Sometimes he had to climb up into trees to look at it in the sunrise,
the woods were so filled with the voices of his pursuers.
But neither hunger, nor poverty, nor small ferocious enemies were able
to take from him the beautiful face. It never left his heart. All night
long and all the watching day it was pressed close to his side.
Meanwhile the princess was in despair. More and more the fancy possessed
her that with the lost mirror her beauty too was lost. In her
unhappiness, like all sad people, she took strange ways of escape. She
consulted the stars, and empirics from the four winds settled down upon
her castle. Each, of course, had his own invaluable nostrum; and all
went their way. For not one of these understood the heart of a poet.
However, at last there came to the aid of the princess a reverend old
man of ninety years, a famous seer, deeply and gently and pitifully
learned in the hearts of men. His was that wisdom which comes of great
goodness. He understood the princess, and he understood the minstrel;
for, having lived so long alone with the Infinite, he understood the
Finite.
To him the princess was as a little child, and his old wise heart went
out to her.
And, as I have said, his heart understood the minstrel too.
Therefore he said to the princess: "I know the hearts of poets. In seven
days I will bring you back your mirror."
And the old man went, and at length found the poet eating wild berries
in the middle of the wood.
"That is a beautiful mirror you have by your side," said the old man.
"This mirror," answered the poet, "holds in its deeps the most beautiful
face in the world."
"It is true," said the wise old man. "I have seen the beautiful face ...
but I too possess a mirror. Will you look into it?"
And the poet took the mirror from the old man and looked; and, as he
looked, the mirror of the princess fell neglected in the grass....
"Why," said the wise old man, "do you let fall the princess's mirror?"
But the poet made no answer--for his eyes were lost in the strange
mirror which the wise old man had brought him.
"What do you see in the mirror," said the old man, "that you gaze so
earnestly in it?"
"I see," answered the minstrel, "the infinite miracle of the universe, I
see the august and lonely elements, I see the solitary stars and the
untiring sea, I see the everlasting hills--and, as a crocus raises its
rainbow head from the black earth in springtime, I see the young moon
growing like a slender flower out of the mountains...."
"Yet, look again," said the old man, "into this other mirror, the mirror
of the princess. Look again."
And the poet looked--taking the two mirrors in his hands, and looking
from one to the other.
"At last," he said, gazing into the face he had fought so long to
keep--"at last I understand that this is but a fleeting phantom of
beauty, a fluttering flower of a face--just one beautiful flower in the
innumerable meadows of the Infinite--but here...."
And he turned to the other mirror--
"Here is the Eternal Beauty, the Divine Harmony, the Sacred Unfathomable
All.... Would a man be content with one rose, when all the roses of all
the rose-gardens of the world were his?..."
"You mean," said the wise old man, smiling to himself, "that I may take
the mirror back to the princess.... Are you really willing to exchange
her face for the face of the sky?"
"I am," answered the minstrel.
"I knew you were a poet," said the sage.
"And I know that you are very wise," answered the minstrel.
* * * * *
Yet, after all, the princess was not so happy to have her mirror back
again as she had expected to be; for had not a wandering poet found
something more beautiful than her face!
THE PINE LADY
O have you seen the Pine Lady,
Or heard her how she sings?
Have you heard her play
Your soul away
On a harp with moonbeam strings?
In a palace all of the night-black pine
She hides like a queen all day,
Till a moonbeam knocks
On her secret tree,
And she opens her door
With a silver key,
While the village clocks
Are striking bed
Nine times sleepily.
O come and hear the Pine Lady
Up in the haunted wood!
The stars are rising, the moths are flitting,
The owls are calling,
The dew is falling;
And, high in the boughs
Of her haunted house,
The moon and she are sitting.
Out on the moor the night-jar drones
Rough-throated love,
The beetle comes
With his sudden drums,
And many a silent unseen thing
Frightens your cheek with its ghostly wing;
While there above,
In a palace builded of needles and cones,
The pine is telling the moon her love,
Telling her love on the moonbeam strings--
O have you seen the Pine Lady,
Or heard her how she sings?
