And come thou forth, my sweet!
'Tis morn, the watch of love is o'er,
And mating hearts should meet.
The stars have fled and left their grace
In every blossom's lifted face,
And gentle shadows fleck the light
With tender memories of the night.
Sweet, there's a door to every shrine;
Wilt thou, as morning, open thine?
Hark! now the lark has met the clouds,
And rains his sheer melodious flood;
The green earth casts her mystic shrouds
To meet the flaming god!
Alas, for me there is no dawn
If Glaia come not with the sun.
[_Enter Glaia. The king kneels as she approaches._]
_Gla._ 'Tis you!
_Hen._ [Leaping up] Pardoned! Queen of this bowerland,
Your glad eyes tell me that I have not sinned.
_Gla._ How cam'st thou here? Now who plays Hubert false?
Nay, I'm too glad thou'rt come to question so.
'Tis easy to forgive the treachery
That opes our gates to angels.
_Hen._ O, I'm loved?
_Gla._ Yes, Henry. All the morn I've thought of you,
And I rose early, for I love to say
Good-by to my dear stars; they seem so wan
And loath to go away, as though they know
The fickle world is thinking of the sun
And all their gentle service of the night
Is quite forgot.
_Hen._ And what didst think of me?
_Gla._ That you could come and see this beauteous wood,
Fair with Spring's love and morning's kiss of grace,
You'd be content to live awhile with me,
Leave war's red step to follow living May
Passing to pour her veins' immortal flood
To each decaying root; and rest by springs
Where waters run to sounds less rude than song,
And hiding sibyls stir sweet prophecies.
_Hen._ The only springs I seek are in your eyes
That nourish all the desert of myself.
Drop here, O, Glaia, thy transforming dews,
And start fair summer in this waste of me!
_Gla._ Poor Henry! What dost know of me to love?
_Hen._ See yon light cloud half-kirtled with faint rose?
What do I know of it but that 'tis fair?
And yet I dream 'twas born of flower dews
And goes to some sweet country of the sky,
So cloud-like dost thou move before my love,
From beauty coming that I may not see,
To beauty going that I can but dream.
O, love me, Glaia! Give to me this hand,
This miracle of warm, unmelting snow,
This lily bit of thee that in my clasp
Lies like a dove in all too rude a cote--
Wee heaven-cloud to drop on monarch brows
And smooth the ridgy traces of a crown!
Rich me with this, and I'll not fear to dare
The darkest shadow of defeat that broods
O'er sceptres and unfriended kings.
_Gla._ Why talk
Of crowns and kings? This is our home, dear Henry,
For if you love me you will stay with me.
_Hen._ Ah, blest to be here, and from morning's top
Review the sunny graces of the world,
Plucking the smilingest to dearer love,
Until the heart becomes the root and spring
Of hopes as natural and as simply sweet
As these bright children of the wedded sun
And dewy earth!
_Gla._ I knew you'd stay, my brother!
You'll live with me!
_Hen._ But there's a world not this,
O'er-roofed and fretted by ambition's arch,
Whose sun is power and whose rains are blood,
Whose iris bow is the small golden hoop
That rims the forehead of a king,--a world
Where trampling armies and sedition's march
Cut off the flowers of descanting love
Ere they may sing their perfect word to man,
And the rank weeds of envies, jealousies,
Push up each night from day's hot-beaten paths--
_Gla._ O, do not tell me, do not think of it!
_Hen._ I must. There is my world, and there my life
Must grow to gracious end, if so it can.
If thou wouldst come, my living periapt,
With virtue's gentle legend overwrit,
I should not fail, nor would this flower cheek,
Pure lily cloister of a praying rose,
E'er know the stain of one despoiling tear
Shed for me graceless. Will you come, my Glaia?
_Gla._ Into that world? No, thou shalt stay with me.
