The Pearl | Page 4

did furl
The long locks
all about her thrown.
Her air demure as duke or earl,
Her hue more
white than walrus-bone;
Like sheer gold thread the bright hair strown

Loose on her shoulders, lying light.
Her colour took a deeper tone

With bordering pearls so fair bedight.
Bedight was every hem, and bound,
At wrists, sides, and each
aperture,
With pearls the whitest ever found,--
White all her brave
investiture;
But a wondrous pearl, a flawless round,

Upon her breast
was set full sure;
A man's mind it might well astound,
And all his
wits to madness lure.
I thought that no tongue might endure
Fully to

tell of that sweet sight,
So was it perfect, clear and pure,
That
precious pearl with pearls bedight.
Bedight in pearls, lest my joy cease,
That lovely one came down the
shore;
The gladdest man from here to Greece,
The eagerest, was I,
therefore;
She was nearer kin than aunt or niece,
And thus my joy
was much the more.
She spoke to me for my soul's peace,

Courtesied with her quaint woman's lore,
Caught off the shining
crown she wore,
And greeted me with glance alight.
I blessed my
birth; my bliss brimmed o'er
To answer her in pearls bedight.
V
"O Pearl," I said, "in pearls bedight,
Art thou my pearl for which I
mourn,
Lamenting all alone at night?
With hidden grief my heart is
worn.
Since thou through grass didst slip from sight,
Pensive and
pained, I pass forlorn,
And thou livest in a life of light,
A world
where enters sin nor scorn.
What fate has hither my jewel borne,

And left me in earth's strife and stir?
Oh, sweet, since we in twain
were torn,
I have been a joyless jeweler."
That Jewel then with gems besprent
Glanced up at me with eyes of
grey,
Put on her pearl crown orient,
And soberly began to say:

"You tell your tale with wrong intent,
Thinking your pearl gone quite
away.
Like a jewel within a coffer pent,
In this gracious garden
bright and gay,
Your pearl may ever dwell at play,
Where sin nor
mourning come to her;
It were a joy to thee alway
Wert thou a
gentle jeweler.
"But, Jeweler, if thou dost lose
Thy joy for a gem once dear to thee,

Methinks thou dost thy mind abuse,
Bewildered by a fantasy;

Thou hast lost nothing save a rose

That flowered and failed by life's
decree:
Because the coffer did round it close,
A precious pearl it
came to be.
A thief thou hast dubbed thy destiny
That something

for nothing gives thee, sir;
Thou blamest thy sorrow's remedy,
Thou
art no grateful jeweler."
Like jewels did her story fall,
A jewel, every gentle clause;
"Truly,"
I said, "thou best of all!
My great distress thy voice withdraws.
I
thought my pearl lost past recall,
My jewel shut within earth's jaws;

But now I shall keep festival,
And dwell with it in bright
wood-shaws;
And love my Lord and all His laws,
Who hath
brought this bliss. Ah! if I were
Beyond these waves, I should have
cause
To be a joyful jeweler."
"Jeweler," said that Gem so dear,
"Why jest ye men, so mad ye be?

Three sayings thou hast spoken clear,
And unconsidered were all
three;
Their meaning thou canst not come near,
Thy word before
thy thought doth flee.
First, thou believest me truly here,
Because
with eyes thou mayst me see;
Second, with me in this country
Thou
wilt dwell, whatever may deter;
Third, that to cross here thou art free:

That may no joyful jeweler."
VI
The jeweler merits little praise,
Who loves but what he sees with eye,

And it were a discourteous phrase
To say our Lord would make a
lie,
Who surely pledged thy soul to raise,
Though fate should cause
thy flesh to die.
Thou dost twist His words in crooked ways

Believing only what is nigh;
This is but pride and bigotry,
That a
good man may ill assume,
To hold no matter trustworthy
Till like a
judge he hear and doom.
"Whate'er thy doom, dost thou complain
As man should speak to God
most high?
Thou wouldst gladly dwell in this domain;
'T were best,
methinks, for leave to apply.
Even so, perchance, thou pleadest in
vain.

Across this water thou wouldst fly,--
To other end thou must
attain.
Thy corpse to clay comes verily,--
In Paradise 't was ruined

by
Our forefather. Now in the womb
Of dreary death each man
must lie,
Ere God on this bank gives his doom."
"Doom me not, sweet, to my old fears
And pain again wherein I pine.

My pearl that, long, long lost, appears,
Shall I again forego, in fine?

Meet it, and miss it through more years?
Thou hast hurt me with
that threat of thine.
For what serves treasure but for tears,
One must
so soon his bliss resign?
I reck not how my days decline,
Though
far from earth my soul seek room,
Parted from that dear pearl of mine.

Save endless dole what is man's doom?"
"No doom save pain and soul's distress?"
She answered: "Wherefore
thinkst thou so?
For pain of parting with the less,
Man often lets the
greater go.
'T were better thou thy fate shouldst bless,
And love thy
God, through weal and woe;
For anger wins not happiness;
Who
must, shall bear; bend thy pride low;
For though thou mayst dance to
and fro,
Struggle and shriek, and fret and fume,
When thou canst
stir