[Illustration]
THE KING ON HIS WAY TO BE CROWNED
In a green outlying corner of the kingdom of Bohemia,
one summer afternoon, the Grand Duke Stanislaus was busy in his garden,
swarming a hive of bees. He was a tall, middle-aged man of a scholarly,
almost priest-like, type, a gentle-mannered recluse, living only in his
books and his garden, and much loved by the country-folk for the simple
kindness of his heart. He had the most winning of smiles, and a playful
wisdom radiated from his wise, rather weary eyes. No man had ever heard
him utter a harsh word; and, indeed, life passed so tranquilly in that
green corner of Bohemia that even less peaceful natures found it hard to
be angry. There was so little to be angry about.
Therefore, it was all the stranger to see the good duke suddenly lose
his temper this summer afternoon.
"Preposterous!" he exclaimed; "was there ever anything quite so
preposterous! To think of interrupting me, at such a moment, with such
news!"
He spoke from inside a veil of gauze twisted about his head, after the
manner of beekeepers; and was, indeed, just at that moment, engaged in
the delicate operation of transferring a new swarm to another hive.
The necessity of keeping his mind on his task somewhat restored his
calm.
"Give the messenger refreshment," he said, "and send for Father
Scholasticus."
Father Scholasticus was the priest of the village, and the duke's very
dear friend.
The reason for this explosion was the news, brought by swiftest courier,
that Duke Stanislaus' brother was dead, and that he himself was thus
become King of Bohemia.
By the time Father Scholasticus arrived, the bees were housed in their
new home, and the duke was seated in his library, among the books that
he loved no less than his bees, with various important-looking
parchments spread out before him: despatches of state brought to him by
the courier, which he had been scanning with great impatience.
"I warn you, my friend," he said, looking up as the good father
entered, "that you will find me in a very bad temper. Ferdinand is
dead--can you imagine anything more unreasonable of him? He was always
the most inconsiderate of mortals; and now, without the least warning,
he shuffles his responsibilities upon my shoulders."
The priest knew his friend and the way of his thought, and he could not
help smiling at his quaint petulance.
"Which means that you are King of Bohemia ... sire!" said he, with a
half-whimsical reverence. Where on earth--he was wondering--was there
another man who would be so put out at being made a king?
"Exactly," answered the duke. "Do you wonder that I am out of temper?
You must give me your advice. There must be some way out of it.
What--what am I to do?"
"I am afraid there is nothing for you to do but--reign ... your
Majesty," answered the priest. "I agree with you that it is a great
hardship."
"Do you really understand how great a hardship it is?" retorted the king
to his friend. "Will you share it with me?"
"Share it with you?" asked the priest.
"Yes! as it appears that I must consent to be Head of the World
Temporal--will you consent to be the Head of the World Spiritual? In
short, will you consent to be Archbishop of Bohemia?"
"Leave the little church that I love, and the kind, simple hearts in my
care, given into my keeping by the goodness of God...." asked the
priest.
"To be the spiritual shepherd," answered the king, not without irony,
"of the sad flocks of souls that wander, without pastor, the strange
streets of lost cities...."
The king paused, and added, with his sad, understanding smile, "and to
sit on a gold throne, in a great cathedral, filled with incense and
colored windows."
And the priest smiled back; for the king and the priest were old friends
and understood and loved each other.
At that moment there came a sound of trumpets through the quiet boughs,
and the priest, rising and looking through the window, saw a procession
of gilded carriages, from the first of which stepped out a dignified man
with white hair and many years, and robed in purple and ermine.
"It is your Prime Minister, and your court," answered the priest to the
mute question of the king. And again they smiled together; but the
smile on the face of the king was weary beyond all human words: because
of all the perils that beset a man, the one peril he had feared was the
peril of being made a king, of all the sorrows that sorrow, of all the
foolishness that foolishness; for vanity had long since passed away from
his heart, and the bees and the blossoms of his garden seemed just as
worthy of his care as that swarming hive of ambitious human wasps and
earwigs over which he was thus summoned by sound of trumpet, that happy
summer afternoon--to be the king. Think of being the king of so foul a
kingdom--when one might be the king--of a garden.