Here you shall be a king, not serve one. Ah,
The whispering winds do never counsel false,
And senatorial trees droop not their state
To tribe and treachery. Nature's self shall be
Your minister, the seasons your envoys
And high ambassadors, bearing from His court
The mortal olive of immortal love.
_Hen._ To man my life belongs. Hope not, dear Glaia,
To bind me here; and if you love me true,
You will not ask me where I go or stay,
But that your feet may stay or go with mine.
Let not a nay unsweet those tender lips
That all their life have ripened for this kiss.
[_Kisses her_]
O ruby purities! I would not give
Their chaste extravagance for fruits Iran
Stored with the honey of a thousand suns
Through the slow measure of as many years!
_Gla._ Do brothers talk like that?
_Hen._ I think not, sweet
_Gla._ But you will be my brother?
_Hen._ We shall see.
_Gla._ And you will stay with me? No? Ah, I fear
All that you love in me is born of these
Wild innocences that I live among,
And far from here, all such sweet value lost,
I'll be as others are in your mad world,
Or wither mortally, even as the sprig
A moment gone so pertly trimmed this bough.
Let us stay here, my Henry. We shall be
Dear playmates ever, never growing old,--
Or if we do 'twill be at such a pace
Time will grow weary chiding, leaving us
To come at will.
_Hen._ No, Glaia. Even now
I must be gone. I came for this----to say
I'd come again, and bid you watch for me.
A tear? O, love! One moment, then away!
[_Exeunt. Curtain_]
FOOTNOTE:
[65] Copyright, 1906, by Charles Scribner's Sons.
HARRY L. MARRINER
Harry Lee Marriner, newspaper poet, was born at Louisville, Kentucky,
March 24, 1871, the son of a schoolman. He was educated by his father
and in the public schools of his native city. He engaged in a dozen
different businesses before he suddenly discovered that he could
write, which discovery caused him to accept a position on the now
defunct _Chicago Dispatch_, from which he went to _The Evening Post_,
of Louisville, remaining with that paper for several years. In 1902
Mr. Marriner went to Texas and became assistant city editor of the
_Dallas News_; and he has since filled practically all the editorial
positions, being at the present time Sunday editor of both the _Dallas
News_ and the _Galveston News_, which are under the same management.
In 1907 Mr. Marriner originated a feature consisting of a daily human
interest poem, printed on the front page of his two papers. For some
time he concealed his identity under the title of "The News Staff
Poet," but in 1909 he discarded his cloak and came out into the
sunlight of reality in order that his hundreds of admirers throughout
the Southwest might be content. Mr. Marriner's "poetry" is rather
homely verse based upon the everyday things and thoughts and
experiences of everyday people. This verse has had a wonderful vogue
in Texas and Oklahoma, and the surrounding States. Dealing with dogs
and "kids," with sore toes and sentiment, with joys and griefs, dolls
and ball gowns, country stores and city life, street cars and prairie
schooners, mint-fringed creeks and bucking bronchos, it is a medley of
everything human. The cream of his verse has been brought together in
three charming little books: _When You and I Were Kids_ (New York,
1909); _Joyous Days_ (Dallas, 1910); and _Mirthful Knights in Modern
Days_ (Dallas, 1911). Mr. Marriner has written the lyrics for two
musical comedies; and he has had short-stories in the periodicals.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Letters from Mr. Marriner to the Author; _The Dallas
News_ (December 2, 1911).
WHEN MOTHER CUTS HIS HAIR[66]
[From _When You and I Were Kids_ (New York, 1909)]
How doth the mind of man go back to when he was a boy;
When feet were full of tan and dust, and life was full of joy;
But many a man looks back in fear, for in a time-worn chair,
He sees himself draped in a sheet, while Mother cuts his hair.
The scissors drag, and sniffles rise when ears lop in the way,
And on the porch rain locks of hair like tufts of prairie hay,
'Til in the glass a little boy, his anguish scarcely hid,
Looks on himself and views with pain the job that Mother did.
