and taste

To tackle it just as it is, an' weave it into rhyme,

With warp and woof of hope and love, in life's swift loom of time.

An' mebbe the future poet, if he understands the thing,Won't start the summer katydids to singin' in the spring,Jest like the croakin' frog; but let the critter wait at most,To announce to timid farmers that "it's jest six weeks till frost."

An' mebbe the future poet, if he understands the thing,

Won't start the summer katydids to singin' in the spring,

Jest like the croakin' frog; but let the critter wait at most,

To announce to timid farmers that "it's jest six weeks till frost."

The katydid and goldenrod are partners in this way:They sing and bloom where'er there's room, along life's sunny way;So I warn you, future poet, jest let 'em bloom an' liltTogether—don't divorce 'em. That's jest the way they're built.

The katydid and goldenrod are partners in this way:

They sing and bloom where'er there's room, along life's sunny way;

So I warn you, future poet, jest let 'em bloom an' lilt

Together—don't divorce 'em. That's jest the way they're built.

In order to be perfect, the future poet shouldKnow every sound of nature, of river, lake an' wood,Should know each whispered note and every answerin' call—He should never set cock-pheasants to drummin' in the fall.

In order to be perfect, the future poet should

Know every sound of nature, of river, lake an' wood,

Should know each whispered note and every answerin' call—

He should never set cock-pheasants to drummin' in the fall.

"Under the golden maples!" Not havin' voice to singThey flap their love out on a log quite early in the spring;For burnin' love will allus find expression in some way—That's the style thatthey'veadopted—don't change their natures, pray.

"Under the golden maples!" Not havin' voice to sing

They flap their love out on a log quite early in the spring;

For burnin' love will allus find expression in some way—

That's the style thatthey'veadopted—don't change their natures, pray.

I cannot guess just what the future poet's themes may be;Reckon they'll be pretty lofty, fer, as anyone can see,The world of poetry's lookin' up an' poets climbin' higher;With divine afflatus boostin' them, of course they must aspire.

I cannot guess just what the future poet's themes may be;

Reckon they'll be pretty lofty, fer, as anyone can see,

The world of poetry's lookin' up an' poets climbin' higher;

With divine afflatus boostin' them, of course they must aspire.

The poets of the good old times were cruder with the pen;Their idees weren't the same as ours—these good old-fashioned men—Bet old Homer never writ, even in his palmiest day,Such a soul-upliftin' poem as "Hosses Chawin' Hay."

The poets of the good old times were cruder with the pen;

Their idees weren't the same as ours—these good old-fashioned men—

Bet old Homer never writ, even in his palmiest day,

Such a soul-upliftin' poem as "Hosses Chawin' Hay."

"Hosses" don't know any better out in the Hawkeye State—Down to Boston now, I reckon, they jest simply masticate.The poet of the future'll blow a bugle, like as not—Most all us modern poets had to blow fer what we've got.

"Hosses" don't know any better out in the Hawkeye State—

Down to Boston now, I reckon, they jest simply masticate.

The poet of the future'll blow a bugle, like as not—

Most all us modern poets had to blow fer what we've got.

To keep the pot a-b'ilin' we all have to raise a dinTo make the public look our way—an' pass the shekels in.The scarcity of bugles seems now the greatest lackThough some of us keep blowin' 'thout a bugle to our back.

To keep the pot a-b'ilin' we all have to raise a din

To make the public look our way—an' pass the shekels in.

The scarcity of bugles seems now the greatest lack

Though some of us keep blowin' 'thout a bugle to our back.

The poet of the future! When once he takes his themeHis pen will slip as smoothly as a canoe glides down stream.He'll sing from overflowin' heart—his music will be free—Would you take up a subscription fer a robin in a tree?

The poet of the future! When once he takes his theme

His pen will slip as smoothly as a canoe glides down stream.

He'll sing from overflowin' heart—his music will be free—

Would you take up a subscription fer a robin in a tree?

He'll never try to drive the Muse, if he doesn't want to go,But will promptly take the harness off—er drive keerfull an' slow—When po'try's forced, like winter pinks, the people's apt to know itAn' labor with it jest about as hard as did the poet.