But in spite of his reluctance, the good duke at length admitted the
truth urged upon him by the good priest--that there are sacred duties
inherited by those born in high places and to noble destinies from which
there is no honorable escape, and, on the priest agreeing to be the
Archbishop of Bohemia, he resigned himself to being its king. Thereupon
he received all the various dignitaries and functionaries that could so
little have understood his heart--having in the interval recovered his
lost temper--with all the graciousness for which he was famous, and
appointed a day--as far off as possible--when he would set out, with all
his train, for his coronation in the capital, a journey of many
leagues.
However, when the day came, and, in fact, at the very moment of the
starting out of the long and glittering cortège, all the gilded
carriages were suddenly brought to a halt by news coming to the duke of
the sickness and imminent death of a much loved dependent of his, an old
shepherd with whom as a boy he was wont to wander the hills, and listen
eagerly to the lore of times and seasons, of rising and setting stars,
and of the ways of the winds, which are hidden in the hearts of tanned
and withered old men, who have spent their lives out-of-doors under sun
and rain.
But, to the great impatience of the court ladies and the great bewigged
and powdered gentlemen, the old shepherd lived on for several days,
during which time the duke was constantly at his side. At last, however,
the old shepherd went to his rest, and the procession, which he, humble
soul, would not have believed that he could have delayed, started on its
magnificent way again, with flutter of pennant and feather and song of
trumpet and ladies' laughter.
But it had traveled only a few leagues when it was again brought to a
standstill by the duke--who was thus progressing to his
coronation--catching sight from his carriage window, as it flitted
past, of an extremely lovely and uncommon butterfly. The duke had, all
his days, been a passionate entomologist, and this particular butterfly
was the one that so far he had been unable to add to his collection.
Therefore he commanded the trumpets to call a halt, and had his
butterfly-net brought to him; and he and several of his gentlemen went
in pursuit of the flitting painted thing; but not that day, nor the
next, was it captured in the royal net, not, in fact, till a whole week
had gone by; and meanwhile the carriages stood idly in the stables, and
the postilions kicked their heels, and the great ladies and gentlemen
fumed at their enforced exile amid country ways and country freshness,
pining to be back once more in that artificial world where alone they
could breathe.
"To think of a man chasing a butterfly--with a king's crown awaiting
him--and even perhaps a kingdom at stake!" said many a tongue--for
rumors came on the wind that a half-brother of the dead king was
meditating usurpation of the throne, and was already gathering a large
following about him. Urgent despatches were said to have come from the
imperial city begging that his Majesty, for the good of his loyal
subjects, continue his journey with all possible expedition. His
kingdom was at stake!
The good duke smiled on the messenger and said, "Yes! but look at my
butterfly--" and no one but his friend the priest, of course, had
understood. Murmurs began to arise, indeed, among the courtiers, and
hints of plots even, as the duke pursued his leisurely journey, turning
aside for each wayward fancy.
One day it would be a turtle crossing the road, with her little ones,
which would bring to a respectful halt all those beautiful gold coaches
and caracoling horses. Tenderly would the good duke step from his
carriage and watch her with his gentle smile--not, doubtless, without
sly laughter in his heart, and an understanding glance from the priest,
that so humble and helpless a creature should for once have it in its
power thus to delay so much worldly pomp and vanity.
On another occasion, when they had journeyed for a whole day without any
such fanciful interruptions, and the courtiers began to think that they
would reach the imperial city at last, the duke decided to turn aside
several long leagues out of their course, to visit the grave of a great
poet whose songs were one of the chief glories of his land.
"I may have no other opportunity to do him honor," said the duke.
And when his advisers ventured to protest, and even to murmur, urging
the increasing jeopardy of his crown, he gently admonished them:
"Poets are greater than kings," he said, "and what is my poor crown
compared with that crown of laurel which he wears forever among the
immortals?"
There was no one found to agree with this except the good priest, and
one other, a poor poet who had somehow been included in the train, but
whom few regarded. The priest kept his thoughts to himself, but the poet
created some amusement by openly agreeing with the duke.
