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Poems of Sentiment

<h2>AN ERRING WOMAN’S LOVE</h2> <h3>Part I</h3> She was a light and wanton maid: Not one whom fickle Love betrayed, For indolence was her undoer. Fair, frivolous, and very poor, She scorned the thought of toil, in youth, And chose the path that leads from truth. More women fall from want of gold Than love leads wrong, if truth were told; More women sin for gay attire Than sin through passion’s blinding fire. Her god was gold: and gold she saw Prove mightier than the sternest law With judge and jury, priest and king; So, made herself an offering At Mammon’s shrine; and lived for power, And ease, and pleasures of the hour. p. 66Who looks beneath life’s outer crust Is satisfied that God is just; Who looks not under, but about, Finds much to make him sad with doubt. For Virtue walks with feet worn bare, While Sin rides by with coach and pair: Men praise the modest heart and chaste, And yet they let it go to waste, And follow, fierce to have and hold, Some creature, wanton, selfish, bold. She saw but this, life’s outer side, No higher faith was hers to guide; She worshipped gold, and hated toil, And hence her youth with all its soil, With all its sins too dark to name, Of secret crimes and public shame, With all its trail of broken lives, Of ruined homes, neglected wives, And weeping mothers.  Proud and gay She went her devastating way With untouched brow and fadeless grace. Not time, but feeling, marks the face. Sin on the outer being tells Not till the startled soul rebels: And she felt nothing but content. She was too light and indolent To worry over days to come. This little earth held all life’s sum, She thought, and to be young and fair, Well clothed, well fed, was all her care. With pitying eyes and lifted head She gazed on those who toiled for bread, And laughed to scorn the talk she heard Of punishment for those who erred, And virtue’s certain recompense. She seemed devoid of moral sense, An ignorant thing whose appetites Bound her horizon of delights. Men were her puppets to control; Unconscious of a heart or soul She lived, and gloried in the ease She purchased by her power to please The eye and senses.  Life’s one woe Which caused her pitying tears to flow Was poverty.  Though hearts might break And homes be ruined for her sake, She showed no mercy.  But when need Of gold she saw, her heart would bleed. The lack of clothing, fire, and food Was earth’s one pain, she understood. p. 68The suffering poor oft blest her name, Nor questioned whence the ducats came, She gave so freely.  Once she found A fainting woman on the ground, A wailing child clasped to her breast. With her own hands she bathed and dressed The weary waifs! gave food and gold And clothed them warmly from the cold, Nor guessed that one she lured from home Had caused that suffering pair to roam Unhoused, neglected.  Then one day, Unheralded across her way, The conqueror came.  She knew not why, But with the first glance of his eye A feeling, new and unexplained, Woke in her what she oft had feigned. And when his arm stole near her waist, As startled maidens blush with chaste Sweet fear at love’s advances, so She blushed from brow to breast of snow. Strange, new emotions, fraught with joy And pain commingled, made her coy; But when he would have clasped her neck With gems that might a queen bedeck And offered gold, her lips grew white With sudden anger at the sight Of what had been her god for years. She flung them from her.  Then such tears As only spring from love’s despair Welled from her eyes.  “So, lady fair, My gifts are scorned?” quoth he, and laughed. “Like Cleopatra, you have quaffed Such lordly pearls in draughts of wine, You spurn poor simple gems like mine. Well, well, fair queen, I’ll bring to you A richer gift next time.  Adieu.” His light words stung like lash of whip; With gasping breath and ashen lip She strove to speak, but he was gone She kneeled and pressed her mouth upon The latch his hand had touched, the floor His foot had trod, and o’er and o’er She sobbed his name, as children moan A mother’s name when left alone. Out from the dim and roseate gloom And subtle odours of her room Accusing memories rose.  