He'll never try to drive the Muse, if he doesn't want to go,

But will promptly take the harness off—er drive keerfull an' slow—

When po'try's forced, like winter pinks, the people's apt to know it

An' labor with it jest about as hard as did the poet.

Putting the Stars with the Bars

By Verne Marshall

Midnight beneath a low-hanging strip of amber-hued moon. Smoke in one's eyes and sulphur in his nostrils; the pounding of cannon in his ears and a hatred of war and its sponsors in his soul. A supply wagon piled high with dead men on one side of the road and a little ambulance waiting for its bruised load to emerge from the mouth of the communicating trench near by. Sharp tongues of fire darting into the night on every side as the guns of the French barked their challenge at the Crown Prince on the other bank of the Meuse. A lurid glare over there to the left where the smoke hung thickest under drifting yellow illuminating bombs and red and blue signal bombs that added their touch to the weird fantasy that wasn't a fantasy at all, but a hill in whose spelling men had changed one letter and turned it into hell.

It was Dead Man's Hill at Verdun—Le Cote Mort Homme. And Dead Man's Hill it truly was, for among the barbed wire entanglements and in some of the shell craters in No Man's Land there still lay the skeletons of Frenchmen and Germans who had been killed there months before and whose bodies it had been impossible to recover because the trenches had not changed positions and to venture out between them was to shake hands with Death.

Dead Man's Hill at Verdun—where ten thousand men have fought for a few feet of blood-soaked ground in vain effort to satiate the battle-thirst of a monarch and his son! The countryside for miles around is laid waste. Villages lie in tumbled masses, trees are uprooted or broken off, demolished wagons and motors litter the roads and fields, and dead horses, legs stiff in the air, dot the jagged landscape. Not a moving object is seen there by day except the crows that flutter above the uptorn ground and the aeroplanes that soar thousands of feet above. But, with the coming of night, long columns of men wind along the treacherous roads on their way to or from the trenches, hundreds of supply wagons lumber across the shell holes to the stations near the line, ammunition trains travel up to the lines and back and the ambulances ply their routes to dressing stations. Everything must be done under night's partially protecting cloak, for the German gunners seldom miss when daylight aids their vision.

A tiny American ambulance—a jitney—threads its way down from the Dead Man to ——, carrying a boy through whose breast a dum-dum bullet had torn its beastly way. Three hours before, the driver of that ambulance had talked with the boy who now lay behind him on a stretcher. Then the young Frenchman had been looking forward to the wondrous day when the war would end. He had planned to come to America to live, just as soon as he could get back to Paris and say good-bye to the mother from whom he had received a letter that very day.

"I will be lucky!" he had exclaimed to the American. "I will not be killed. I will not even be wounded. Ah, but won't I be glad when the war is over!"

But his life was slipping away, faster than the Red Cross car could carry him to aid. The checking station reached, two orderlies pulled the stretcher from the ambulance. There was a choking sound in the wounded soldier's throat and the driver, thinking to ease his breathing, lifted his head. The closed eyes fluttered open, the indescribable smile of the dying lighted his face and with his last faint breath he murmured those words that always still war momentarily—

"Ah,mere!Ma mere!"

"Oh, mother! My mother!"—and he was dead.

Just one little incident of war, just a single glimpse at the accomplishments of monarchial militarism.

That French boy has not come to America, but America has gone to him. He died for a flag that is red, white and blue—for the tricolor of France. And we have gone across the sea to place the stars of our flag with the bars of his. His fight was our fight and our fight is his. Together we fight against those who menace civilization in both old world and new. We fight against the army that outraged Belgium and devastated France, against the militaristic clique that sanctioned the slaughtering and crippling of little children, the maiming of women, against that order of militarists who decorated the commander of the submarine that sank the Lusitania with her babies and their mothers.

We are at war and we are Americans…. Enough.

Verne Marshall was the driver of that ambulance. Three months of his service were spent at Verdun.