But, of course, the royal will had to be accepted with such grace as the
courtiers could find to hide their discontented--and even, in the case
of some, their disaffected--hearts; for some of them, at this new whimsy
of the duke's, secretly sent messengers to the would-be usurper
promising him their allegiance and support.
So, at length, after a day's journey, the peaceful valley was reached
where the poet lay at rest among the simple peasants whom he had
loved--kindly folk who still carried his songs in their hearts, and sang
them at evening to their babies and sweethearts, and each day brought
flowers to his green, bird-haunted grave.
When the duke came and bowed his head in that quiet place, carrying in
his hands a wreath of laurel, his heart was much moved by their simple
flowers lying there, fresh and glittering, as with new-shed tears; and,
as he reverently knelt and placed the wreath upon the sleeping mound, he
said aloud, in the humility of his great heart:
"What is such an offering as mine, compared with these?"
And a picture came to him of the peaceful valley he had left behind, and
of the simple folk he loved who were his friends, and more and more his
heart missed them, and less and less it rejoiced at the journey still
before him, and still more foolish seemed his crown.
So, with a great sigh, he rose from the poet's grave, and gave word for
the carriages once more to move along the leafy lanes.
And, to the great satisfaction of the courtiers, the duke delayed them
no more, for his heart grew heavier within him, and he sat with his head
on his breast, speaking little even to his dear friend the priest, who
rode with him, and scarcely looking out of the windows of his carriage,
for any wonder of the way.
At length the broad walls and towers of the city came in sight,--a city
set in a fair land of meadow and stream. The morning sun shone bright
over it, and the priest, looking up, perceived how it glittered upon a
great building of many white towers, whose gilt pinnacles gleamed like
so many crowns of gold.
"Look, your Majesty," he said, with a sad attempt at gaiety, "yonder is
your palace."
And the duke looked up from a deep reverie, and saw his palace, and
groaned aloud.
But presently there came a sad twinkle in his sad eyes, as he descried
another building of many peaks and pinnacles glittering in the sun.
"Look up, my Lord Archbishop," he said, turning to his friend, "yonder
is _your_ palace."
And as the good priest looked, his face was all sorrow, and the tears
overflowed his eyes, as he thought of the simple souls once in his
keeping, in his parish far away.
But presently the king, looking again toward the palace, descried a flag
floating from one of the towers, covered with heraldic devices.
As he looked, it seemed that ten years of weariness fell from his face,
and a great joy returned.
"Look," he said, almost in a whisper, to the priest, "those are not my
arms!..."
The priest looked, and then looked again into the duke's eyes, and ten
years of weariness fell from his face also, and a great joy returned.
"Thank God! we are saved," the duke and the priest exclaimed together,
and fell laughing upon each other's shoulders. For the arms floating
from the tower of the palace were the arms of the usurper, and the king
that cared not to be a king had lost his kingdom.
And, while they were still rejoicing together, there came the sound of
many horsemen from the direction of the city, a cavalcade of many
glittering spears. The duke halted his train to await their coming, and
when they had arrived where the duke was, a herald in cloth of gold
broke from their ranks and read aloud from a great parchment many
sounding words--the meaning of which was that the good Duke Stanislaus
had been deposed from his kingdom, and that the High and Mighty Prince,
the usurper, reigned in his stead.
When the herald had concluded the duke's voice was heard in reply:
"It is well--it is very well!" he said. "Gather yonder white flower and
take it back to your master, and say that it is the white flower of
peace betwixt him and me."
And astonishment fell on all, and no one, of course, except the priest,
understood. All thought that the good duke had lost his wits, which,
indeed, had been the growing belief of his courtiers for some time.
But the herald gathered the white flower and carried it back to the
city, with sound of many trumpets. Need one say that the usurper least
of all understood?
With the herald went all the gilded coaches and the fine ladies and
gentlemen, complaining sadly that they had had such a long and tedious
journey to no purpose, and hastening with all speed to take their
allegiance to the new king.
The duke's own people alone remained with him, and, when all the rest
had gone, the duke gave orders for the horses' heads to be turned
homeward, to the green valley in which alone he cared to be a king.
"Back to the bees and the books and the kind country hearts," cried the
duke to his friend.
