MONSIEUR D—— TO THE PSYCHOANALYST

I pace the rooms and wait for John’s return.My heart beats all too fast, I feel a painAround my heart, my hands grow cold, I burnThrough neck and cheeks. And thus I live in vain.John comes at last and says, “There is no mail,No letter for you.” And with whirling brainI turn away in silence, growing pale,And whisper to myself: to be resignedTo wretchedness perhaps is to prevailO’er wretchedness and win a peace of mind.To love you so, to thirst for you, to payFor outward calm with inner storms confined,To lie awake by night and spend the dayIn restless thoughts, is life too hard to bear.I see you in my troubled dreams alway,You face me with a grave and haughty air,Serene, incensed against me who intrudeAn interest which you have no heart to share.Forgive me then my sorrow’s servitude,To write to you my suffering will ease,And fill the aching of my solitude.I have gone forth to Nature to find peace:The woods are filled with purple lupine now,Small yellow asters, phlox, and cramoisiesOf columbine and roses, vine and bough.The wild grape and the cherry haunt the dunesWith odors sweet as love. To cool my browI walk the heights upon these afternoonsAnd watch the blue waste of the sky’s descent.And yesterday where golden light festoonsWith flickering sorcery the way we went’Twixt sprays of beech and sassafras I stoleTill once again at the hill’s top half-spentI saw the shore dunes and the waters roll.We climbed it once together—it was thereThe Bacchic madness came into your soulTo take me in your arms. And now I bearYour coldness, your reproaches, you who callMy longing and my spiritual despairA mere neurosis, or hystericalOutcropping to be conquered. It was wrongTo take me in your arms, and then when allWas not yours then to tell me to be strong,And urge your marriage vows now I have thoughtThe problem of my love through. I belongTo you Monsieur; whatever grief is wroughtOf body or of soul to satisfyThe flame is better, and is far less fraughtWith mad regret than it can be to lieIn restless torture. O my friend withdrawYour friendship from me never lest I die!Yes, I could live and work if I foresawYour friendship mine and letters by your handArriving in this lonely place to thawThe ice around my heart’s flame. UnderstandFrom those I love but little love I need:Crumbs from your feast you scarce can countermand,And crumbs are all I ask, and just the meedOf friendly interest. I abase my pride.The strong can suffer silently and bleedAs long as strength lasts, keep the blood inside,Until one weakens when it spurts and drips.And Pride turns Nature, careless now to hideThe inner bleeding bubbling at the lips.I write you this without regret or shame.My strength has left me in the blue eclipseOf agony. Monsieur, I take the blame,If any come, of fanning dangerouslyThe spark that brightened once and would be flame—Is that not true? Or do you say to me:“You are no more my pupil, I retrench“The memory of things that cease to be,“And go my way with teaching young girls French,“As I taught you. Two years have passed since then.“What is this thought that time has failed to quench?“You who are laureled in the world of men,“A genius risen like a morning star,“Does not that glory fill you?” Yet againI answer you one’s genius burns afarIn useless splendor if it warm no cheek,Make bright no eye, lead on no darkling spar—Genius is love, is freedom, it must speak,Work out its fate from egocentric life;It is more swift than other feet to seekIts ruin with its hope, or take the knifeMore willingly to breast than those who sinkIn involuted growth. To be your wifeI do not dream, I only wish to drinkThe cup with you and break the bread with you,To feel thereby our lives are one and thinkWe are one creed and one communion, newIn spirit, born anew, that I may haveAn altar for my genius, something trueAnd near in flesh to triumph for, or braveThe world or evil for. Genius is love.It cannot bear itself alone to save;It must another rescue, it must proveIts growing strength in ministry. Monsieur,Bruise not my soul by ignorance hereof,My reverend father thinks my thoughts are pure—If he should read this! But if you dismissThis letter with a smile and say her cureIs the reaction of forbidden bliss,It is most true, but you would not degradeMy love for you with that analysis,And that alone. For surely God who madeOur souls and bodies so meant we should riseThrough their desires, and does God pervadeThis glowing mass of life, these starry skiesWith other power? Now scorn me, if you will.The unburdened heart has tamed its agonies.

