THE SPIRIT AND THE FLESH

She tempted him; for such was Nature’s plan, Who, thinking of the fruit, the flowers arrayed, And seeking for the surest guardian Of life to be, gave beauty to the maid. He courted her with glowing flatteries, With praises that he then deemed nought but truth, While all he sought seemed hidden in her eyes, And all the joy of earth was in her youth. He gave her the brief homage of desire; She gave him what a maid but once can give; She lit, but could not keep alight, love’s fire; They parted, they had still their lives to live. And many a merry bout with many a lass Had he, until a wiser course he saw, And wedded a fair lady of his class Who bore him children sanctioned by the law. She kept her secret and her love of life, And, wistful sometimes when that episode Her dreams recalled, became an honest wife, And shared with a good man the common load.

Another of our comrades, in those days When wisdom has for youth no argument, And conscience on him no commandment lays That can prevail against a maid’s consent,— He also found that ’twas the hot pursuit And not the maiden that inspired his zest; And other fairer maids of fleeter foot Called him from one too easily possessed. But she was not of those who make the slip And miss the fall, like many a merry dame: She felt the tightening of dishonour’s grip, Still loving him who brought on her the shame. And one day walking by a river bank, He found a little group of villagers Standing beside a body, dead and dank,— And when he looked the face he saw was hers. The conduct of these comrades was akin, Though the world read it in the sequel’s light: The one through life recalled a pleasant sin; Remorse pursued the other day and night. And, are you Nature’s weakling instrument, Your fortune may be such as prompts a laugh Among good fellows; or the fire she lent May burn into your soul an epitaph.

He was a man whose instincts all inclined To virtue, when the path of virtue led Through pleasant places; venial, but too kind To wrong a woman, and too poor to wed. She, weak and all too generously dowered By Nature with the warmth of womanhood,— Her Tree of Life was wantonly deflowered Ere she had learned the evil and the good. She joined the outcast sisterhood who play The loveless parts of love that they may live, And feigned the passion that had ebbed away, And sold what she was born on earth to give. See love, that once like crystal springs welled up In cloisters of the hills without a stain, Here served as from a common drinking cup Held at a city fountain by a chain! Chance brought these two together, and they played At lover’s parts, while each the falsehood guessed: She read old Brute Desire’s masquerade, He knew that ’twas his gold that she caressed. His heart was touched with less of scorn than ruth For her and for her sisters; soon he paid Not with gold only, but with dreams of youth, And half his former faith in man and maid. Soon was her brief career of folly run; And, beauty fading, left her poor indeed; Nor, of her hundred lovers, was there one To help her in the hour of pain and need.

Of those whom Passion’s wandering desires Drove or beguiled to gates that duty barred, The contest of the elemental fires Of flesh and spirit strengthened some, some marred. These conscious of the right, to sin afraid, Obedient in deed but not in heart,— These never brought dishonour on a maid, Nor left their gold with women of the mart; But, while the outward evil they eschewed, They lusted for the fruit they dared not touch; The path they feared to tread their dreams pursued, And left them bondsmen in temptation’s clutch; Who ruled by appetites they dared not feed, And cursed by passions that were meant to bless, Learnt that to such abstention is decreed Punishment stern as that which smites excess. The others no less warm of blood than they, Like them by duty checked in the pursuit, Disdained to peer through gates that barred the way, And feed their fancies on forbidden fruit. Their faith in love, like the clear noonday lit Those tangled pathways of the lure, the mesh: They went their way refusing to submit To tyrannies of conscience or of flesh. They matched their wills with nature’s brutal force, And readily their servant it became: Their joy was like the rider’s in the horse Whose spirit he controls but would not tame. Life’s keen activities, the toil, the play, The venture, all that put their strength to test,— These sped their thoughts and turned their hearts away From sloth’s seductions and desire’s unrest. But Love was with them: no unchecked desires Or wandering fancies ever brought the thrill, The joy in womanhood, that lit love’s fires In these of the clean blood and strengthened will. For them love’s passion, when it found its rest, Glowed with a light no after-gloom could mar, Soft as the wild-rose glory in the west That, fading, lifts the veil that hides a star.