The Kings of Saranazett

By Lewis Worthington Smith

A Scene From the First Act

A drama of the awakening of the nearer Orient. In this scene Nasrulla appears as the royal lover of the fig merchant's daughter, Nourmahal. She has learned something of the ways of the West, where even kings have but one acknowledged consort, and she is not willing to be merely one of a number of queens.Before the wall and gate enclosing Nourmahal's Garden. It is early morning, just before dawn. Above the gleaming white of the wall's sun-baked clay there is the deep green of the trees—the plane, the poplar, the acacia, and, beyond the garden, mountains are visible through the purple mist of the hour that waits for dawn, slowly turning to rose as the rising sun warms their snowy heights. At the left the wall extends out of sight behind a clump of trees, but at the right it ends in a tower topped by a turret with a rounded dome passing into a point. The space under the dome is open, except for a railing, and is large enough for one or more persons. It may be entered from the broad top of the wall through a break in the railing. At the left, out from the trees and in front of the wall, there is a well marked out with roughly piled stones.At the right, out of sight behind the trees that come almost to the tower at the corner of the wall, a man's voice is heard singing Shelley's "Indian Serenade.""I arise from dreams of theeIn the first sweet sleep of night,When the winds are breathing low,And the stars are shining bright;I arise from dreams of thee,And a something in my feetHath led me—who knows how?To thy chamber window, Sweet!"The wandering airs they faintOn the dark, the silent stream—The Champak odors failLike sweet thoughts in a dream;The nightingale's complaint,It dies upon her heart;—As I must die on thine,O! beloved as thou art!"Oh lift me from the grass!I die! I faint! I fail!Let thy love in kisses rainOn my lips and eyelids pale.My cheek is cold and white, alas!My heart beats loud and fast;—Oh! press it to thine own again,Where it will break at last."During the singing Nourmahal has come slowly out from the left, walking along the broad top of the wall until, coming to the tower, she drops down on the floor by the railing of the turret and listens, her veil falling from before her face. When the song has ended, Nasrulla comes forward and approaches the little tower. He leads a horse, a white horse with its tail dyed red in the Persian fashion.

Before the wall and gate enclosing Nourmahal's Garden. It is early morning, just before dawn. Above the gleaming white of the wall's sun-baked clay there is the deep green of the trees—the plane, the poplar, the acacia, and, beyond the garden, mountains are visible through the purple mist of the hour that waits for dawn, slowly turning to rose as the rising sun warms their snowy heights. At the left the wall extends out of sight behind a clump of trees, but at the right it ends in a tower topped by a turret with a rounded dome passing into a point. The space under the dome is open, except for a railing, and is large enough for one or more persons. It may be entered from the broad top of the wall through a break in the railing. At the left, out from the trees and in front of the wall, there is a well marked out with roughly piled stones.

At the right, out of sight behind the trees that come almost to the tower at the corner of the wall, a man's voice is heard singing Shelley's "Indian Serenade."

"I arise from dreams of theeIn the first sweet sleep of night,When the winds are breathing low,And the stars are shining bright;I arise from dreams of thee,And a something in my feetHath led me—who knows how?To thy chamber window, Sweet!"The wandering airs they faintOn the dark, the silent stream—The Champak odors failLike sweet thoughts in a dream;The nightingale's complaint,It dies upon her heart;—As I must die on thine,O! beloved as thou art!"Oh lift me from the grass!I die! I faint! I fail!Let thy love in kisses rainOn my lips and eyelids pale.My cheek is cold and white, alas!My heart beats loud and fast;—Oh! press it to thine own again,Where it will break at last."

"I arise from dreams of thee

In the first sweet sleep of night,

When the winds are breathing low,

And the stars are shining bright;

I arise from dreams of thee,

And a something in my feet

Hath led me—who knows how?

To thy chamber window, Sweet!

"The wandering airs they faintOn the dark, the silent stream—The Champak odors failLike sweet thoughts in a dream;The nightingale's complaint,It dies upon her heart;—As I must die on thine,O! beloved as thou art!

"The wandering airs they faint

On the dark, the silent stream—

The Champak odors fail

Like sweet thoughts in a dream;

The nightingale's complaint,

It dies upon her heart;—

As I must die on thine,

O! beloved as thou art!

"Oh lift me from the grass!I die! I faint! I fail!Let thy love in kisses rainOn my lips and eyelids pale.My cheek is cold and white, alas!My heart beats loud and fast;—Oh! press it to thine own again,Where it will break at last."