In time I’ll tell you all the dreams I’ve had—But now—well, let me think! O yes three timesI’ve dreamed a creature with a dragon’s head,Which was her head as well, for so it seemed,Gemmed with her brazen eyes half luminousAnd half opaque, slate colored, lay acrossMy breast and hurt my heart, and breathed her breathFrom half-dead, livid overlapping lips(As when you crush a snake’s head jaws will lieAwry and out of plumb) like pestilenceRight in my nostrils. This interpretedMeans characters are breaths, and most are badWhen closely known. Such breath suits well the dragon,But would not suit her, so you’d think to seeHow fair her face, how seeming fair her soul.So let me tell you.All my hair is gray,My youth is gone, pretense will work no more.I’m fifty-seven, yet I cling to youth,Because I cling to love, have never knownAught but successions of immoderate—what?Some call it lust—you call it libido.Well it is urge, creative fire and drivesThe artist half-soul mad, as I am mad—Look how my poor hand trembles, my voice breaks—No! I’ll go on. I’ll tell you all, be done.Then if you cannot cure me, there’s a balmI know myself.If I had only lovedElizabeth, who wrote me years agoSuch pleading letters—every man can winSome woman’s love completely, had she wonMy love as well! O what a monstrous worldWhere such envenomed fire is, held by ChanceAnd shot in blindness. So she felt the flameAnd looked on me, I felt the flame and lookedUpon this cockatrice.So as I saidI had been teacher, actor, writer, poet,Had seen my face on lithographs, felt warmIn every capillary for that faceWhich seemed star-guided, noble, to be loved,Revered, and thus through self-esteem I boreMy failures hoping, buoyed by some successAs the swift years went by.But on a dayWhen I was forty-five, looked thirty-five,No gray hairs then, they called me thirty-five,My name went round the city, in the pressThey hailed me as a genius, I had playedOthello to their liking, was yet youngAnd promised much, they said. That afternoonA woman came to see me in my suite,Wonder and admiration in her eyes.Her manner halted, as she thumbed a bookUpon the table, while she told her tale:She had won favor as an amateur,Could I, the greatest talked of man to-day,Show her the way to greatness, might it beA modest part could be assigned to herWhen I played mad Othello?I have foundThat when a woman has no business with youHer calling speaks the oldest one of all.So true to this I acted. We commencedAnd for three months I struggled for the prize.Her first play was to make me pity her.She told me of her suffering, her youth,(She was then thirty-five), her poverty,Her labor to learn French. And like a manI pitied her and opened up my purse.She said, “No! No! this hat and dress will do,It brushes well.” She would not take a cent.I saw her daily for a month beforeI won her. Though she gave me hands and lips—There was a fury in her lips, my heartSeemed like to stop—I could not win the prize.One day she broke in tears: “You seemed so noble,So great of mind, are you then like the restWho want a woman’s body, nothing else?”“I want your love,” I said, “your love for mine,I love you, dearest!” faugh, must I repeatThe gagging words? So I declared the loveI felt too deeply, and to prove my loveI added: “I’ll renounce the gift of love,My Lady Wonderful, worship you afar.You would not have me tortured by your eyes,Nor have me see you often, in this case!”So I had given love as I had givenAll wealth that I could pour of soul, achievement,Name in the world, all pride, all thought of selfPresent or future to this woman, nowFor love’s sake I renounced the gift of love.And so I left her. Well, she called me back.And though I was a fool, and blinded too,I saw her thought and won her in an hour.So then commenced my madness, for she saidIt could not be again. The blood I tastedCould not be drunk. “You love me,” she would say,“Then bring me not to shame, it will be knownIf we go on. I cannot lose my bread.Librarians cannot have their names in doubtWho serve the public, as I do.” So it wasThe madness braced my will, and unrelentingI sought her, won her. In a little whileWe were adjusted to habitual love.And I was happy save when I was mad.For she knew younger men who came to call;Or take her to the theatre, with oneShe corresponded. “Let it be,” she said,“I must not be in public with you, dear,Whose name and greatness in the world would pointTo our relationship, how could it beYou would be with a woman without station,Celebrity or wealth, except for this?These others are a blind.”I could not solveOut of the whirling clouds of passion truth—My days were tortured, in the dreams of sleepI saw this dragon head I told you of.And so through heavy venery, and dread,And anger, doubt, faith, love and much of hate,I took to drink.So drinking with her once,For she could drink me blind, I turned and said:“You say I am the first, I think you lie.”She wailed a flood of tears. A hundred eyesTurned on us in the café where we sat.We left and walked the park. I goaded her,Pried out the secret. Why, at twenty-threeShe had become the mistress of a man.It ended just six months before she cameTo see me in my suite.Now here I was:To hold on to myself I had to holdThis woman, win her wholly, crush her soul,Destroy her so she would no longer beMy heart’s desire. For I had given all.And I could see she valued it the lessAs time went on. My name, what was it now?My art, what was it now? She even hintedI could not act Othello. There was nothingI could do more to keep her, hold her love,Her admiration. O how good esteemSeems to a man who forfeits it to herWhose body he can have, who cannot haveThat sympathy whereby a man is nervedTo daily work and living. What is Art?No picture would be painted, poem sungSave for the thought that woman close at hand,Or somewhere in the world yet to be foundBy reason of the picture or the poem,Will see and love you for it.Let me sayIn passing, and dismiss it, I beganWith little sums until