The mule may shed in summertime the felt that Nature grew,
The rabbit may lose bits of fur, and look like blazes, too;
But neither bears that patchwork look, that war map of despair,
That zigzags on the small boy's head when Mother cuts his hair.
SIR GUMSHOO[67]
[From _Mirthful Knights in Modern Days_ (Dallas, 1911)]
Sir Gumshoo, known as Wot d'Ell, a noble Knight from Spain,
Was one who was so strong a Pro he'd water on the brain.
He would not drink a dram at all, or even sniff at it,
And just the sight of lager beer would throw him in a fit.
It chanced one day Sir Gumshoo rode upon a noble quest--
His lady had acquired a cold that settled on her chest,
And to the rural districts he repaired, for it was plain
He must secure some goosegrease that she might get well again.
He found a rude, bucolic rube who had goosegrease to sell;
Sir Gumshoo bought about a quart, and all was going well
When he who rendered geese to grease made him a stealthy sign
And led him to a bottle filled with elderberry wine.
The Knight declined; he was a Pro, which fact he did explain;
The farmer, sore disgusted, took his goosegrease back again,
Whereat the Knight in anguish sore gave up himself for lost
And took a fierce and fiery drink with all his fingers crossed.
That night he rode as rides a pig upon a circus steed;
He clutched his charger 'round the neck, for he was stewed indeed,
And, bowing to his lady fair, as bows the wind-tossed pine,
He handed her part of a quart of elderberry wine.
FOOTNOTES:
[66] Copyright, 1909, by the Author.
[67] Copyright, 1911, by the Author.
LUCIEN V. RULE
Lucien V. Rule, poet, was born at Goshen, Kentucky, August 29, 1871.
He spent one year at State College, Lexington, when he went to Centre
College, Danville, from which he was graduated in 1893. Mr. Rule
studied for the ministry, but he later engaged in newspaper work, in
which he spent six or seven years. During the last few years he has
devoted his time to writing and speaking upon social and religious
subjects. His first book of poems, entitled _The Shrine of Love and
Other Poems_ (Chicago, 1898), is his best known work. He is also the
author of a small pamphlet of social and political satires, entitled
_When John Bull Comes A-Courtin'_ (Louisville, 1903). This contains
the title-poem, the sub-title of which reads: "Sundry Meditations on
the Rumored Matrimonial Alliance between J. Bull, Bart., and his
cousin, Lady Columbia;" and several shorter poems. Those inscribed to
Tolstoi, Whittier, and Walt Whitman are very strong. Mr. Rule's latest
book is _The House of Love_ (Indianapolis, 1910). In 1913 he will
probably publish a group of poetic dramas-in-cameo for young people,
and a brief collection of biographical studies. Mr. Rule resides at
his birthplace, Goshen, Kentucky.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Southern Writers_, by W. P. Trent (New York, 1905);
letters from Mr. Rule to the Author.
WHAT RIGHT HAST THOU?[68]
[From _When John Bull Comes A Courtin'_ (Louisville, Kentucky, 1903)]
What right hast thou to more than thou dost need
While others perish for the want of bread?
What right hast thou upon a palace bed
To idly slumber while the homeless plead;
A vicious and voluptuous life to lead,
While millions struggle on in rags and shame?
What right hast thou thus vilely to inflame
Thy fellow men with hate, O fiend of greed?
What right hast thou to take the hallowed name
Of God upon thy lips, or Christ's, who came
To save the race from sorrows thou dost cause?
Not always helpless 'neath thy cruel paws,
O Beast of Capital, shall Labor lie;
Thy doom this day is thundered from the sky!
THE NEW KNIGHTHOOD
[From the same]
Arise, my soul, put off thy dark despair;
Say not the age of chivalry is gone;
For lo, the east is kindling with its dawn,
And bugle echoes bid thee wake to wear
Majestic moral armour, and to bear
A worthy part in truth's eternal fray.