"Oh lift me from the grass!

I die! I faint! I fail!

Let thy love in kisses rain

On my lips and eyelids pale.

My cheek is cold and white, alas!

My heart beats loud and fast;—

Oh! press it to thine own again,

Where it will break at last."

During the singing Nourmahal has come slowly out from the left, walking along the broad top of the wall until, coming to the tower, she drops down on the floor by the railing of the turret and listens, her veil falling from before her face. When the song has ended, Nasrulla comes forward and approaches the little tower. He leads a horse, a white horse with its tail dyed red in the Persian fashion.

Nourmahal.You turn the gray of the poplars in the darkness into the silver of running water.

King Nasrulla.The dawn is waiting under your veil. I see now only the morning star.

Nourmahal.I am but the moon, and I must not be seen when My Lord the Sun comes.

King Nasrulla.The Lord of the Sky rises to look on the gardens where the nightingales have been singing.

Nourmahal.But when he finds that the nightingales are silent, he passes to other gardens.

King Nasrulla.Following the song, as I follow the lisp of spring in your voice, the flutter of the wings of birds in the branches when buds are swelling.

Nourmahal.It is the flutter of wings and the song that you care for; it is not the bird.

King Nasrulla.It is the song of the bird that tells me where I shall find the bird herself. It is the oasis lifted up into the sky that guides the thirsty traveler across the desert.

Nourmahal (rising in agitation).When I am your queen, will you follow the voices of other nightingales?

King Nasrulla.You will be my first queen.

Nourmahal.I must be your only queen.

King Nasrulla.Always my first queen, and in your garden the fountains shall murmur day and night with a fuller flow of water than any others. The flowers there shall be more beautiful than anywhere else in all the world, and a hundred maidens shall serve you.

Nourmahal.And I shall not be your only queen?

King Nasrulla.It is not the way of the world.

Nourmahal.I have heard stories of places where the king has only one queen.

King Nasrulla.It has never been so in Saranazett.

Nourmahal.It has not been so in Saranazett, but does nothing change?

King Nasrulla.I must be king in the way of my ancestors.

Nourmahal (dropping down by the railing again).And we must live in the way of our ancestors, over and over again, sunrise and noon-glare and star-shine, as it was before our stars rose in the heavens, as it always will be?

King Nasrulla.Our ancestors have taught us that a king should not live too meanly.

Nourmahal.We cannot appeal to our ancestors. We cannot appeal to anything, and nothing can be undone. As the Persian poet says, "The moving finger writes," and what is written must be.

King Nasrulla.And if what is written is beautiful, and if you are to be a king's throne-mate, if all the treasures of all the world are to be sought out for you——

Nourmahal.It is nothing, nothing, if you must have another wife, if you must have two other wives, three.

King Nasrulla.My prime minister will choose the others. I choose you.

Nourmahal (passionately).But what shall we ever choose again—and get what we choose? Have not the hours been counted out for us from the beginning of the world? Can we stop the grains of sand in the hour-glass?

King Nasrulla.Each one will make a new pleasure as it falls.

Nourmahal.Yes, but it falls. We do not gather it up. It falls out of the heavens as the rain comes. We cannot make it rain.

King Nasrulla.But the drops are always pleasant.

Nourmahal.Yes, like a cup of water to a prisoner who dies of thirst and cannot know when his jailer comes. If we could bring the clouds up over the sun when the hot dust is flying, it would be really pleasant, but

"That inverted Bowl we call the Sky,Whereunder crawling coop'd we live and die,Lift not your hands toItfor help—for ItAs impotently moves as you or I."

"That inverted Bowl we call the Sky,

Whereunder crawling coop'd we live and die,

Lift not your hands toItfor help—for It

As impotently moves as you or I."

You are my sky, and the old poet is right, if you must have four wives because your father had four wives, and his father.

King Nasrulla.They are but symbols of kingliness, and they shall bow in the dust before you, whom my heart chooses, as weeds by the roadside bow when you pass in your tahktiravan and the air follows its flying curtains.

Nourmahal.Why should anyone bow to me? Why should I care for bowing? It would make me a slave to the custom of bowing. Are you a king and must you be a slave too? Impotence is the name of such kingship, and why should I care to be a queen when my king cannot make me queenly?