I gave her much.There’s matter of more moment.I confess,In spite of my licentious life, the creedOne sees among the artists, where I’ve lived,To strong belief in woman’s virtue, yes,In spite of lip avowal of the faithOf love called free, I have not quite believed it.But it was in her soul. She sucked that milk,A child upon her mother’s breast, she said—It all came out at last from many talks,And then, just then, I thought I saw foreshadowedA social change upon the things of sex:We read together Ann Veronica,And Bernard Shaw, and laughed and said, at lastWe see each other clearly. We have foundA footing for our life. I slept at last.The dragon vanished from my dreams. I wakedA song upon my lips, left drink alone,Could face my image in the looking-glass,And find restored a noble quality,A strength and genius.But if love be freeAnd if you love though only for an hourWhy not the cup of love? Her former friendPiqued to an interest by my love for herCame back to see if he had overlookedA beauty he would have. Well, she confessedTheir night together. It was at the timeMy poor canzones which sang our stormy loveHad just been finished. Every artist foolWrites sonnets or canzones once in his life.And so I had to add a verse to tellHer faithlessness—or was it faithlessness?Since she declared she loved me, did not loveThis older friend. But if she did not love himWhat was this act? She called it just a trialOf our love which had stood the test, O GodSuch mazes for my soul!Flushed then with wrathAnd drink I beat her cruelly. She stoodWith scarce a cry of pain and let me strike,And said if I considered it was justTo beat her so, she wished to bear the pain.Then with a cry I ceased. We fell asleepStretched on the bed together. When we wokeShe kissed me her forgiveness. I returnedThe kiss, ah me!So now the story turns.There was a woman critic who pursuedMy work with hateful words. Before I knewThe cockatrice I found it best to foldThis critic’s column under, never read.And in a day or two from that on whichI beat my mistress, what should I behold?—A letter from her—she had left the townWithout my knowing, she was visitingThis critic enemy at her summer home.And in this mail I found my poor canzonesReturned to me, and in the letter this:“My friend says for some reason you would tryTo compromise me by this wretched verse,So I return it to you, go and burn.I shall not see you more—so she advises,And so I think. I wish you well no less.You are a little old to rise to fame,Or excellence in acting, yet go on.Perhaps there is not aught beside to do,And it will occupy your mind, good-bye.”So shortly everywhere I seemed to senseThe feeling that they deemed me foul and base.While we were friends I made her known to artists,And writers in the city. With this startShe had gone on and multiplied her friendsAmong this folk. I saw it all at onceAs one sees dawn from darkness. ThenThe social standard melted, gave awayTo all that had been written for some years.Free love had won at last. And we who keptOur love in hiding, she who lied to keepHer name as one who lived a maiden’s life,And I who doubted, hated her becauseShe was not freshly mine, we, she and I,Stepped to a world all new, she to enjoyAnd I to perish. I was weak from lossOf blood from wounds she gave me, spent for lovePoured for her sorrow, for she grieved and weptThat I was not her early love, her loveAt love’s beginning. I went here and thereTo build her life up, make it rich, repairThe injuries of her youth, retrieve the daysWhich had brought loneliness. Forbear with me—I thought I could tell all in just a word—Yes, this is it—She learned what was my strengthAnd took it for her own, found out my faultsAnd struck me there. She gave me confidenceAnd trust, I fancied. On analysisShe had concealed herself, there had not beenClear understanding with us. So she tookMy friends, and friends are never wholly friends,And made them hers, through these made other friends,Explored my havens, my alliances,My secret powers of prestige in the world.And I awoke to find the world my foe!And every desk of every editorSilent for knowledge of me, breaking silenceIn just a word of hate. You see she loosedThis story like a mist which creeps through cracksThat I had compromised her. Then beholdI who had helped to bring this era inOf sex equality, yes, in spite of all,My ingrained feelings I have spoken of,Found myself robbed of her by just the creedI had upheld, and saw her live with himWho was her friend, before I knew her, yes,And justified by those whom she had feared,Because they hated me, and pitied himBound to a woman in a loveless lifeWho would not free him, let him marry her.Then the last atom of my strength I summonedTo play Othello. It was death or life!Soul triumph or soul ruin. But you seeThe cockatrice had sent the word aroundAnd sharpened every critic eye. I facedAn audience of one mind, could sense it allWhere hatred, mild amusement were well mixedTo poison, paralyze creative power,And even break my memory. But I saidShow now your genius, drink the hatred inTill all your spirit sparkles as a starWhen the north wind of winter blows at night.Nothing opposes but a woman’s hate.Rise on its wreckage. So I spurred myself.And even when I saw her critic friendLimned from the mass of faces, lost my clueAnd waited for the prompter, then my rageUpheld me—yes, but wait—the rest is brief.I had not acted through the strangle sceneWhen I heard calls and bells, the curtain fell,My understudy led me from the stage.Out in the night we went—I knew not where—It was a night of drink, and I awokeTo strange surroundings in a scented room,A woman with light hair lay by my side“How did I get here”—then the woman laughed—She was a Fury, for the Furies had me.Out of the house I ran, from place to place,All day went wandering in the city, thusMy wanderings of ten years began, they seemTen centuries. What do you think of this?I’m fifty-seven, with a bad complex,Can you unravel it and make me well?

