Part III

" My Temptress lives on still.

She is a Wife
And Mother; lives an unsuspected life.
She hath grown fat and flourished on the ill.
The poison, that should naturally kill.
That cruel stain of Murder seemed to pass
From off her face of life as breath from glass.

I sometimes play the devil in her dream
And plague her with a glimpse, one lurid gleam
Of all my torment; her thick veil I tear
And lay the unholy of unholies bare.
Else were her heart untroubled, deaf and blind.
With her things out of sight are out of mind,
And should she hear a voice from the Unknown
She takes it for an echo of her own.

"Ah, Mistress, did you know we have to stand
Together yet, as equals, hand in hand,
Like Eve and Adam, chittering side by side.
Where not a leaf our nakedness can hide;
Our secret blazoned, as a flag unfurled
High on the housetops of another world!

" She was a buxom beauty I In her way
Imperious as the Thanes Wife in the Play.
A woman who upon the outside smiled,
Burnished like beetles, inwardly defiled;
With hair that like a thunder-cloud, black-
brightening.
Caught the sunlight andflasht it back in lightning.
The Devil never toyed with worthier folds.
About a comelier throat, to strangle souls;
A face that dazzled you with life's white-heat.
Devouring, as it drew you off your feet,
With eyes that set the Beast o' the blood astir.
Leaping in heart and brain, alive for her;
Melted the sword of soul within its sheath:
The knee-joints loosened, smitten by her breath
Until you bowed, as the strong beast boweth,
When taken captive by the dark of death:

Lithe, amorous lips, cruel in curve and hue,

Which, greedy as the grave, my kisses drew
With hers, that to my mouth like live things clung
Long after, and in memory fiercely stung.

A dainty morsel of the Devil's meat
To roll beneath my tongue, as poison sweet I

Had not the Mother ate forbidden food.
This was the Daughter among Women that -would.
" But what avails to cast on her the blame?
/ will not: will not name her by her name.
The deed is done; the sin is sinned; the brand
Is on my brow; the blood burns on my hand.

" T must have been a beast myself from birth.
We lived as Beasts in that old burrow of earth
They called a House; the Cot where I -was born;
One of those dwellings Poets will adorn
Outside with Honeysuckle and climbing Rose,
But where, within, no flower of Heaven blows
With sweetening breath, for want of air and light,
And in the wild weeds crawl the things of night:
Where any life-warmth quickens the dark slime
Of hovelled sin to swarm in shame and crime.

" My pastoral home was one wherein are grown
Boys for the Hulks; girls for the pitiless Town
That flaunts beneath the gaslights on the highway,
The full-blown flowers of many a filthy byeway!
Where Virtue had no safeguard. Vice no veil;
The Devil sowed his seed, never to fail —
With such a soil — in growing harvest meet
For him, as sure as corn is grown to eat.

" T should have been the beast that Nature binds
To beaten ways and with her blinkers blinds.
But, was a Beast with scope to work all ill;
Treat Wife and dumb things cruelly — sin — kill —
And go to Hell by freedom of the will.
And yet I knew not — such the curse of sin! —
Until the fall came, what was ripe within;
What demon I had nurst past suckling-time,
To find that he could go alone in crime.

" She came to me, her great black eyes aglare
Like stars of bale, yet with the hunted stare
Of wild things; such as made me stare to see
What danger followed her and threatened me.
I knew that Nemesis was drawing near.
And in the beating of my heart could hear
The hovering wings that bow strong men with fear.
' What is it? ' / asked. What need for her to tell?
'Twas writ all over her. I knew too well.
And still I stared beyond, as if that way
The blackness rose that blotted out the day.
For days, and weeks, and months, her secret lay
Safe-nestled, unsuspected by her friends.
But one day all disguise in sinning ends.
And every way-side hiding-place is past.
She had to leave her home and fly at last —
Mad with the misery of a Mother's pain,
She ran to me, thro' f re, and hail, and rain,
And mire below, and thunder overhead;
Ran lightning-dazed, and drencht, till nearly dead.

" Well I remember that LAST DAY. I see
It lightning-lit. I feel it stamped in me,
As with the black seal of Eternity.
It was about mid-spring, when suddenly
The rear of beaten winter turned in ire.
And there was battle fierce of Frost and Fire.
The Birds stopped singing; all the golden flame
O the Sun went out; the Cattle homeward came.
With a forerunning shiver rusht the breeze.
And, in the Woods, the husht and listening trees.
That had been standing deathly-dark and still.
Wind-whitened sprang, with every leaf athrill.
I watched the anguisht clouds go hurrying by,
Rackt with the rending spirit of prophecy:
Like Pythonesses in the pangs, they tost
And writhed in shadowy semblance of the Lost:
They met, they darted death, they reared, they roared,
And down the torrent of the tempest poured!
Thro' heaven's windows the blue lightnings gleamed.
And like a fractured pane the sky was seamed:
Hailstones made winter on the whitened ground,
And for two hours the thunder warrayed round.
And then I heard the Thrush begin again.
With his more liquid warble after rain.