Say not the muse inspires no more to-day,
Nor that fame's flowers no longer flourish fair.
Live thou sublimely and then speak thy heart,
If thou wouldst build an altar unto art.
Stand with the struggling and the stars above
Will shower celestial thoughts to thrill thy pen.
Put self away and walk alone with Love,
And thou shalt be the marvel of all men!
FOOTNOTE:
[68] Copyright, 1903, by the Author.
EVA WILDER BRODHEAD
Mrs. Eva Wilder (McGlasson) Brodhead, novelist and short-story writer,
was born at Covington, Kentucky, in 187-. Her parents were not of
Southern origin, her father having been born in Nova Scotia, and her
mother at Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She was educated in New York City
and in her native town of Covington. She began to write when but
eighteen years of age, and a short time thereafter her first novel
appeared, _Diana's Livery_ (New York, 1891). This was set against a
background most alluring: the Shaker settlement at Pleasant Hill,
Kentucky, into which a young man of the world enters and falls in love
with a pretty Shakeress. Her second story, _An Earthly Paragon_ (New
York, 1892), which was written in three weeks, ran through _Harper's
Weekly_ before being published in book form. It was a romance of the
Kentucky mountains, laid around Chamouni, the novelist's name for
Yosemite, Kentucky. It was followed by a novelette of love set amidst
the salt-sea atmosphere of an eastern watering place, _Ministers of
Grace_ (New York, 1894). Hildreth, the scene of this little story, is
anywhere along the Jersey coast from Atlantic City to Long Branch.
_Ministers of Grace_ also appeared serially in _Harper's Weekly_, and
when it was issued in book form Col. Henry Watterson called the
attention of Richard Mansfield to it as a proper vehicle for him, and
the actor promptly secured the dramatic rights, hoping to present it
upon the stage; but his untimely death prevented the dramatization of
the tale under highly favorable auspices. It was the last to be
published under the name of Eva Wilder McGlasson, as this writer was
first known to the public, for on December 5, 1894, she was married in
New York to Mr. Henry C. Brodhead, a civil and mining engineer of
Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania. Mrs. Brodhead's next novelette, _One of
the Visconti_ (New York, 1896), the background of which was Naples,
the hero being a young Kentuckian and the heroine of the old and
famous Visconti family, was issued by the Scribner's in their
well-known Ivory Series of short-stories. Her last Kentucky novel,
_Bound in Shallows_ (New York, 1896), originally appeared in _Harper's
Bazar_. That severe arbiter of literary destinies, _The Nation_, said
of this book: "No such work as this has been done by any American
woman since Constance Fenimore Woolson died." It was founded on
material gathered at Burnside, Kentucky, where Mrs. Brodhead spent two
summers. Her most recent work, _A Prairie Infanta_ (Philadelphia,
1904), is a Colorado juvenile, first published in _The Youth's
Companion_. Aside from her books, Mrs. Brodhead won a wide reputation
as a short-story writer and maker of dialect verse. More than fifty of
her stories have been printed in the publications of the house of
Harper, the publishers of four of her books; in _The Century_,
_Scribner's_, and other leading periodicals. Many of her admirers hold
that the short-story is her especial forte. Five of them may be
mentioned as especially well done: _Fan's Mammy_, _A Child of the
Covenant_, _The Monument to Corder_, _The Eternal Feminine_, and _Fair
Ines_. She has written much dialect verse which appeared in the Harper
periodicals, _The Century_, _Judge_, _Puck_, and other magazines.