All my hair is gray,My youth is gone, pretense will work no more.I’m fifty-seven, yet I cling to youth,Because I cling to love, have never knownAught but successions of immoderate—what?

Some call it lust—you call it libido.Well it is urge, creative fire and drivesThe artist half-soul mad, as I am mad—Look how my poor hand trembles, my voice breaks—No! I’ll go on. I’ll tell you all, be done.Then if you cannot cure me, there’s a balmI know myself.

If I had only lovedElizabeth, who wrote me years agoSuch pleading letters—every man can winSome woman’s love completely, had she wonMy love as well! O what a monstrous worldWhere such envenomed fire is, held by ChanceAnd shot in blindness. So she felt the flameAnd looked on me, I felt the flame and lookedUpon this cockatrice.

So as I saidI had been teacher, actor, writer, poet,Had seen my face on lithographs, felt warmIn every capillary for that faceWhich seemed star-guided, noble, to be loved,Revered, and thus through self-esteem I boreMy failures hoping, buoyed by some successAs the swift years went by.

But on a dayWhen I was forty-five, looked thirty-five,No gray hairs then, they called me thirty-five,My name went round the city, in the pressThey hailed me as a genius, I had playedOthello to their liking, was yet youngAnd promised much, they said. That afternoonA woman came to see me in my suite,Wonder and admiration in her eyes.Her manner halted, as she thumbed a bookUpon the table, while she told her tale:She had won favor as an amateur,Could I, the greatest talked of man to-day,Show her the way to greatness, might it beA modest part could be assigned to herWhen I played mad Othello?

I have foundThat when a woman has no business with youHer calling speaks the oldest one of all.So true to this I acted. We commencedAnd for three months I struggled for the prize.Her first play was to make me pity her.She told me of her suffering, her youth,(She was then thirty-five), her poverty,Her labor to learn French. And like a manI pitied her and opened up my purse.She said, “No! No! this hat and dress will do,It brushes well.” She would not take a cent.I saw her daily for a month beforeI won her. Though she gave me hands and lips—There was a fury in her lips, my heartSeemed like to stop—I could not win the prize.One day she broke in tears: “You seemed so noble,So great of mind, are you then like the restWho want a woman’s body, nothing else?”“I want your love,” I said, “your love for mine,I love you, dearest!” faugh, must I repeatThe gagging words? So I declared the loveI felt too deeply, and to prove my loveI added: “I’ll renounce the gift of love,My Lady Wonderful, worship you afar.You would not have me tortured by your eyes,Nor have me see you often, in this case!”So I had given love as I had givenAll wealth that I could pour of soul, achievement,Name in the world, all pride, all thought of selfPresent or future to this woman, nowFor love’s sake I renounced the gift of love.And so I left her. Well, she called me back.And though I was a fool, and blinded too,I saw her thought and won her in an hour.So then commenced my madness, for she saidIt could not be again. The blood I tastedCould not be drunk. “You love me,” she would say,“Then bring me not to shame, it will be knownIf we go on. I cannot lose my bread.Librarians cannot have their names in doubtWho serve the public, as I do.” So it wasThe madness braced my will, and unrelentingI sought her, won her. In a little whileWe were adjusted to habitual love.And I was happy save when I was mad.For she knew younger men who came to call;Or take her to the theatre, with oneShe corresponded. “Let it be,” she said,“I must not be in public with you, dear,Whose name and greatness in the world would pointTo our relationship, how could it beYou would be with a woman without station,Celebrity or wealth, except for this?These others are a blind.”

I could not solveOut of the whirling clouds of passion truth—My days were tortured, in the dreams of sleepI saw this dragon head I told you of.And so through heavy venery, and dread,And anger, doubt, faith, love and much of hate,I took to drink.

So drinking with her once,For she could drink me blind, I turned and said:“You say I am the first, I think you lie.”She wailed a flood of tears. A hundred eyesTurned on us in the café where we sat.

We left and walked the park. I goaded her,Pried out the secret. Why, at twenty-threeShe had become the mistress of a man.It ended just six months before she cameTo see me in my suite.

Now here I was:To hold on to myself I had to holdThis woman, win her wholly, crush her soul,Destroy her so she would no longer beMy heart’s desire. For I had given all.And I could see she valued it the lessAs time went on. My name, what was it now?My art, what was it now? She even hintedI could not act Othello. There was nothingI could do more to keep her, hold her love,Her admiration. O how good esteemSeems to a man who forfeits it to herWhose body he can have, who cannot haveThat sympathy whereby a man is nervedTo daily work and living. What is Art?No picture would be painted, poem sungSave for the thought that woman close at hand,Or somewhere in the world yet to be foundBy reason of the picture or the poem,Will see and love you for it.

Let me sayIn passing, and dismiss it, I beganWith little sums until I gave her much.There’s matter of more moment.