She felt A loneliness that seemed to belt The universe in its embrace. It was as if from some high place A giant hand had reached and hurled To nothingness her petty world, And left her staring, awed, alone, Up into regions vast, unknown. There is no other loneliness That can so sadden and oppress As when beside the burned-out fire Of sated passion and desire The wakening spirit, in a glance, Beholds its lost inheritance. She rose and turned the dim lights higher, Brought forth rich gems and grand attire, And robed herself in feverish haste; Before the mirror posed and paced, With jewels on her breast and wrists; Then sudden clenched her little fists And beat her face until it bled, And tore her garments shred from shred, Gazed in the mirror, spoke her name And hissed a word that told her shame, Then on her knees fell sobbing there. There are sweet messengers of prayer Who down through space on soft wings steal, And offer aid to all who kneel. Her lips, unused to pious phrase, Recalled some words of bygone days, And “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep,” She whispered timidly, and then, “Lord, let me be a child again And grow up good.”  The strange prayer said, Like some o’er-weary child, her head She pillowed on her arm, and wept Low, shuddering sobs, until she slept And dreamed; and in that dream she thought She sat within a vine-wreathed cot; An infant slumbered on her breast, She crooned a lullaby, and pressed Its waxen hand against her cheek, While one, too proud and fond to speak, The happy father of the child, Stood near, and gazing on them, smiled. She woke while still the lullaby Was on her lips—then such a cry, As souls in fabled realms below Might utter, voiced her awful woe. The mighty moral labour-pain Of new-born conscience wracked her brain And tore her soul.  She understood The meaning now of womanhood, And chastity, and o’er her came The full, dark sense of all her shame. As some poor drunken wretch, at night, Wakes up to know his piteous plight, And sees, while sinking in the mire, Afar, his waiting hearth-light’s fire; So now she saw from depths of sin The hearth-light of the might-have-been. How beautiful, how like a star That lost light shone, but ah, how far! She reached her longing arms toward space, And lifted up her tear-wet face. “O God,” she wailed, “I have been bad! I see it all, and I am sad, And long to be a good girl now. Lord, Lord, will some one show me how? Why, men have trod the burning track Of sin for years, and then gone back! And cannot I for sin atone, Or did Christ die for men alone? I want to lead an honest life, I want to be his own true wife And hold upon my breast his child.” Then suddenly her voice grew wild, “No, no,” she cried, “it could not be— Those infant eyes would torture me: Though God condoned my sinful ways, I could not meet my child’s pure gaze.” She hid her face upon her knees, And swayed as reeds sway in a breeze. “O Christ,” she moaned, “could I forget, There might be something for me yet: But though both God and man forgave, And I should win the love I crave, Why, memory would drive me mad.” When woman drifts from good to bad, To make her final fall complete, She puts her soul beneath her feet. Man’s dual selves seem separate; He leaves his soul outside sin’s gate, And finds it waiting when he tires Of carnal pleasures and desires, Depleted, sickened, and depressed, As souls must be with such a test, Yet strong enough to help him grope Back into happiness and hope. But woman, far more complicate, Can take no chances with her fate; A subtle creature, finely spun, Her body and her soul are one. And now this erring woman wept The soul she murdered while it slept. She felt too stunned with pain to think. She seemed to stand upon a brink; Behind her loomed the sinful past, Below her, rocks, beyond her, vast And awful darkness.  Not one ray Of sun or star to show the way! She drew a long and shuddering breath; “There is no other path but death For me to tread,” she sighed, “and so I will prepare my house and go.” As housewives move with willing feet And skilful hands to make things neat And ready for some welcome one, She toiled until her tasks were done. Then, seated at her desk, she wrote, With painful care, a tear-wet note. The childish penmanship was rude, Ill spelled the words, the phrasing crude; Yet thought and feeling both were there, And mighty love and great despair. “Dear heart,” it ran, “you did not know How, from the first, I loved you so, That sin grew hateful in my sight; And so I leave it all to-night. The kiss I gave, dear heart, to you Was love’s first kiss, as pure and true As ever lips of maiden gave. I think ’twill warm my lonely