Читать книгу The Passing of the Storm, and Other Poems - Alfred Castner King - Страница 6

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As ample wreaths of curling smoke

From his time-honored meerschaum broke,

A kindly-faced, gray-bearded man

Rose up and sadly thus began,—

"You ask a tale,—well, I'll express

The reason why in manhood's prime

I left a more congenial clime

And sought this rugged wilderness."

But, gentle reader, don't expect

A tale in mongrel dialect,

For "Uncle Jim," or James T. Hale,

Who lived as anchorite or monk,

Once led the senior class at Yale,

And had his sheepskin in his trunk.

There, while the crackling flames leaped high,

And serpentine gyrations played

Around the logs of hemlock, dry,

And with the tempest seethed and swayed,

As curled the drowsy wreaths of smoke

Above his pipe, the old man spoke:

"'Twas on a day about like this,

When, fresh from youthful haunts and scenes,

I first beheld yon precipice,

And sought these gulches and ravines,

To pan, despite the frost and cold,

For shining particles of gold;

And hewed the rocker and the sluice

From out the native pine and spruce.

Arrayed in nature's pristine dress

This was indeed a wilderness.

Nor eye of eagle ever viewed

A more forbidding solitude,

Nor prospect more completely drear

Confronted hardy pioneer.

Why came I here? My simple tale

Goes back to a New England vale.

It is, though simple tale it be,

A life's unwritten tragedy:

A story, with few incidents,

But many years of penitence.

As one, for some foul crime pursued,

Doth flee, in frenzy rash and blind

To wilderness or solitude,

I fled, to leave my past behind.

I loved a maid, both fair and true,

Just where, it matters not, nor who.

For forty years, with silent tread,

Have silvered many a raven head,

Since on her wealth of auburn hair

The moonlight shimmered, soft and fair,

As where the pine and hemlock stood

And sighed in answer to the breeze,

With but the stars as witnesses,

Our troth was plighted in the wood;

A simple rustic tale in truth,

Of love and sentimental youth.

beseamed with countless scars and rents

"Beseamed with countless scars and rents

From combat with the elements."

See page 20

Love is the subtle mystery,

The charm, the esoteric spell,

Which lures the seraph from on High.

To leave the Throne of Light,—for Hell,—

And with resistless shackles binds,

In viewless thrall, the captive minds.

For who can fathom love's caprice,

Supplant her fervid wars with peace,

And passion's ardent flame command?

Or who presume to understand

And read with cabalistic art

The hieroglyphics of the heart?

Nor eye of regent, skilled to rule,

Nor sage from earth's profoundest school,

Nor erudite philosophy

On wisdom's heights, pretend to see

The fervent secrets of the breast,

Which rankle mute and unexpressed.

Nor the angelic hosts above

In their exuberance of love,

Nor demons from the pit can span

The depths of woman's love for man.

And men, of love's sweet flame bereft,

Have but the brutal instincts left.

She, too, my youthful love returned,

Each breast with throb responsive yearned,

The oracles of passion sweet,

All augured happiness complete.

But, ere the nuptial knot was bound,

A whispered rumor crept around,

A whispered rumor, such as rise

From nothing to colossal size;

Though none their origin can trace,

Nor ferret out the starting place,

Which start sometimes, in idle jest,

When knowing looks imply the rest.

The lightest rumor, or the worst,

May be discredited at first,

But oft repeated and received

Is soon unconsciously believed.

Though inconsistent and abstract,

Fanned by insinuating tongues,

Imaginary faults and wrongs

Soon gain the currency of fact.

The purest acts are misconstrued

By the lascivious and lewd,

And envy loves to lie in wait

With fangs imbrued in venomed hate.

This slander, born of jealousy,

Was told as solemn truth to me,

By tongues I deemed immaculate.

Alas! that shafts from falsehood's bow

Should undetected cleave the air,

Or wanton hands in malice sow

The tares of discord and despair.

For every seed of falsehood sown

Brings forth a harvest of its own,

And ears, most ready to believe,

Are difficult to undeceive.

Alas! that shafts from falsehood's tongue

Should fall suspicious ears among,

And be received, and nursed, forsooth,

As arrows of unblemished truth:

Maligning spotless innocence,

With grave impeachments of offence.

Their crime, of heinous crimes the worst,

With multiplied damnation cursed,

Who, lost to every sense of shame,

Assassinate a woman's name.

For such, with trumped-up calumnies,

Would drag an angel from the skies,

And stain its vestal robes of white

With slander's sable hues of night,

Holding to ridicule and shame

The ruins of a once fair name.

Who so, from slander's chalice sips,

May greet you with a friendly kiss,

Nor may the foul, envenomed lips

Betray the adder's sting and hiss.

The fairest flowrets of the field

The rankest poisons often yield,

And falsehood loves to hide her tooth

'Neath the habiliments of truth.

This scandal, venomous and vile,

Had no foundation but a smile,

But on it wagging tongues had built

A massive pyramid of guilt.

In evil hour, I, too, believed

For fabrications more absurd

Than the aspersions I had heard

Have wiser ears than mine deceived.

I fought suspicion, vainly tried

To cast each rising doubt aside.

But he who lists to tales of ill

Believes in part, despite his will.

Then in my face, as in a book,

She read one sad distrustful look,

A look of pity, yet of doubt,

For silence cries most loudly out,

And who can smile with visage bright

To shield misgivings black as night?

Unhappy trait that in us lies!

We doubt the verdict of our eyes;

We doubt each faculty and sense,

Yet credit sham and false pretence.

We question Truth, and much prefer

To list to Falsehood, than to her:

And that, which most substantial seems,

We doubt, yet place our faith in dreams.

We doubt the pearl of purest white,

We doubt the diamond clear and bright,

And yet accept the base and flawed,

Yes, revel in all forms of fraud.

That moment's lack of confidence,

The shadow of remote offence,

Cost each the sweetest joys of life,

Cost her a husband, me a wife.

Ere yet that month its course had spent,

In time's continuous descent,

Her face had been forever hid

Beneath the sod and coffin lid.

Then slanderous tongues forgot their lies,

And wagged in glowing eulogies.

Though tears, the pearls of sorrow be,

And many o'er her grave were shed,

Mine was a tearless agony,

A deeper, dry-eyed grief instead.

That rumor, void of fact or proof,

Too late betrayed the cloven hoof.

Too late, alas! 'twas given me

To recognize its falsity.

Within a rural burial place,

A rude, though quaint, necropolis,

Where, through the growth of hemlock trees,

Is borne the requiem of the breeze;

Where stand the funeral pines as plumes,

Above the scattered graves and tombs,

And sigh, with drooping branches spread,

In sylvan dirges for the dead;

Beneath a fir tree's sombre shade,

My last adieu to her was made.

Close by the slab of graven stone,

Which marks her place of silent rest,

I knelt at midnight, and alone,

Then rose and started for the West."

The wind in temporary lull,

Had dwindled to a plaintive moan;

As if in mournful monotone,

Her cup of anguish being full,

Sad nature's fountain-heads of bale

Had overflowed with plaint and wail.

In palpitating throbs of woe,

It now arose and whirled the snow

With triple energy renewed,

Filling the dismal solitude

With woeful shriekings of despair,

As demon orgies in the air,

And culminated in a roar

More violent than aught before.

At length another timely lull

Made human voices audible.

As Uncle Jim resumed his seat,

A voice cried out for Russian Pete.