I confess,In spite of my licentious life, the creedOne sees among the artists, where I’ve lived,To strong belief in woman’s virtue, yes,In spite of lip avowal of the faithOf love called free, I have not quite believed it.But it was in her soul. She sucked that milk,A child upon her mother’s breast, she said—It all came out at last from many talks,And then, just then, I thought I saw foreshadowedA social change upon the things of sex:We read together Ann Veronica,And Bernard Shaw, and laughed and said, at lastWe see each other clearly. We have foundA footing for our life. I slept at last.The dragon vanished from my dreams. I wakedA song upon my lips, left drink alone,Could face my image in the looking-glass,And find restored a noble quality,A strength and genius.

But if love be freeAnd if you love though only for an hourWhy not the cup of love? Her former friendPiqued to an interest by my love for herCame back to see if he had overlookedA beauty he would have. Well, she confessedTheir night together. It was at the timeMy poor canzones which sang our stormy loveHad just been finished. Every artist foolWrites sonnets or canzones once in his life.And so I had to add a verse to tellHer faithlessness—or was it faithlessness?Since she declared she loved me, did not loveThis older friend. But if she did not love himWhat was this act? She called it just a trialOf our love which had stood the test, O GodSuch mazes for my soul!

Flushed then with wrathAnd drink I beat her cruelly. She stoodWith scarce a cry of pain and let me strike,And said if I considered it was justTo beat her so, she wished to bear the pain.Then with a cry I ceased. We fell asleepStretched on the bed together. When we wokeShe kissed me her forgiveness. I returnedThe kiss, ah me!

So now the story turns.There was a woman critic who pursuedMy work with hateful words. Before I knewThe cockatrice I found it best to foldThis critic’s column under, never read.And in a day or two from that on whichI beat my mistress, what should I behold?—A letter from her—she had left the townWithout my knowing, she was visitingThis critic enemy at her summer home.And in this mail I found my poor canzonesReturned to me, and in the letter this:“My friend says for some reason you would tryTo compromise me by this wretched verse,So I return it to you, go and burn.I shall not see you more—so she advises,And so I think. I wish you well no less.You are a little old to rise to fame,Or excellence in acting, yet go on.Perhaps there is not aught beside to do,And it will occupy your mind, good-bye.”

So shortly everywhere I seemed to senseThe feeling that they deemed me foul and base.While we were friends I made her known to artists,And writers in the city. With this startShe had gone on and multiplied her friendsAmong this folk. I saw it all at onceAs one sees dawn from darkness. ThenThe social standard melted, gave awayTo all that had been written for some years.Free love had won at last. And we who keptOur love in hiding, she who lied to keepHer name as one who lived a maiden’s life,And I who doubted, hated her becauseShe was not freshly mine, we, she and I,Stepped to a world all new, she to enjoyAnd I to perish. I was weak from lossOf blood from wounds she gave me, spent for lovePoured for her sorrow, for she grieved and weptThat I was not her early love, her loveAt love’s beginning. I went here and thereTo build her life up, make it rich, repairThe injuries of her youth, retrieve the daysWhich had brought loneliness. Forbear with me—I thought I could tell all in just a word—Yes, this is it—She learned what was my strengthAnd took it for her own, found out my faultsAnd struck me there. She gave me confidenceAnd trust, I fancied. On analysisShe had concealed herself, there had not beenClear understanding with us. So she tookMy friends, and friends are never wholly friends,And made them hers, through these made other friends,Explored my havens, my alliances,My secret powers of prestige in the world.And I awoke to find the world my foe!And every desk of every editorSilent for knowledge of me, breaking silenceIn just a word of hate. You see she loosedThis story like a mist which creeps through cracksThat I had compromised her. Then beholdI who had helped to bring this era inOf sex equality, yes, in spite of all,My ingrained feelings I have spoken of,Found myself robbed of her by just the creedI had upheld, and saw her live with himWho was her friend, before I knew her, yes,And justified by those whom she had feared,Because they hated me, and pitied himBound to a woman in a loveless lifeWho would not free him, let him marry her.

Then the last atom of my strength I summonedTo play Othello. It was death or life!Soul triumph or soul ruin. But you seeThe cockatrice had sent the word aroundAnd sharpened every critic eye. I facedAn audience of one mind, could sense it allWhere hatred, mild amusement were well mixedTo poison, paralyze creative power,And even break my memory. But I saidShow now your genius, drink the hatred inTill all your spirit sparkles as a starWhen the north wind of winter blows at night.Nothing opposes but a woman’s hate.Rise on its wreckage. So I spurred myself.And even when I saw her critic friendLimned from the mass of faces, lost my clueAnd waited for the prompter, then my rageUpheld me—yes, but wait—the rest is brief.

I had not acted through the strangle sceneWhen I heard calls and bells, the curtain fell,My understudy led me from the stage.Out in the night we went—I knew not where—It was a night of drink, and I awokeTo strange surroundings in a scented room,A woman with light hair lay by my side“How did I get here”—then the woman laughed—She was a Fury, for the Furies had me.Out of the house I ran, from place to place,All day went wandering in the city, thusMy wanderings of ten years began, they seemTen centuries. What do you think of this?I’m fifty-seven, with a bad complex,Can you unravel it and make me well?

