Poems (Nora May French)/The Spanish Girl—Part III

by Nora May French

PART III

I

ONE time I felt the sun in all my veins,
 And bloomed on crystal mornings, flower-wise,
And mourned as roses sadden in long rains.
 What pain is this the summer noon denies?

One time the hands of wind upon my hair
 Could heal me like a mother's touch and kiss.
When I could give my airy griefs to air
 I never knew so sharp a thorn as this.

The joy of flower and wind and sighing bough—
 It comes not back again for tears and rue.
A year agone I had not sought as now,
 And found the sky a vault of empty blue.

II

HE loves no more. Upon the failing streams
 The summer burns—so burns another flame:
I see his eyes alight with alien dreams . . .
 That long-forgotten country whence he came

Calls to him past my words; beyond my eyes
 Lost waters shine, remembered sunsets die.
Ay, in my kiss another mouth replies,
 And speaks of kisses past, of lips put by.

Now this my heart divines, for words of love
 He gives me still (O woeful heart and bruised
To still complain I) . . . . But surely, when I move
 His eyes will never follow as they used.

III

THE soul that made love exquisite is gone,
 It is not that the word, the kiss, is changed.
I cannot say, "Here was his thought withdrawn;
 So once was love, so now is love estranged."

But all of love that I could touch and know
 I held as one a lamp that makes his day,
And much it still, and see its flame burn low,
 Its shining figures fade to painted clay.

Ah, I would hold the semblance, keep the kiss;
 But watching in its heart the paling spark,
I cry out when the shadows menace this,
 As children weep for terror of the dark.

IV

THAT all tomorrows have no wound in store
 For shrinking Joy, nor any prick of dread,
I know, who closed its eyes forevermore,
 And keep this night a vigil with my dead.

This little space my out-thrown hands have stirred
 Is happy earth, for once it knew love's feet;
Here once love stood and called the heart that heard,
 And all the garden, all the world, grew sweet.

I lay my joy within this hollowed space
 (I had not thought so blithe a thing could die!)
And heap the happy earth upon the face
 That has no will to smile nor breath to sigh.

With dew beneath and hushing night above
 I cannot tell how long my grief has lain—
Virgin, I will not plead you for my love,
 Only the pain,—if you would ease the pain.

V

THE world below was deep in stormy cloud;
 But high in sun we flew along the ledge,
And to the strength I rode I cried aloud
 And spurred it near against the trembling edge.

(I rode Ramon along the mountain wall.
 Today he had no wilder mood than I—
No wilder will for lawless wind to call
 Upon the narrow trail that meets the sky.)

The sharp air flowed like water through my hands.
 Heart, how I skirted death and laughed at pain!
Forgotten pain in half-remembered lands
 Below me in the valleys with the rain.

VI

WHAT alters with my changing? Not José,
 Content in little duties that he loves.
Not Marta's dimming eyes that stare away
 Beyond the tranquil court, the circling doves.

I, too, I float on peace, forget almost,
 And then as drowning sight may pierce the sea
To find the sun a green and wavering ghost,
 And shapes of earth distorted monstrously,—

I see a mocking earth, a sun distraught,
 I lose the buoying instant of relief
And sink again as wearying soul and thought
 Drown in the sick amazement of my grief.

VII

I TILT my hollowed life and look within:
 The wine it held has left a purple trace—
Behold, a stain where happiness had been.
 If I should shatter down this empty vase,

Through what abysses would my soul be tossed
 To meet its judge in undiscovered lands?
What sentence meted me, alone and lost,
 Before him with the fragments in my hands?

Better the patient earth that loves me still
 Should drip her clearness on this purple stain;
Better my life upheld to her should fill
 With limpid dew, and gradual gift of rain.

VIII

SOME whim of Marta's shields me from the night,
 And fretted that my curtain should be kept
Close drawn, and wakeful candles over bright,
 I welcomed in the quiet moon and slept;

Then woke again in fear—the night was old,
 The witching tide of silver shut away,
And Marta's shaking hand on mine was cold,
 Her bending face above me strange and grey.

"Who sleeps beneath the moon," she whispered low,
 "Must pale with her, nor wind nor noon-day sky
Be his again whose pulses beat more slow,
 More faint, till with the waning moon . . . they die."

 

THE END