Stories in Verse | Page 8

arose,?The foremost torch in day's long funeral train,?Karagwe went down toward the river's brink,?Thinking of what had been. He turned and saw?His enemy walk calmly up the road.?Quickly behind him came another form;?And in a jeweled hand, half raised to strike,?A poniard glistened. Then the negro rose,?And caught the weapon from the assassin's grasp,?And stood before the planter, Dalton Earl!?"Forgive," he said, "Forgiveness is a slave;?She has no pride, she never does an ill;?For she is meekly great, and nobly good,?And patient, though the lash of anger smites."
Rebuked, the master stood before the slave,?And Richard Wain passed on, nor knew his life?Was saved by one that he had that day wronged.?Thus Dalton Earl: "I thank you for this act,?Thwarting a bad intent. Yet I had cause?To take the sullied life of Richard Wain.?He drugged the wine he gave me at his house,?And knowing that I had with me the deed?And title of my lands, begged me to play,?And while I played, stake all upon a card.?He won, and I have hated from that hour."
XIV.
Like some great thought that finds release at last,?The happy Spring in buds expression found.
Coralline Earl grew rich in every grace.?Her eyes' blue heavens were serene with soul,?And goodness sunned her face from light within.?Her hands were soft with kindness. On her brow?Shone hope, more lovely than a ruby star.
As in the ancient days sat Mordecai?At the king's gate, and waited for the hour,?When, clothed with pomp, he too should take his seat?Among the mighty nobles of the land,?So at the gateway of her palace heart,?Love tarried, that he too might enter in,?And rule the kingdom of another life.
Not long the waiting; for when Stanley Thane?Came from his northern home with Dalton Earl,?And on the terrace steps met Coralline,?Love took the sceptre that his waiting won.
Well worthy to be loved was Stanley Thane.?He could not claim a titled ancestor,?Nor boast of any blood but Puritan.?His father was successful on exchange,?Reaped fortune by a rise in merchandise,?Now sent his partner son with Dalton Earl?Toward the claspless girdle of the South.?And Stanley Thane was all that makes true men;?High thought, high purpose, loving right the best,?His mind was clear and fresh as air at morn.
He kissed the rosy tips of Coralline's hand,?And that day galloped with her through the town,?And wandered with her down magnolia lanes,?And watched, below the spray-woofed fall, the brook,?That seemed a maid, who, sitting at a loom,?Wove misty lace to decorate the rocks.
XV.
Long o'er his writings hidden in the tree?Pondered the slave, and found at last their worth.?Must he return them? To whom did they belong??If he should give them back to Dalton Earl?Unjustly, Richard Wain might claim them still.?He chose to keep there folded round the Book,?Hid in the secret hollow of the tree.
He thought of Ruth as one who was at rest,?And wept for her as though she was no more,?And sometimes gathered flowers, and placed them where?He knew she soon would pass, as tenderly?As though he laid them down upon her grave.
XVI.
Once in the twilight, as the shadows fell,?A skiff shot from the under-reaching shore,?And Stanley Thane and Coralline sailed down?The languid waters, 'neath the dappled moon.?They spoke of giant wars that yet might be?To drive the dragon Slavery from the land.?Coralline smoothed the evils it had wrought.?Stanley, who could not see a wrong excused,?Said, "God is just; he knows nor white nor black.?If war must come, each shackle will be forced,?To make, at last, the nation wholly free."
And Karagwe, who pulled a silent oar,?Shut the winged words in cages of his heart;?But Coralline was angry at the speech,?And rained disdain on noble Stanley's head,?Scorning his Northern thought and Northern blood,?And sighed that it had been their lot to meet.?"If that is true," he said, "then let us part,?And let us hope we shall not meet again.?Adieu! for I shall see you never more."
The boat was near the bank; he sprang to it,?And left her sitting in the gilded prow--?Her pride, a raging Hector of the hour,?Fighting a thousand tears, whose war-cry rose:?Thin patience brings thick damage in the end.
XVII.
When Richard Wain found that the deed was lost,?Which he had won at play with Dalton Earl,?Chagrin and rage were ready at a beck,?Like waters in a dam, to pass the race,?And turn the voluble mill-wheel of his tongue.?He half suspected Dalton Earl the thief,?Yet knew, if this were true, the threat he made?To gain Ruth from him, would have been in vain.?And so, because he feared to lose his power,?He kept his secret that the deed was lost.
PART SECOND.
Now through the mighty pulses of the land?Throbbed the dark blood of war; and Sumter's guns?Were the first heart-beats of a better day.?The avenging angel, with a scourging sword?Of fire and death, with triumph on his face,?Swept o'er the nation with the cry of