Dear, if you knew how my poor heartAches for your heart by day and night—Forever lost to life’s delight,As seasons pass and years depart,You would not let the invisible flameOf hatred sear and scar your soul,Where once in living light my nameWas lettered like an aureole!You, who lost faith in me, will notBelieve this last confession, madeTo lift your spirit from the shadeWherein it walks and views the spotOf my offense. But when I sawThat our love’s life must have an end,I looked back o’er our path with aweAnd traced it toward us to the signWhere our ways severed, yours and mine.There stood Remorse’s dreaded shape!Your Disbelief! Your Self-Contempt!I saw our love was not exemptFrom ruin and could not escape.We could not separate and smile,And keep a faithful thought the whileOf understanding (like a springHidden, refreshing, murmuring)As friend sometimes takes leave of friend.Then what was left? It was this thoughtThat at the last came forth to slayYour love, without a warning broughtEre my lips tightened to betray!For as our love found depths too deep;As absence almost deadened sense;As often I awoke from sleepAnd looked for hours at you, all tense,Lest you awake and see my eyes,Where the one thought of purest loveShone like a fixed star’s paradise,I learned to know that Self above—Making the heart’s hierarchy pure—Stands the archangel Truth, preferred—Throned over Love which can endureOnly where Truth has stood, unstirred.Watchful and with his torch of starsHeld o’er Love’s face, although it showsThe forehead’s pain, the bosom’s scars,The cheeks bleached out from secret tearsIn memory of impalpable blows,Shed in the night’s long solitude.You see I could not give you truth!There was the Shadow in my lifeCast by the fierce Sun of my youth.And as our day fell to the westThe Shadow lengthened and the strife’Twixt Love and Truth within my breastWaxed fiercer. Heaven’s deathless blueLeaned on my hungering soul and painedIts wings, as if a joy were lost,Or never had been quite attained,Or captured at too great a cost.I could not give you truth all true.My love for you and then the thirstFor all your love, made me accursedOf fear that if you knew me first,Just as I am, your heart would ceaseTo cherish mine. And then much moreWas this fear venom to my peaceWhen all the world spread out beforeOur astonished eyes, as our own world,And we its children, each for each.This was the sleepless worm which curledIn my heart’s petals, at the rootWhere my heart’s sweetness had its source.You never saw the worm! My speechPoised like a bee who knows the lootOf honey’s gone, and turns his course.I kept the petals closed, and youBreathed at their tips, but would have knownAll of their fragrance, or of blight.That’s love—to have no place where lightAnd understanding have not shone.Your face reproached me—I who knewNo sweet or bitter essencesCan be withheld from Love that keepsAn onward flight, which ever sees,Or would see, all in the heart’s deeps.Then Life came, and with lifted swordLaid on our souls his dread command;“Say your farewells, part hand from hand,You the adorer, and adored.Duty is seeking you! And GriefWould have her child return and seeThe changeless halls of Misery,And the bare board and darkened hearth.”I reeled with anguish as the earthSank from my feet. For oh the endSeemed far as death! And when it cameIt was my hope, my soul’s desireTo part as friend may part from friend,And that you’d keep alive my nameBright as an altar’s quenchless fire.It could not be! How could it be?I was not truth! I was not true—I kept my soul’s real self from you.Then I bethought me: “Since his earthIs Autumn-stricken with a doubtThat I am worth not his love’s worth,Were it no better he should knowDisloyalty made definiteBy a suspected past re-knit,And see our love a play played out,Than to live through the soft declineOf our bright day to solemn eve—A sunset of remembrance—whereHe walks devoured by love and hate—Love for the love I strove to give,Hate for a thought intuitive:Some newer love her heart hath wonOr some first love hath won her back.No, to my faith, he says, “I’ll cleave,Believing that I can’t believe.”“Slow death to love! Exquisite rack!”Ah me! I had not made this fate—The warp was stretched, the woof was spun,The roof-tree laid long years beforeYou entered at the unbolted door.“Then what is best? What can be done?To give him back his pride and strength,And even his peace of mind at length?Better a quick blow! Better blood!To brace the soul and poise the brainAnd make him what he was again.”Just then the Shadow near me stoodWho stepped aside for you. He tookWith unabated comradeshipMy hand in his. That closed our book.I woke to hear the water dripBlown out of heavens low and dim.He brushed my tears off with his hand—Nor clouds nor memory trouble him.And my one thought of you was this:I’ve cured you with this sacrifice—The hate has come to you I planned.The hate that may take form in words,For scorn like this: “I found a seam“Right at the contact of our love.“No recreative fire can warm“And fuse fine gold with lifeless dross,“Or worthy metal make thereof.”This killed your love and wrecked your dream!This is my soul’s confession. Wait,A trickster in a hooded formStands by as we begin to pullThe weaving beam, and throws betweenThe warp and woof a ball of wool.It catches and is woven inThe colors, spoils the conscious blend,Changes the pattern to the end.Whatever it be I call it fate.In misery or in happinessWe must live on awhile no less.Shall we be master weavers, climb,Or leave the loom, or waste the time?Or guide the shuttle till the threadsWeave clear or turn to worthless shreds?