" Tearing thro' all the fearful storm she came;
Worse storm within, and in her eyes hell-flame
Had broken loose to kindle, past control,
Ln huge dare-devilry of reckless soul.
As springs a Madman, dancing upon deck.
Who hath fired the Ship, and glories in the wreck;
As at a Prison window one may stand
Who fired the house, and waves the lighted brand.
Her spirit sprang at me. Her looks were wild.

She had come to me, she said, to bring the child,
For no one had a greater right to it!

This was God's truth, not merely meant for wit.

She swore that she had come there and would stay
Till it was born, and safely put away.

And even while I cursed her pangs grew worse,
And stopped me with an everlasting curse.

" ' Good God! this is too bad,' I thought; and
taught
A laugh as bitter as the cup I quaffed.
I had been married just a month I my Wife
Knew nothing of this dead love come to life.
As Fate would have it, she had gone from home:
T knew that any hour she might have come.
With desperate voice the woman made me writhe,
Harsh as the whetstone on the Mower's scythe
She rasped me all on edge; the hell-sparks flew,
Till there seemed nothing that I dared not do.
' Kill it, you Coward! Why not kill us both? '
She taunted me; .and I felt little loth.
The Devil whispered ' Why not kill them both? '
I said I would, and clenched it with an oath.'"
Now, while he spake, there came a frightful
change
Upon him with transfiguration strange.
And slowly he assumed his mortal dress
With a last look of dying consciousness:
The eyes turned stony in a sightless stare,
And of all presence he grew unaware:
Clouded and lost within his dreadful dream
He went; a Man once more, each pore a stream
Of inner agony; his body shook,
And from his mazed face did " MURDER " look.
It was as when in dreams you see a dumb
Mouth shaped to cry it, tho' no sound will come.
While in his hand he grasped a gleaming knife.
So keen, you saw it thirst for a drink of life!
And, as he passed into his haunted gloom.
His dreadful purpose drew him from the room.

So terrible the scene, I should have cried
For help in the death-eddies, — must have died
But for the strong calm Spirit at my side.
Who took me by the hand and turned on mine
His cordial face with comfortable shine.
And then the darkness gave a sudden sigh,
And a wind rose that went lamenting by.
" Listen" he said. I leaned, all ear, to hark;
I felt the quake of footsteps thro' the dark.
Heavily hurrying down a distant stair,
And caught a piteous wail faint on the air.
The Dog howled his lone cry, as he would fain
Give warning, knowing it was all in vain.
Then came the liquid gurgle and the ring
Metallic, with the heavy plop and ping.
Heavier than largest water-drops that fall
From melting icicles on house-eaves tall.
I knew them now; this resurrection night
Sounds were translated into things of sight.
These were the innocent drops a father shed.
They had the weight of blood, fell heavy as lead.
And now again I felt the grinding sound
O' the grating door; the digging underground;

The shudders of the house; the sighs and moans;
The ring of iron dropped upon the stones;
The cloudy presence groping near; the quake
Of walls that vibrate with the parting shake;
Then the relief. As they who stoop with dread,
While the Simoom goes withering overhead
Like iron red-hot, look up and breathe at last,
So felt I when that thing of Night had passed.

'Tis but a dream, methought, and I shall wake
Ere long and from' its dread embraces break.

And if I could but only wake, I knew
By light of day these things could not be true!

How many a dream before had wraith-like gone
To nothing at the sceptic smile of Dawn.

And still I could not wake, nor wake my Wife;

And still the dream went on, and like as life
There stood the Angel in it; overshone
The well-known room.

And then the voice went on.

" The nether world hath opened at your feet.
And you have seen ascending from the Pit
The torment-smoke, where furnace-fires of Crime
Have crackt the crust of this your world of Time.

" It was an awful hour of storm and rain
And starless gloom in which the Child was slain.
Wild, windily the Night went roaring by.
As if loud seas broke in the woodlands nigh,
Or all the blasts of Heaven at once were hurled
To stop the onward rolling of the world.
The firmament was all one flash, and red
The lightning laught, as Hell were overhead.

" He had dug his grave amid this war of storm.
He bore the murdered Babe upon his arm
For burial, where no eye should ever mark.
Just then Heaven opened at him with the bark
Of all the Hell-hounds loosed. And in the dark
Old went the light, and down he dropt the key.
That was to lead to safety secretly.
He was alone with Death, and paces three
Beyond the door an open grave gaped, free
For all the daylight world to come and see;
And he was fastened.

