Preludes 1921-1922 | Page 5

the touch?Of womanhood upon her body and thought,?And she served Naaman's wife, a lonely girl,?To answer bidding, and covet little tones?Of kindness that she heard go to and fro,?But not for her. She trembled as she stood?At the proud woman's couch, because a fault?In orders done meant scolding and even rods.?And she had but two joys. One, to remember?A Galilean town, and the blue waters?That washed the pebbles that she knew so well,?Yellow in sunlight, or frozen in the moon,?A little curve of beach, where she would walk?At any hour with an old silver man.?Her father's father, her sole companion,?Who told her tales of Moses and the prophets?That lived in the old days. And of that time?She had but now poor treasuries of the mind,?Little seclusions when, the day's work done,?She made thought into prayer before she slept;?These, and a faded gown that she had brought?Into captivity, patterned with sprigs of thyme,?And blades of wheat, and little curling shells,?And signs of heaven figured out in stars,?Made by a weaver that her grandsire knew,?A gift on some thanksgiving. She might not wear it,?Being suited as became a slave, but often?At night she would spread it in her loneliness,?And think how finely she too might be drest,?As finely as any proud woman of them all,?If the God of Israel had not visited her?Surely for sin, though she could not remember.?Thus one joy was. And then the Lord Naaman,?This wonder soiled, this pitiful great captain?Forbidden all that he had so proudly been--?To worship him, that was her other joy.?When the dusk came, and the city fell to silence,?And out of his poor banishment he would walk,?She followed him, knowing the very hour,?And all her heart was flooded through with pity,?Because she knew the leprosy left still?A Naaman untainted and lovely.?Then in her mind was the proud woman a loathing,?Who dared to waste a marvel such as this,?The right in the world's knowledge so to love.?O pitiful evil blasting so great a flesh,?Walling a spirit so governing itself?In spite of desolation. A maid's thought thus?Knew how the frames of mastery can suffer.
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Sometimes at night when not even lepers walked,?Solitary in the Syrian meadows she?Would wander in the old perplexity?That the moon makes of love. Never, she knew,?Could any adoration that she brought?Touch even the Lord Naaman's banishment,?The Naaman fallen from the time when even?Great ladies dare not speak the thing they felt.?She was nothing, or the world could never know?If she was more than nothing; a maid to bind?Tresses for beauty that was not her own.?And yet she knew that she had beauty too,?A little hermit beauty that might spend?Royally if it dare and a man would speak,--?Royally, Naaman, but he could not hear.?But still for all the silence of her lips,?And heart with promise nothing known, she loved--?Loved the sad leper walking in the dusk,?Loved the great lord, loved even his leprosy,?Since by it he came a little down to her,?Loved him, and knew that her love was the sum?Of all that loving, and must be. But even so,?She knew her love an honester thing than any?That the proud woman had. O moon, she thought,?Could you not make me truly tell this love,?This love pulsing along my blood and brain,?As midnight surges going through the sky??And long she pondered how she best might serve.
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Then one day when the fans moved, and she stood?Ministering with her perfumes at the couch,?Her mistress, with eyes that meant the thought was nothing, Said, "Is it not grievous that my lord goes thus?"?And the maid felt the colour at her throat?Flow round her neck and flood up to her temples,?But knowing, feared not, or put her fear aside,?And said "Would God my lord were in Samaria,?To seek Elisha there, a prophet, lady,?Whom God hath taught to cure whom he will cure."?She spoke, and the bright bowl trembled in her hands,?And fear because of her words made the tongue dry?As the woman looked with still cold eyes upon her.?But the word passed from lip to lip, and the king?Heard it, and sent for Naaman and said,?"A girl among the slaves that you brought in?From Israel has spoken a strange thing,?Of one Elisha, a prophet whom they obey,?Saying that he could bid the blemish off?That is cheating Syria of her proudest man.?Now therefore journey to him, and I will send?Word to Israel's king, that he shall bless?Favours from us in whom his fortune lies,?Bidding him call this prophet to your cause.?Go, and the love of Syria go with you."
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Then Naaman with his servants went at dawn,?And Naaman's wife saw how again might come?Her mastery among the women of Syria.?Yet was the little maid her hatred now,?Lest of her word should come this resurrection.?And Naaman went, and Israel's king was glad,?Because of Syria's favour, and sent down?The hill to where Elisha