"Back to the little church among the quiet trees," added the priest, who
had cared as little for an archbishop's miter as the duke for a kingly
crown.
Since then the duke had been left to hive his bees in peace, and it may
be added that he has never been known to lose his temper again.
THE STOLEN DREAM
The sun was setting, and slanting long lanes of golden light through the
trees, as an old man, borne done by a heavy pack, came wearily through
the wood, and at last, as if worn out with the day's travel,
unshouldered his burden and threw himself down to rest at the foot of a
great oak-tree. He was very old, older far he seemed than the tree under
whose gnarled boughs he was resting, though that looked as if it had
been growing since the beginning of the world. His back was bent as with
the weight of years, though really it had become so from the weight of
the pack that he carried; his cheeks were furrowed like the bark of a
tree, and far down upon his breast fell a beard as white as snow. But
his deep-set eyes were still bright and keen, though sly and cruel, and
his long nose was like the beak of a hawk. His hands were like roots
strong and knotted, and his fingers ended in talon-like nails. In
repose, even, they seemed to be clutching something, something they
loved to touch, and would never let go. His clothes were in rags and his
shoes scarce held to his feet. He seemed as abjectly poor as he was
abjectly old.
Presently, when he had rested awhile, he turned to his pack, and,
furtively glancing with his keen eyes up and down the wood, to make sure
that he was alone, he drew from it a sack of leather which was evidently
of great weight. Its mouth was fastened by sliding thongs, which he
loosened with tremulous, eager hands. First he took from the bag a
square of some purple silk stuff, which he spread out on the turf beside
him, and then, his eyes gleaming with a wild light, he carefully poured
out the contents of the bag on to the purple square, a torrent of gold
and silver coins and precious stones flashing like rainbows--a king's
treasure. The setting sun flashed on the glittering heap, turning it
into a dazzle of many-colored fire. The treasure seemed to light up the
wood far and near, and the gaudy summer flowers, that a moment before
had seemed so bright and splendid, fell into shadow before its radiance.
The old man bathed his claw-like hands in the treasure with a ghoulish
ecstasy, and let the gold and silver pour through his fingers over and
over again, streams of jeweled light gleaming and flashing in the level
rays of the sun. As he did so, he murmured inarticulately to himself,
gloating and gurgling with a lonely, hideous joy.
Suddenly a look of fear came over his face; he seemed to hear voices
coming up the wood, and, huddling his treasure swiftly back again into
the leathern bag, and the bag into the folds of his pack, he rose and
sought some bushes near by to hide himself from the sight of whomsoever
it was that approached. But, as he shouldered his pack, he half
staggered, for the pack was of great weight and he heaved a deep sigh.
"It grows heavier and heavier," he muttered. "I cannot carry it much
longer. I shall never be able to carry it with me to the grave."
As he disappeared among the bushes, a young man and a young woman, with
arms twined round each other, came slowly up the glade and presently sat
down at the foot of the tree where the old man had been resting a moment
or two before.
"Why, what is this?" presently exclaimed the young girl, picking up
something bright out of the grass. It was a gold coin, which, in his
haste, the old man had let slip through his fingers.
"Gold!" they both exclaimed together.
"It will buy you a new silk gown," said the lover. "Who ever heard of
such luck?" And then he sighed.
"Ah! dear heart," he said, "if only we had more like that! Then we could
fulfil our dream."
As the sun poured its last rays over them there at the foot of the oak,
it was to be seen that they were very poor. Their clothes were old and
weather-stained, and they had no shoes to their feet; but the white feet
of the girl shone like ivory flowers in the grass, and her hair was a
sheaf of ruddy gold. Nor was there a jewel in all the old man's treasure
as blue as her eyes. And the young man, in his manly fashion, was no
less brave and fair to look upon.
In a little while they turned to a poor wallet at the young man's side.
"Let us eat our supper," they said.
But there was little more than a crust or two, a few morsels of cheese,
and a mouthful or two of sour wine. Still, they were accustomed to being
hungry, and the thought of the gold coin cheered their hearts. So they
grew content, and after a while they nestled close into each other's
arms and fell asleep, while slowly and softly through the woods came the
light of the moon.