You, who lost faith in me, will notBelieve this last confession, madeTo lift your spirit from the shadeWherein it walks and views the spotOf my offense. But when I sawThat our love’s life must have an end,I looked back o’er our path with aweAnd traced it toward us to the signWhere our ways severed, yours and mine.There stood Remorse’s dreaded shape!Your Disbelief! Your Self-Contempt!I saw our love was not exemptFrom ruin and could not escape.We could not separate and smile,And keep a faithful thought the whileOf understanding (like a springHidden, refreshing, murmuring)As friend sometimes takes leave of friend.Then what was left? It was this thoughtThat at the last came forth to slayYour love, without a warning broughtEre my lips tightened to betray!

For as our love found depths too deep;As absence almost deadened sense;As often I awoke from sleepAnd looked for hours at you, all tense,Lest you awake and see my eyes,Where the one thought of purest loveShone like a fixed star’s paradise,I learned to know that Self above—Making the heart’s hierarchy pure—Stands the archangel Truth, preferred—Throned over Love which can endureOnly where Truth has stood, unstirred.Watchful and with his torch of starsHeld o’er Love’s face, although it showsThe forehead’s pain, the bosom’s scars,The cheeks bleached out from secret tearsIn memory of impalpable blows,Shed in the night’s long solitude.You see I could not give you truth!There was the Shadow in my lifeCast by the fierce Sun of my youth.And as our day fell to the westThe Shadow lengthened and the strife’Twixt Love and Truth within my breastWaxed fiercer. Heaven’s deathless blueLeaned on my hungering soul and painedIts wings, as if a joy were lost,Or never had been quite attained,Or captured at too great a cost.I could not give you truth all true.My love for you and then the thirstFor all your love, made me accursedOf fear that if you knew me first,Just as I am, your heart would ceaseTo cherish mine. And then much moreWas this fear venom to my peaceWhen all the world spread out beforeOur astonished eyes, as our own world,And we its children, each for each.

This was the sleepless worm which curledIn my heart’s petals, at the rootWhere my heart’s sweetness had its source.You never saw the worm! My speechPoised like a bee who knows the lootOf honey’s gone, and turns his course.I kept the petals closed, and youBreathed at their tips, but would have knownAll of their fragrance, or of blight.That’s love—to have no place where lightAnd understanding have not shone.Your face reproached me—I who knewNo sweet or bitter essencesCan be withheld from Love that keepsAn onward flight, which ever sees,Or would see, all in the heart’s deeps.

Then Life came, and with lifted swordLaid on our souls his dread command;“Say your farewells, part hand from hand,You the adorer, and adored.Duty is seeking you! And GriefWould have her child return and seeThe changeless halls of Misery,And the bare board and darkened hearth.”I reeled with anguish as the earthSank from my feet. For oh the endSeemed far as death! And when it cameIt was my hope, my soul’s desireTo part as friend may part from friend,And that you’d keep alive my nameBright as an altar’s quenchless fire.It could not be! How could it be?I was not truth! I was not true—I kept my soul’s real self from you.Then I bethought me: “Since his earthIs Autumn-stricken with a doubtThat I am worth not his love’s worth,Were it no better he should knowDisloyalty made definiteBy a suspected past re-knit,And see our love a play played out,Than to live through the soft declineOf our bright day to solemn eve—A sunset of remembrance—whereHe walks devoured by love and hate—Love for the love I strove to give,Hate for a thought intuitive:Some newer love her heart hath wonOr some first love hath won her back.No, to my faith, he says, “I’ll cleave,Believing that I can’t believe.”“Slow death to love! Exquisite rack!”Ah me! I had not made this fate—The warp was stretched, the woof was spun,The roof-tree laid long years beforeYou entered at the unbolted door.“Then what is best? What can be done?To give him back his pride and strength,And even his peace of mind at length?Better a quick blow! Better blood!To brace the soul and poise the brainAnd make him what he was again.”Just then the Shadow near me stoodWho stepped aside for you. He tookWith unabated comradeshipMy hand in his. That closed our book.I woke to hear the water dripBlown out of heavens low and dim.He brushed my tears off with his hand—Nor clouds nor memory trouble him.And my one thought of you was this:I’ve cured you with this sacrifice—The hate has come to you I planned.The hate that may take form in words,For scorn like this: “I found a seam“Right at the contact of our love.“No recreative fire can warm“And fuse fine gold with lifeless dross,“Or worthy metal make thereof.”This killed your love and wrecked your dream!This is my soul’s confession. Wait,A trickster in a hooded formStands by as we begin to pullThe weaving beam, and throws betweenThe warp and woof a ball of wool.It catches and is woven inThe colors, spoils the conscious blend,Changes the pattern to the end.Whatever it be I call it fate.In misery or in happinessWe must live on awhile no less.Shall we be master weavers, climb,Or leave the loom, or waste the time?Or guide the shuttle till the threadsWeave clear or turn to worthless shreds?

