Volume 19 / Part 4 — Part IV.

She Sang.

I.

It came: it reached me from afar:

I kissed the seal, the cords unwove;

Came wafted from the fields of war

On all the odorous airs of love.

Close hid I sang; close hid I sighed

In places where no echoes were,

Where dashed the streams through gorges wide,

And sprays leaned back on moistened air.

I sang a song, half sighs, yet proud,

And smothered by those downward rills,

A music proud, and yet not loud,

As when her babe a mother stills.

II.

Behold! for thee, and for thy love

I fain would make my spirit fair:

For this I strive; for this I strove:

My toil, though late, shall blossom bear.

Before thy face the plant shall rise,

In thy fair presence bloom and flower:

O love me! Thou art great and wise:—

Heart-greatness is the woman's dower.

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Thou mad'st me as a warrior young

That yearns to flesh a maiden sword,

That burns for battle with the strong,

That pants to crush some rebel horde.

Rebels I count all things in me

That bear no impress of my King!

“Fair is a great king's jealousy;

His worth he knoweth”; thus I sing.

III.

I stood upon a rock what time

The moon rushed up above the plain:

The crags were white like frosty rime;

Her beams upon me fell like rain.

It was her harvest month of might:

The vales and villages were glad;

I cried—my palms against the light—

Like one with sudden pinions clad,

“Whom seek'st thou, O thou rising moon

That broad'nest like a warrior's shield?

Whom seest thou? Thou shalt see him soon,

My Warrior 'mid the tented field!

“He reaches now some gorge's mouth;

Upon his helmet thou shalt shine;—

Seest thou, O moon, from north to south,

Another loved one like to mine?”

IV.

No merchant from the isles of spice

Who stands in hushed hareem or hall

Who parts his goods, and names the price,

Was I, O friend! I gave thee all.

When from me I had all things cast

Except thy gifts, that hour I found

A gift I, too, might give at last—

The being thou had'st made and crowned!

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I am not nothing since thy vow

Enriched my heart. That wealth is mine:

“Nothing” I call myself, that thou

May'st hear, O love! and call me thine.

V.

High on the hills I sat at dawn

Where cedar caverns, branching, breathe

Their darkness o'er the dewy lawn,

While slowly bloomed in heaven a wreath

Of eastern lilies. Soon the sun

Ascended o'er the far sea-tide

Smiting to glory billows dun

And clouds and trees; and loud I cried,

“Thou too shalt rise, my sun—thou too—

O'er darkling hearts in power shalt rise,

And flame on souls, and flash on dew

Of tears that dim expectant eyes.”

And every wind from vale and glen

Sang loud, “He, too, shall rise and shine!

A warrior he, a chief of men,

A prince with might; and he is thine.”

VI.

Men praised my words. Thy spirit dwells

Within me, strangely linked with mine:

At times my mind's remotest cells

Brighten with thoughts less mine than thine.

A gleam of thee on me they cast:

They wear thy look; they catch thy tone:

A kingdom in my breast thou hast:—

The words they praised were not mine own.

VII.

A chance was that—our meeting first?

At morn I read a quaint old book

That told of maiden palace-nursed

Who met a prince beside a brook.

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“Beside our brook the lilies blow,”

I mused, “green-girt, and silver-tipped”;

And, dreaming of their bells of snow,

At eve adown the rocks I tripped.

Sudden I saw thee!—saw thee take

Toward me thy path! I turned, and fled:

So swiftly pushed I through the brake

My girdle dropped:—still on I sped.

Had I but guessed that past the dates

That hour the stranger youth made way,

I ne'er had left my maiden mates

Beside that brook, alone, to stray.

VIII.

Surely my thoughts, ere yet we met,

Even then were loyal to their lord;

The tides of all my being set

Towards thee with blind yet just accord.

When first I kenned, through showers aslant

The snowy Lebanonian line,

When first I heard the night-bird's chant,

Even then my beating heart was thine.

When minstrels sang the sacred strife,

And thus I wept, “The land made free

By warrior's sword is as a wife

Whose head is on her husband's knee,”

Then, too, I nursed this hope sublime:

My breast unconscious turned to thee:

Let no one say there lived a time

When thou wert nothing unto me!

IX.

How often, dimmed by grateful tears,

I see that convent near the snow

Wherein I lived those seven sweet years,

And seven times saw the lilies blow;

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There sent to couch on pavements cold,

Fearless to suffer and to dare,

And reverence learn from nuns dark-stoled

Who live in penance and in prayer.

There, too, of love they sang—there, too—

Ah! not this love of maid and youth!

To that first love oh! keep me true,

Thou Who art Love at once and Truth!

Have I not heard of hearts that nursed

This human love, yet wronged their troth?

That first, great love they outraged first:—

Falsehood to that was death to both!

X.

Now glorious grows my Warrior's name:

The very babes his praises spread:

But late released, this morn they came

Around me, clamouring, “Give us bread!”

His light was on them! Freed by him,

A land redeemed I saw them tread!

I gazed on them with eyes tear-dim:

I blessed them, and I gave them bread.

“What man is this?” our ancients sought:

“This chief we know not can we trust?”

Thou gav'st them back, unbribed, unbought,

Their towers far off, their state august.

Thou gav'st to warriors proved of yore

Victory, by carnage undisgraced;

To matrons hearts unpierced by war;

To maids their nuptials high and chaste.

To others, these:—but what to me?

I speak it not: I know it well:

The fawn whose head is on my knee

As well as I that gift might tell!

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