Like the luckless wight
Who wagered h£ would enter a Vault at night
In some old Graveyard, and, in proof he did,
Would leave his dagger stuck in a Coffin-lid. —
He ventured: bravely dasht the weapon down
And turned to triumph, when, by the student gown
He was held fast, as if the living tomb
Had closed upon him, clutched him in the gloom.
He had pinned his long robe to the coffin! Fright
Came on him like a snow-fall! Weirdly-white
His hair turned, and the youth was a forlorn,
Old, grey-faced, gibbering Idiot next morn.

" The Murderer did not madden thus, but he
Was stamped that moment for Eternity.

He stooped with his dead child, he groped and found
The key, and got the corse safe underground.
And out of sight had hid his murder-hole,
Ere Dawn lookt ghostly on his guilty soul,
And on his hands no man could see the stain.
His madness went beyond the burning brain.
His was the frenzy of a soul insane.

" The hour came when he lost the key again.
As the death-rattles thundered in his throat.
And earth was rushing past his soul afloat.
And pain had fiercely throbbed itself to rest.
And Time stopped ticking in the brain and breast.
It gleamed and vanisht from his fading sight,
And snapped his eye-strings straining thro' the night.
Thenceforth it was his hottest hell to be
Living the moment when he lost that key:
Hell that is permanent insanity!

" There was a man who died ages ago,
And 'tis his madness still to wile his woe
At work for ever, perfecting the plan
That should have, must have shown his fellow-man
How innocent he was of that old crime
He died for justly — had he thought in time.

" Even so this lost soul whirls and eddies round
The grave-place where the lost key must be found,
If the mad motion would a moment cease
And he could only get a moment' s peace;
He often sees it, hut he cannot touch
It; like a live thing it eludes his clutch —
Gone like that glitter from the eyes of Death
In the black river at night that slides beneath
The Bridges, tempting souls of Suicides
To find the promised rest it surely hides.

" For seven years it was his curse to come
At midnight and fulfil his dreadful doom.
Looking for that lost key, lest it revealed
The secret he so cunningly concealed;

Feeling at times he could endure his hell
If in one world of torment he might dwell.
And still from world to world he had to go
(A rootless weed the wave swings to and fro!)
Wandering with incommunicable woe;
Well knowing that, for every moment lost,
His soul would be in treble anguish tost,
While every storm of wind and rain would
beat
Down on him, kindle hell to tenfold heat,
And make him hurry to your upper air.
Lest it should blow and wash the bones all bare.
For often will a wind of God arise
At midnight, and the voice of Murder cries
From it, and bones of murdered babes are found;
Earth will no longer be their burial ground.
And so on stormy nights his pangs are worst;
More dread the gnashings of that soul accurst.

" For seven years he came, unseen, unheard.
' Twas but the other day the bones were stirred,
As men were delving heedless underground.
They broke in on them, scattered them around:
Not guessing they were human.

Lower in hell
His spirit sank, like waters in a well
Before there springs the Earthquake. Tremblings
sore
Shook him with vengeance never felt before.
He came; he found the murder had leaped out;
The grave was burst; the bones were strewn about
For all the world to find!

It mattered not
To him that no one knew them; they might rot
To undistinguishable dust in peace;

That Death had signed his order of release
From this worlds law. Death had no shadows
dim
Enough to hide the blacker truth from him.
He was the Murderer still, who had to hide
The proof s of murder on the human side I
The Child was his; these were its tender bones.
Blown with the dust and dasht against the stones.
And all his care, his self enfolded pain
And midnight watchings lone, were all in vain.

" The worms that in the dead flesh riot and roll
Are poor faint types of those that gnawed his soul!
For ever beaten now; tho' he should find
And grasp the key he lost when he went blind
In death: in vain he mounts upon a wind
Of hell and tries to fan the dry dust over them
With endless toil; no sooner may he cover them
Than there's an ominous muttering in the air,
And in an instant all the bones lie bare;
While lurking devils grin thro' masks at him,
In likeness of his Child s head, gorily grim!

" It comes upon him, almost with a gleam
Of comfort, when he's rapt into the Dream
You saw him change in, and he passes thro
His night of murder; lives it all anew.
So vividly each sound is heard by you;
Each particle of Matter set afloat
Upon a Mind-wave, tossing like a boat
Tlie Spirit rides.

For, as, upon his brain,
The sounds one midnight smote in a ruddy rain.
Till sense had dyed the spirit with their stain.
And Memory was branded deep as Cain,
So now his spirit echoes back again
The fixed ideas of a soul insane,
Till Matter taking impress of his pain,
Reverberates the sounds within your brain"