grave, And light the pathway I must tread Among the hapless, homeless dead. “When God formed worlds, He failed to make A path for erring feet to take Back into light and peace again, Unless they were the feet of men. When woman errs, and then regrets, Her sun of hope for ever sets, And life is hung with deepest gloom. In all the world there is no room For such as she; and so I hold That death itself is not so cold As life has seemed, since by love’s light I saw there was a wrong and right, And that my birthright had been sold, By my own hands, for tarnished gold. I hated labour, hence I fell; But now I love you, dear, so well, No greater boon my soul could crave Than just to toil, a galley-slave, Through burdened years and years of life, If at the last you called me wife For one supreme and honoured hour. Alas! too late I learn love’s power, Too late I realise my loss, And have no strength to bear my cross Of loneliness and dark disgrace. There cannot be another place So desolate, so full of fear, As earth to me, without you, dear. “You will not understand, I know, How one like me can love you so. It was a strange, strange thing.  Love came So like a swift, devouring flame And burned my frail, fair-weather boat And left me on the waves afloat, With nothing but a broken spar. The distant shores seem very far; I cannot reach them, so I sink. God will forgive my sins, I think, Because I die for love, like One The good Book tells about, His Son. “For erring woman death can bring No pain so keen as memory’s sting. Good-night, good-bye.  God bless you, dear, And give you love, and joy, and cheer! But sometimes, in the dark night, say A prayer for one who went astray, And found no pathway back, and died For love of you—a suicide.” When morn his glorious pinions spread, They found the erring woman, dead. <h3>Part II</h3> She woke as one wakes from a deep And dreamless, yet exhausting, sleep. A strange confusion filled her mind, And sorrows vague and undefined, Like half-remembered faces pressed To memory’s window, in her breast, Gazed at her with reproachful eyes. She felt a sudden, dazed surprise, Commingled with a sense of dread, “I did but sleep—I am not dead, “The potion and the purpose failed, And I still live,” she wildly wailed. p. 78“Nay, thou art dead, rash suicide,” A sad voice spake: and at her side She saw a weird and shadowy crowd With anguished lips, and shoulders bowed, And orbs that seemed the wells of woe. She shrieked and veiled her eyes.  “No, no! “I am not dead!  I ache with life. An earthly passion’s hopeless strife “Still tortures me.”  “Yet thou art dead,” The voice with sad insistence said. “But love and sorrow and regret All die with death.  I feel them yet.” “God bade thee live, and only He Can say when thou shalt cease to be.” “But I was sin-sick, sad, alone— I thought by death I could atone, “And died that Christ might show me how.” “Christ bore His burden, why not thou?” “Oh! lead me to His holy feet And let my penance be complete.” p. 79“What! thinkest thou to find that path— Thou who hast tempted Heaven’s wrath “By thy rash deed?  Nay, nay, not so, ’Tis but perfected spirits go “To that supreme and final goal. A self-sought death delays the soul. “With yonder shuddering, woeful throng Of suicides thy ways belong. “Close to the earth a shadowy band, Unseen, but seeing all, they stand “Until their natural time to die, As God intended, shall draw nigh. p. 80“On earth, repentant, sick of sin, A ministering angel thou hadst been “Whose patient toil and deeds divine Had rescued souls as sad as thine, “Each deed a firm ascending stair To lead beyond thy great despair. “But now it is thy mournful fate To linger here and meditate “On thy dark past—to stand so near The earthly plane that thou canst hear “Thy lover’s voice, while old desire Shall burn within thee like a fire, “And grief shall root thee to the spot To find how soon thou art forgot. “But since thou hast endured the woes That only fragile woman knows, “And loved as only woman can, Thou shalt not suffer all that man “Must suffer when he interferes With God’s great law.  In death’s dim spheres “That justice waits, which men refuse. Thy sex shall in some part excuse “Thy desperate deed.  When God shall send A second death to be thy friend, “Thou need’st not fear a darker fate— Go forth with yonder throng, and wait.” <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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