Rhymes of a Rolling Stone | Page 6

first? Long had I lain
Groping my way to life
through fevered gloom.
Sudden the cloud of darkness left my brain;

A velvet bar of sunshine pierced the room,
And in that mellow
glory aureoled
She stood, she stood, all golden in its gold.
Sunshine! O miracle! the earth grew glad;
Radiant each blade of grass,
each living thing.
What a huge strength, high hope, proud will I had!

All the wide world with rapture seemed to ring.
Would she but wed
me? YES: then fared we forth
Into the vast, unvintageable North.
III
In Muskrat Land the conies leap,
The wavies linger in their flight;

The jewelled, snakelike rivers creep;
The sun, sad rogue, is out all
night;
The great wood bison paws the sand,
In Muskrat Land, in
Muskrat Land.
In Muskrat Land dim streams divide
The tundras belted by the sky.

How sweet in slim canoe to glide,
And dream, and let the world go
by!
Build gay camp-fires on greening strand!
In Muskrat Land, in
Muskrat Land.

IV
And so we dreamed and drifted, she and I;
And how she loved that
free, unfathomed life!
There in the peach-bloom of the midnight sky,

The silence welded us, true man and wife.
Then North and North
invincibly we pressed
Beyond the Circle, to the world's white crest.
And on the wind-flailed Arctic waste we stayed,
Dwelt with the
Huskies by the Polar sea.
Fur had they, white fox, marten, mink to
trade,
And we had food-stuff, bacon, flour and tea.
So we made
snug, chummed up with all the band:
Sudden the Winter swooped on
Husky Land.
V
What was that ill so sinister and dread,
Smiting the tribe with
sickness to the bone?
So that we waked one morn to find them fled;

So that we stood and stared, alone, alone.
Bravely she smiled and
looked into my eyes;
Laughed at their troubled, stern, foreboding
pain;
Gaily she mocked the menace of the skies,
Turned to our
cheery cabin once again,
Saying: "'Twill soon be over, dearest one,

The long, long night: then O the sun, the sun!"
VI
God made a heart of gold, of gold,
Shining and sweet and true;

Gave it a home of fairest mould,
Blest it, and called it -- You.
God gave the rose its grace of glow,
And the lark its radiant glee;

But, better than all, I know, I know
God gave you, Heart, to me.
VII
She was all sunshine in those dubious days;
Our cabin beaconed with
defiant light;
We chattered by the friendly drift-wood blaze;
Closer
and closer cowered the hag-like night.
A wolf-howl would have been

a welcome sound,
And there was none in all that stricken land;
Yet
with such silence, darkness, death around,
Learned we to love as few
can understand.
Spirit with spirit fused, and soul with soul,
There in
the sullen shadow of the Pole.
VIII
What was that haunting horror of the night?
Brave was she; buoyant,
full of sunny cheer.
Why was her face so small, so strangely white?

Then did I turn from her, heart-sick with fear;
Sought in my agony
the outcast snows;
Prayed in my pain to that insensate sky;

Grovelled and sobbed and cursed, and then arose:
"Sunshine! O heart
of gold! to die! to die!"
IX
She died on Christmas day -- it seems so sad
That one you love
should die on Christmas day.
Head-bowed I knelt by her; O God! I
had
No tears to shed, no moan, no prayer to pray.
I heard her
whisper: "Call me, will you, dear?
They say Death parts, but I won't
go away.
I will be with you in the cabin here;
Oh I will plead with
God to let me stay!
Stay till the Night is gone, till Spring is nigh,

Till sunshine comes . . . be brave . . . I'm tired . . . good-bye. . . ."
X
For weeks, for months I have not seen the sun;
The minatory dawns
are leprous pale;
The felon days malinger one by one;
How like a
dream Life is! how vain! how stale!
I, too, am faint; that vampire-like
disease
Has fallen on me; weak and cold am I,
Hugging a tiny fire
in fear I freeze:
The cabin must be cold, and so I try
To bear the
frost, the frost that fights decay,
The frost that keeps her beautiful
alway.
XI

She lies within an icy vault;
It glitters like a cave of salt.
All
marble-pure and angel-sweet
With candles at her head and feet,

Under an ermine robe she lies.
I kiss her hands, I kiss her eyes:

"Come back, come back, O Love, I pray,
Into this house, this house
of clay!
Answer my kisses soft and warm;
Nestle again within my
arm.
Come! for I know that you are near;
Open your eyes and look,
my dear.
Just for a moment break the mesh;
Back from the spirit
leap to flesh.
Weary I wait; the night is black;
Love of my life,
come back, come back!"
XII
Last night maybe I was a little mad,
For as I prayed despairful by her
side,
Such a strange, antic visioning I had:
Lo! it did seem HER
EYES WERE OPEN WIDE.
Surely I must have dreamed! I stared
once more. . . .
No, 'twas a candle's trick, a shadow