There were seven nights of the moonThis August, beloved.There were nights before the sevenWhen we scarcely saw the moon,Or perhaps as we canoed, ere the sun sank,We saw her as a transparent tissue of whiteAgainst a sky as white.But when we first saw the moonShe had risen before the sun had sunk.Then the next night she was brighterWith the evening planet above her,Despite the tongues of fire in the westWhere the sun had set on fireGreat coils of cloud!And then there were those nights betweenHer growth and her o’erflowing fullnessWhen hand in hand we walked in your gardenAmid the Chinese balloons and coreopsis,Hibiscus, marigold, hydrangeas,Under the rose arches,And by the hedge of California privet,And looked at the lake,And the moon in the skyAnd the moon on the lake.And do you remember what we sawAs we stared at the wake of the moonOn the lake?The ripples made blacknesses,And the moon made silver splendors,And as we stared we sawIn the shadows of wavesRunning into the light of the moon on the waterYouths and maids and childrenComing from darkness into the light in a dance,Joining hands, falling into embraces,Hurrying to evanishment at the path of lightWhere the moon had paved the water.I shall never see the moon on the waterWithout seeing these youths and maids and children,And without thinking of that nightOf the full moon!This was the nightWe saw the moon rise, from the very first,Across the lake o’ertopping the forest.A spire of pine stood upAgainst a sky made pale as of the northern lights.But in a moment a bit of fire lit the spire of the pineAs it were a candle lighted.And she rose so fast that I took my watchTo time the rising of the moonFree and clear of the spire.And she rose so fast that as we gazedShe cleared the spire,And soared with such silent glory above the forest,And sailed to the southwest of the spire.And at that moment the whippoorwillsBegan to sing in the woodlands near—We had not heard them before in all this summer.And we stood in the loggiaIn the silence of our own thoughts,In the silence of the full moon!And it was then that the pressure of your handGave me a meaning of sorrow.It was then that the pressure of your handSpoke, as flame which turns in the wind,Of a change in your heart.But if not a change, of another’s heartToward whom you turned.And I sit in the loggia to-nightWaiting for the moon to rise,She will not rise till midnight,And then she will rise, a poor half wreck of herself.No whippoorwill has sung to-night,And none will sing.And if there are youths and maids and childrenHurrying into the dance on the water,Embracing and fading in light,I shall not see.No, in this darkness where I breatheThe scent of the sweet alyssumWhich you planted and tendedI shall wait for midnight,And the rise of our ruined moon.In the darkness of the loggiaUnder a sky that hopes for no moon to-night,Save the wasted moon of midnight,I am filled with a deep happinessAnd a thankfulness to the PowerBehind the sky:I am filled with a joy as wide and deep as natureThat my love for youCan live without your love for me,And asks nothing of you,And nothing for youSave that you find what you seek!

And do you remember what we sawAs we stared at the wake of the moonOn the lake?The ripples made blacknesses,And the moon made silver splendors,And as we stared we sawIn the shadows of wavesRunning into the light of the moon on the waterYouths and maids and childrenComing from darkness into the light in a dance,Joining hands, falling into embraces,Hurrying to evanishment at the path of lightWhere the moon had paved the water.I shall never see the moon on the waterWithout seeing these youths and maids and children,And without thinking of that nightOf the full moon!

This was the nightWe saw the moon rise, from the very first,Across the lake o’ertopping the forest.A spire of pine stood upAgainst a sky made pale as of the northern lights.But in a moment a bit of fire lit the spire of the pineAs it were a candle lighted.And she rose so fast that I took my watchTo time the rising of the moonFree and clear of the spire.And she rose so fast that as we gazedShe cleared the spire,And soared with such silent glory above the forest,And sailed to the southwest of the spire.And at that moment the whippoorwillsBegan to sing in the woodlands near—We had not heard them before in all this summer.And we stood in the loggiaIn the silence of our own thoughts,In the silence of the full moon!

And it was then that the pressure of your handGave me a meaning of sorrow.It was then that the pressure of your handSpoke, as flame which turns in the wind,Of a change in your heart.But if not a change, of another’s heartToward whom you turned.

And I sit in the loggia to-nightWaiting for the moon to rise,She will not rise till midnight,And then she will rise, a poor half wreck of herself.No whippoorwill has sung to-night,And none will sing.And if there are youths and maids and childrenHurrying into the dance on the water,Embracing and fading in light,I shall not see.No, in this darkness where I breatheThe scent of the sweet alyssumWhich you planted and tendedI shall wait for midnight,And the rise of our ruined moon.

In the darkness of the loggiaUnder a sky that hopes for no moon to-night,Save the wasted moon of midnight,I am filled with a deep happinessAnd a thankfulness to the PowerBehind the sky:I am filled with a joy as wide and deep as natureThat my love for youCan live without your love for me,And asks nothing of you,And nothing for youSave that you find what you seek!

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