Neither her short-stories nor her verse has been collected and issued
in book form. Since her marriage Mrs. Brodhead has traveled in Europe
a great deal, and in many parts of the United States, traveled until
she sometimes wonders whether her home is in Denver or New York, and,
although she is in the metropolis more than she is in the Colorado
capital, her legal residence is Denver, some distance from the mining
town of Brodhead, named in honor of her husband's geological
discoveries and interests. In 1906 she was stricken with a very
severe illness, followed by her physician's absolute mandate of no
literary work until her health should be reestablished, which has been
accomplished but recently. She has published but a single story since
her sickness, _Two Points of Honor_, which appeared in _Harper's
Weekly_ for July 4, 1908. At the present time Mrs. Brodhead is quite
well enough to resume work; and the next few years should witness her
fulfilling the earnest of her earlier novels and stories, firmly
fixing her fame as one of the foremost women writers of prose fiction
yet born on Kentucky soil.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Harper's Weekly_ (September 3, 1892); _The
Book-buyer_ (September, 1896).
THE RIVALS[69]
[From _Ministers of Grace_ (New York, 1894)]
As the days merged towards the end of August, Hildreth was packed to
the very gates. The wiry yellow grasses along the neat walks were
trampled into powder. The very sands, for all the effacing fingers of
the tides, seemed never free of footprints, and by day and night the
ocean promenade, the interior of the town, lake-sides, hotels, and the
surf itself, were a press of holiday folk.
In these times Mr. Ruley seldom went forth in his rolling-chair,
except early of a morning, when the beach was yet way-free, and the
sands unfrequented save for a few barelegged men, who, with long
wooden rakes, cleaned up the sea-verge for the day.
Sometimes Wade pushed the chair. But since the night when he gave
Elizabeth the honeysuckles he had in some measure avoided the old
preacher's small circle. There had been, on that occasion, a newness
of impulse in his spirit which made him feel the advisability of
keeping himself out of harm's way, however sweet that way might seem.
Graham was the favored suitor. He, Wade, having no chance for the
rose, could at least withhold his flesh from the thorn.
"So," said Gracie Gayle, "you're out of the running?"
"Ruled off," smiled Wade.
"Don't you make any mistakes," wisely admonished Miss Gayle. "I've
seen her look at him, and I've seen her look at _you_."
"This is most surprising," indicated Wade, with a feigned accent. "You
will pardon me, Gracie, if I scarcely credit your statement."
"Be sarcastic if you want to," said Gracie. "If you knew anything at
all, you'd know that straws show which way the wind blows. When a
woman regards a man with a kind of flat, frank sincerity, it's because
her heart's altogether out of his reach. When she looks _around_ him
rather than _at_ him, it's because----" Gracie lifted her shoulders
suggestively.
"Grace," breathed Wade, gravely, "I am hurt to the quick to see you
developing the germs of what painfully resembles thought. For Heaven's
and your sex's sake, pause while there is yet time! Women who form the
pernicious habit of thinking lose in time the magic key which unlocks
the hearts of men."
Grace sniffed.
"Men's hearts are never locked," she said, sagaciously. "The heavier
the padlock the smoother the hinges." She shook her crisp curls as she
tripped away with her airy, mincing, soubrette tread.
Notwithstanding the inconsequent nature of this talk, it set Wade to
thinking. Perhaps he had carried his principle of self-effacement too
far. At all events, when he next saw Miss Ruley, he went up to her and
stopped for a moment's conversation.
It chanced to be on the sands. Elizabeth was sitting by herself under
the arch of a lace-hung sunshade, which cast shaking little shadows on
her face, sprigging it with such delicate darkness as lurk in the
misty milk of moss-agate.
"You are going in, then?" she asked, smiling up rather uncertainly,
and noticing his flannel attire. "Mr. Graham is already very far out.
That is he, I think, taking that big breaker. What a stroke!"
Wade, focussing an indulgent eye, saw a figure away beyond the other
bathers, rising to the lift of a great billow. The man swam with a
splendid motion. Whether he dived, or floated, or circled his arms in
that whirling stroke of his, he seemed in subtle sympathy with the sea,
possessed of a kinship with it, and in an element altogether his own.
Wade expressed an appropriate sentiment of admiration.
Just then Gracie Gayle came gambolling along, a childish shape,
kirtled to the knee in bright blue, and turbaned in vivid scarlet.
