A Drama for Two

“If men are dust, I do not understand What women are. What language does she speak, Who plays with me as children with the sand, Who shapes me with a gesture of her hand, And floods me in the crimson of her cheek? Our fingers in our passion did entwine, Like ivy growing in the lap of Spring: A moment, and she was a deathless thing— A woman? Nay, the spirit of the vine!” “Ah, but I did not love to make him glad; But, if I could, to make him more than wise. I found, in the strange silence of his eyes, The same unuttered fear that Dante had, Lest Beatrice should die and he go mad! And so I let him dream a paradise Upon my lips; and with love’s quick disguise Appeared in white robes and in roses clad.” “I think that love is like a leaning sail Swept toward a far horizon, swift in flight. The seas are blue. But soon the wind must fail, And all of Heaven’s will cannot avail To keep the ship from drifting toward the night. I am not sure of this: but yesterday There was no eager passion in her lips; And so I said, ‘My dear, we are but ships Passing away in time—leaning away’.” “How quickly do our blushes leave the cheek: How like a withered ghost goes modesty! I loved him not. The devil played with me, And still plays on—instructing me to speak In soft words—sounding truer in a shriek. Would I had vanished into destiny! Ah, God! When they pretend that love is free, The women buy the freedom that they seek.” “Of Beauty in immortal guise beware!— For even women’s bodies are of dust. I do not hate her, but I cannot bear The subtle isolation of her stare, As though she’d changed ‘I love’ into ‘I must’. But in me there’s no sorrow or regret, I am not by a jealousy distraught; Love’s neither here nor there—for I have sought, And found, and lost—and now I can forget.” “Ah, when I told him everything, he said: ‘I love you still, but not as yesterday. Life is a laughing art. Our passions play So madly that it is in vain to wed. I’m glad you feel the way I do,’ he said. And had he washed my body quite away In tears, I would not have had less to say. I merely smiled, pretending I was dead.” “Then where is Beauty, now that she had fled, And where is Paradise without her arms? Surely I did not know how much I said, When I complained that the old love was dead: ’Tis thinking of to-morrow that disarms! How her remembered hair makes sadness live, And how her absent voice is young with power! Yea, for the recollection of one hour Turns the soul nightward, like a fugitive.” “I find that being in the house alone Is gruesome, for the worn and creaky floors, The wind outside, the rain, the empty doors, Sing with a wild and ghostly undertone— Not quite articulate—but yet a moan. Often I long for the white surf that roars, Or for the rapture of the gull that soars, Or for the splendor of a silent throne.” RUSSELL W. DAVENPORT.