King Nasrulla (advancing to the tower and leaving his horse standing).Come! The stars are paling, and there is only the light of your eyes to lift me out of the dust. Come!

In the side of the wall by the tower a sloping series of stout pegs has been driven, descending to the ground at short intervals. Nourmahal comes out of the tower, puts her foot on the highest of these pegs, takes Nasrulla's hand, and, with his help, comes slowly down the pegs, as if they were a flight of stairs, to the ground.

Nourmahal.How I love a horse! It is Samarcand and Delhi and Bokhara and Paris, even Paris.

King Nasrulla.Paris! What is Paris?

Nourmahal (standing in front of the horse and caressing its head).I don't know. I have never been there, but a horse makes me think of Paris. I don't know London, but a horse makes me think of London too. A horse could take me there. I could ride and ride, and every day there would be something new and something wonderful. There are cities beyond the water, too, marvelous cities, full of things more than we dream of here. A horse is swift, and the tapping of his feet on the stones is distance. When he lifts his head, when he curves his neck, already in his heart he is going on and on.

King Nasrulla.And these are the stories that you have heard, stories about Paris and London and the cities across the water?

Nourmahal.Stories? Perhaps not stories. Dreams, I think, imaginings dropped from the wings of falcons flying out of the west.

King Nasrulla.You shall sit on the horse, and you can seem to be riding. Then as your dreams come true, you can tell them to me. Let the horse be Paris in my fancies too, and London and the cities across the water.

The horse is still standing where he stopped when Nasrulla led him out from behind the trees with him. He faces toward the left, and Nasrulla is back of him. Nourmahal puts her foot into Nasrulla's hand, and he lifts her into the saddle. When she is comfortably seated, he stands beside her and in front of her, back of the horse, leaning against the horse's neck and caressing his shoulder.

King Nasrulla.Now we are on the road, and all the world is moving across the horizon. If it is all a dream, let me be in the dream.

Nourmahal (looking out and away from him and pausing a moment).Stories! Dreams!—What I have heard is only a whisper, but it seems so true and so beautiful. Somewhere a man loves one woman always and no other. Somewhere a king is not a manikin stalking through ceremonies. Somewhere he lives humanly as other men. Somewhere to-day is not like yesterday, and man has learned to break the cycle of what has been forever, of what seems dead and yet out of death comes back again and again. I have not seen it, but I know it. Somewhere you and I could be happy without being king or queen. Somewhere a woman thinks her own thoughts, and not the thoughts of her lord only. Somewhere men are not bound to a king, and somewhere kings are not bound to the words of their fathers' fathers.

King Nasrulla (slowly, after a pause).It is the way of the world, Nourmahal. What the world is, it is, and that is forever and ever, unless it should be the will of God to make a new world.

Nourmahal.A new world! (She pauses dreamily.) Yes, that is what I want, a new world. That is what men are making somewhere, I know it. That is what is in my heart, and the same thing must be in the hearts of other men and women. A new world! What would it be to wake up every morning with a fresh wonder, not knowing what the day would bring? What would it be every morning to take the saddle and follow a new road ahead of the sun?

King Nasrulla.If I could go with you——

Nourmahal.You have horses.

King Nasrulla.It is not so decreed. My place is here.

Nourmahal.Your place is here, and it is your place to have three or four queens as your ministers decide for you. One queen is to keep peace with the King of the South, another is to keep peace with the King of the West, and the third is to keep peace with the King of the East. The fourth queen you may choose for yourself from your own people—if you choose before some other king offers a daughter. You may make slaves of your queens so that your neighbor kings may make a slave of you.

King Nasrulla.Yes, if I would be king—and you would be queen.

Nourmahal.Queen!—in a world where the flowers that bloom to-day died centuries ago! Queen—in a world where queens may look out of grated windows and never walk the streets! Queen—in a world where My Lord the King may not come to my door too often lest the daughter of the King of the South put poison in the nectar that her slaves offer him to-morrow!

King Nasrulla.The world is the world, and its enduring is forever and ever. We are but shadows that change and break on the surface of running water. We may stand for a moment in the sun, but we cannot stop the rain that fills the stream. We cannot fix our images for a moment on the drops that are rushing out to the sea.