Among the loose-waisted figures on the sands she was like a
humming-bird scintillating in a staid gathering of barnyard fowls.
Bailey was with her, having returned after a fortnight's absence.
The two paused beside Elizabeth, and Wade went on, confused by the
singular way in which that small fair face, shadow-streaked and
faintly smiling, lingered in his vision. He was still perplexed with a
half-pleasant, half-pained consciousness of it as he plunged into the
pushing surf and felt a dizzy world of water heave round him. The
surge was strong to-day, and the splashing and screaming of the shore
bathers sent him farther and still farther out. Gradually their cries
lessened in his ear, and there was with him presently only the hollow
thud of the waves and the rushing hiss of the crestling foam.
Once, as he rose to a sea-lift, it seemed to him that he heard a sound
that was not the boom of the breakers nor the song of the slipping
froth. It came again, whatever it was, and as he gave ear he took in a
human intonation, sharp and agonized. It was a cry for help.
Wade shook the brine from his hair, freeing his gaze for an outlook. In
the glassy mound of water to his right a face, lean and white with
alarm, gleamed and faded. That the sinking man was Graham came instantly
to Wade's mind--Graham, a victim to some one of the mischances which the
sea reserves for those who adventure too confidently with her.
Wade struck out instantly for the spot where Graham's appalled
features had briefly glimpsed. Shoreward he could note an increasing
agitation among the multitudes. Evidently the people had noticed the
peril of the remote swimmer whose exploits had so lately won admiring
comment. The beachguard no doubt was buckling to his belt the
life-rope coiled always on the sands for such emergencies. Cries of
men and women rang stifled over the water--exclamations of fear and
advice and excitement, mingled in a long continuous wail.
Graham's head rose in sight, a mere speck upon the dense green of the
bulging water. Wade, fetching nearer in wide strokes, suddenly felt
himself twisted violently out of his course, and whirled round in a
futile effort with some mysterious current. He was almost near enough
to lay hold of Graham when this new sensation explained lucidly the
cause of Graham's danger. They were both in the claws of an undertow,
which, as Wade realized its touch, appeared as if wrenching him
straight out to the purring distance of the farther sea.
Even in the first consternation of this discovery he felt himself
thrust hard against a leaden body, and in the same instant Graham's
hands snatched at him in a desperate reach for life.
"For God's sake don't hold me like this!" Wade expostulated. "Let go.
Trust me to do what I can. You're strangling me, man!"
But Graham was past sanity. He only clutched with the more frenzy at
the thing which seemed to keep him from the ravenous mouth of the
snarling waters.
Wade, in a kind of composed despair, sent a look towards the beach.
They were putting out a boat, a tiny sheel which frisked in the surf,
and seemed motionless in the double action of the waves. Men laid hard
at the oars. The little craft took the first big wave as a horse takes
a hurdle. It dropped from the glassy height, and Wade saw it sink into
a breach of the sea. Then flashing with crystal, it bore up again and
outward.
The figures running and gesticulating on the beach had a marvellous
distinctness to Wade's submerging eyes. He noticed the blue sky,
flawed with scratches of white, the zigzag roof-lines of the great
town, the twisting flags and meshes of the dark wire. Everything
oppressed him with a sort of deadly clearness, as if a metal stamp
should press in melting wax.
He was momently sinking, drawn ever outward by the undercurrent, and
downward by the weighty burden throttling him in its senseless grasp.
He looked once more through a blinding veil of foam, and saw the boat
dipping far to the left. A phantasm of life flickered before him.
Unsuspected trivialities shook out of their cells, and amazed him with
the pygmy thrift of memory. Then came a sense of confusion, as if the
spiritual and corporal lost each its boundary and ranged wild, and
Wade felt the sea in his eyes, stroking them down as gently as ever
any watcher by the dying.
FOOTNOTE:
[69] Copyright, 1894, by Harper and Brothers.
CORDIA GREER PETRIE