The Golden Threshold | Page 6

in England, and from Italy her letters are radiant.
"This Italy is made of gold," she writes from Florence, "the gold of
dawn and daylight, the gold of the stars, and, now dancing in weird
enchanting rhythms through this magic month of May, the gold of

fireflies in the perfumed darkness--'aerial gold.' I long to catch the
subtle music of their fairy dances and make a poem with a rhythm like
the quick irregular wild flash of their sudden movements. Would it not
be wonderful? One black night I stood in a garden with fireflies in my
hair like darting restless stars caught in a mesh of darkness. It gave me
a strange sensation, as if I were not human at all, but an elfin spirit. I
wonder why these little things move me so deeply? It is because I have
a most 'unbalanced intellect,' I suppose." Then, looking out on Florence,
she cries, "God! how beautiful it is, and how glad I am that I am alive
to-day!" And she tells me that she is drinking in the beauty like wine,
"wine, golden and scented, and shining, fit for the gods; and the gods
have drunk it, the dead gods of Etruria, two thousand years ago. Did I
say dead? No, for the gods are immortal, and one might still find them
loitering in some solitary dell on the grey hillsides of Fiesole. Have I
seen them? Yes, looking with dreaming eyes, I have found them sitting
under the olives, in their grave, strong, antique beauty--Etruscan gods!"
In Italy she watches the faces of the monks, and at one moment longs
to attain to their peace by renunciation, longs for Nirvana; "then, when
one comes out again into the hot sunshine that warms one's blood, and
sees the eager hurrying faces of men and women in the street, dramatic
faces over which the disturbing experiences of life have passed and left
their symbols, one's heart thrills up into one's throat. No, no, no, a
thousand times no! how can one deliberately renounce this coloured,
unquiet, fiery human life of the earth?" And, all the time, her subtle
criticism is alert, and this woman of the East marvels at the women of
the West, "the beautiful worldly women of the West," whom she sees
walking in the Cascine, "taking the air so consciously attractive in their
brilliant toilettes, in the brilliant coquetry of their manner!" She finds
them "a little incomprehensible," "profound artists in all the subtle
intricacies of fascination," and asks if these "incalculable frivolities and
vanities and coquetries and caprices" are, to us, an essential part of their
charm? And she watches them with amusement as they flutter about her,
petting her as if she were a nice child, a child or a toy, not dreaming
that she is saying to herself sorrowfully: "How utterly empty their lives
must be of all spiritual beauty IF they are nothing more than they
appear to be."
She sat in our midst, and judged us, and few knew what was passing

behind that face "like an awakening soul," to use one of her own
epithets. Her eyes were like deep pools, and you seemed to fall through
them into depths below depths.
ARTHUR SYMONS.

FOLK SONGS
PALANQUIN BEARERS
Lightly, O lightly we bear her along, She sways like a flower in the
wind of our song; She skims like a bird on the foam of a stream, She
floats like a laugh from the lips of a dream. Gaily, O gaily we glide and
we sing, We bear her along like a pearl on a string.
Softly, O softly we bear her along, She hangs like a star in the dew of
our song; She springs like a beam on the brow of the tide, She falls like
a tear from the eyes of a bride. Lightly, O lightly we glide and we sing,
We bear her along like a pearl on a string.

WANDERING SINGERS (Written to one of their Tunes)
Where the voice of the wind calls our wandering feet, Through echoing
forest and echoing street, With lutes in our hands ever-singing we roam,
All men are our kindred, the world is our home.
Our lays are of cities whose lustre is shed, The laughter and beauty of
women long dead; The sword of old battles, the crown of old kings,
And happy and simple and sorrowful things.
What hope shall we gather, what dreams shall we sow? Where the wind
calls our wandering footsteps we go. No love bids us tarry, no joy bids
us wait: The voice of the wind is the voice of our fate.

INDIAN WEAVERS
Weavers, weaving at break of day, Why do you weave a garment so
gay? . . . Blue