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THE
CERTAIN HOUR

(Dizain des Poetes)

B y
JAMES BRANCH CABELL

"Criticism, whatever may be its
pretensions, never does more than to

define the impression which is made upon
it at a certain moment
by a work wherein
the writer himself noted the impression
of the
world which he received at a
certain hour."
NEW YORK
ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY
1916

Copyright, 1916. by Robert M. McBride &
Copyright, 1915, by McBride, Nast & Co.

Copyright, 1914, by the Sewanee Review Quarterly
Copyright, 1913,
by John Adams Thayer Corporation
Copyright, 1912, by Argonaut
Publishing Company
Copyright, 1911, by Red Book Corporation
Copyright, 1909, by
Harper and Brothers
TO
ROBERT GAMBLE CABELL II
In Dedication of The Certain Hour
Sad hours and glad hours, and all hours, pass over;
One thing
unshaken stays:
Life, that hath Death for spouse, hath Chance for

lover;
Whereby decays
Each thing save one thing:--mid this strife diurnal
Of hourly change
begot,
Love that is God-born, bides as God eternal,
And changes
not;--

Nor means a tinseled dream pursuing lovers
Find altered by-and-bye,

When, with possession, time anon discovers
Trapped dreams must
die,--
For he that visions God, of mankind gathers
One manlike trait alone,

And reverently imputes to Him a father's
Love for his son.
CONTENTS
"Ballad of the Double-Soul"
AUCTORIAL INDUCTION

BELHS CAVALIERS
BALTHAZAR'S DAUGHTER

JUDITH'S CREED
CONCERNING CORINNA
OLIVIA'S
POTTAGE
A BROWN WOMAN
PRO HONORIA
THE
IRRESISTIBLE OGLE
A PRINCESS OF GRUB STREET

THE LADY OF ALL OUR DREAMS
"Ballad of Plagiary"
BALLAD OF THE DOUBLE-SOUL
"Les Dieux, qui trop aiment ses faceties cruelles"
PAUL VERVILLE.
In the beginning the Gods made man, and fashioned the
sky and the sea,
And the earth's fair face for man's dwelling-place,
and
this was the Gods' decree:--
"Lo, We have given to man five wits: he discerneth
folly
and sin;
He is swift to deride all the world outside, and blind
to the
world within:
"So that man may make sport and amuse Us, in battling
for phrases or pelf,
Now that each may know what forebodeth woe to

his
neighbor, and not to himself."
Yet some have the Gods forgotten,--or is it that
subtler
mirth
The Gods extort of a certain sort of folk that cumber
the earth?
For this is the song of the double-soul, distortedly
two in one,--
Of the wearied eyes that still behold the fruit ere
the seed
be sown,
And derive affright for the nearing night from the
light
of the noontide sun.
For one that with hope in the morning set forth, and
knew never a fear,
They have linked with another whom omens
bother; and
he whispers in one's ear.
And one is fain to be climbing where only angels have
trod,
But is fettered and tied to another's side who fears
that
it might look odd.
And one would worship a woman whom all perfections
dower,
But the other smiles at transparent wiles; and he
quotes
from Schopenhauer.
Thus two by two we wrangle and blunder about the
earth,
And that body we share we may not spare; but the Gods

have need of mirth.
So this is the song of the double-soul, distortedly
two
in one.--
Of the wearied eyes that still behold the fruit ere
the seed
be sown,
And derive affright for the nearing night from the
light
of the noontide sun.
AUCTORIAL INDUCTION
"These questions, so long as they remain
with the Muses, may very
well be unaccompanied
with severity, for where there is no other end

of contemplation and inquiry but that of
pastime alone, the
understanding is not
oppressed; but after the Muses have given over

their riddles to Sphinx,--that is, to practise,
which urges and