Nourmahal (looking away from him dreamily)."Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things Entire, Would we not shatter it to bits—and then Remould it nearer to the Heart's desire?"

He looks at her steadily, but she does not turn her head, and, while they are so silent a woman comes from the left with a water jar, fills it from the well, puts it on her head, and passes off again. The sun is now warming the tops of the mountains to a soft pink.

King Nasrulla.We must find the water where it flows—or go thirsty.

Nourmahal (more passionately).But somewhere the women do not carry water. The poet only thought of doing what somewhere men have done. Here a thousand years are but as yesterday and ten thousand as a watch in the night. I am not I, but an echo of the mad desires of dead men whose dust has been blown across the desert for countless centuries. Why should I not think of my own desires before my dust, too, flies forgotten before the passing caravans?

King Nasrulla.But you are to be my queen. Nothing more can anyone give you in Saranazett.

Nourmahal.And to-morrow or next week your ambassador to the King of the East comes back with letters and pledges of friendship. Perhaps he brings with him the King's daughter.

King Nasrulla.But she is only the official seal of a bond, only a hostage. She is not the rose that I pin over my heart. She is not the nightingale that I love to hear singing in my garden. She is not the face behind the lattice that draws my eager feet. She is not the fountain that will make me drink and drink again.

Nourmahal.But I shall not ride with you into the distance and leave the kings' daughters behind?

King Nasrulla.The King of the East——

Nourmahal.I know. The King of the East has a great army. I must stay in my garden, or I shall have to spend my life talking about the things he likes or dislikes, his angers and his fondnesses, with the women of his harem.

She puts her foot out for his hand, ready to be taken down from the horse.

King Nasrulla.Nourmahal!

Nourmahal.Yes, I must keep my veil before my face and stay within my garden.

He helps her down, and she turns the horse's head back to the right in the direction from which they came.

King Nasrulla.I shall take you, Nourmahal, and make you queen.

Nourmahal.Take me! Take the others and let them be queens. They will be happy enough, after the way of their mothers, but you cannot take the wind.

King Nasrulla.Being your lover is not ceasing to be king. May not the king ask of his subjects what he will? What is it to be king?

Nourmahal (turning as she is passing toward the gate).Sometimes it is making a fresher and happier world for those who come to kneel before the throne. Kings are not often so wise.

King Nasrulla.And when they are not so wise they think of their own happiness. They let love come into the palace, and the favorite queen has the riches of the earth heaped in jewels before her. The tenderness of the moon shines in the clasp of her girdle, and the splendor of the sun glitters in a circlet for her forehead.

Nourmahal.And sometimes, seeking their own pleasure, kings make the killing of those who are not kings their joy. They teach all men to be soldiers and all soldiers to be ruthless. Their women learn to delight in the echoes of battle, and the man who is not scarred by the marks of many fights they pity and despise. So women forget to be gentle, and the lords and masters of earth no longer watch over them and care for them, no longer shelter the weak and the defenseless, no longer think of right and justice, because they carry in their hands the javelins of might and they have learned to fling them far.

King Nasrulla.But I shall watch over you as the cloud watches over the garden where the roses are waiting for the rain.

Nourmahal.No, I shall not have a king to watch over me. Somewhere they have no kings. A queen dies daily with loneliness, or lives hourly in the burning hate of all her sister queens. To breathe the air where there are no queens would be an ecstasy. I will not be a king's first queen or his last queen or his concubine or any other creature whom he may cast aside for a new fancy whenever the fancy comes.

A messenger enters from the right, preceded by two attendants carrying each one of the long, melon-shaped lanterns that accompany royalty. The messenger bows before Nasrulla, dropping on one knee.

Messenger.Your Royal Highness, I am sent to beg that you will hear me.

King Nasrulla.It is my pleasure to listen to your message. Speak!

Messenger.It is not I speaking, Your Majesty, but your minister, Huseyn.

King Nasrulla.I listen to the words of Huseyn.

Messenger.Know, O Mighty Lord of the Great Center of Earth—the ambassador to the King of the East is reported returning by the long highway.

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