peering into the crack, as was his wont, his big, round, black eyes
would have grown saucer-wide to see little Miss Sophie kiss and fondle a
ring, an ugly clumsy band of gold.
"Ah, dear ring," she murmured, once you were his, and you shall be his
again. You shall be on his finger, and perhaps touch his heart. Dear
ring, _ma chere petite, de ma coeur, cheri, de ma coeur. Je t'aime, je
t'aime, oui, oui._ You are his, you were mine once too. To-night, just
one night, I'll keep you--then--tomorrow, where you can save him.
"Ah, the Virgin--she smiles at me because I did right, did I not sweet
mother? She smiles--and--I grow--faint--"
The loud whistles and horns of the little ones rose on the balmy air
next morning. No one would doubt it was Christmas Day, even if doors
and windows are open wide to let in cool air.
Why, there was Christmas even in the very look of the mules on the poky
cars; there was Christmas noise in the streets, and Christmas toys and
Christmas odors, savory ones that made the nose wrinkle approvingly,
issuing from the kitchen. Michel and Mme. Laurent smiled greetings
across the street at each other, and the salutation from a passer-by
recalled the many progenied landlady to herself.
"Miss Sophie, well, poor soul, not very much Christmas for her. _Mais_,
I'll just call her in to spend the day with me. It'll cheer her a bit."
So clean and orderly within the poor little room. Not a speck of dust or
a litter of any kind on the quaint little old-time high bureau, unless
you might except a sheet of paper lying loose with something written on
it. Titiche had evidently inherited his prying propensities for the
landlady turned it over and read:
"Louis. Here is the ring. I return it to you. I heard you needed it, I
hope it comes not too late. Sophie."
"The ring, where?" muttered the landlady. There it was, clasped between
her fingers on her bosom. A bosom, white and cold, under a cold, happy
face. Christmas had indeed dawned for Miss Sophie--the eternal
Christmas.
IF I HAD KNOWN.
If I had known
Two years ago how drear this life should be,
And crowd upon itself allstrangely sad,
Mayhap another song would burst from out my lips,
Overflowing with the happiness of future hopes;
Mayhap another throb than that of joy.
Have stirred my soul into its inmost depths,
If I had known.
If I had known,
Two years ago the impotence of love,
The vainness of a kiss, how barren a caress,
Mayhap my soul to higher things have soarn,
Nor clung to earthly loves and tender dreams,
But ever up aloft into the blue empyrean,
And there to master all the world of mind,
If I had known.
CHALMETLE.
Wreaths of lilies and immortelles,
Scattered upon each silent mound,
Voices in loving remembrance swell,
Chanting to heaven the solemn sound.
Glad skies above, and glad earth beneath;
And grateful hearts who silently
Gather earth's flowers, and tenderly wreath
Woman's sweet token of fragility.
Ah, the noble forms who fought so well
Lie, some unnamed, 'neath the grassy mound;
Heroes, brave heroes, the stories tell,
Silently too, the unmarked mounds,
Tenderly wreath them about with flowers,
Joyously pour out your praises loud;
For every joy beat in these hearts of ours
Is only a drawing us nearer to God.
Little enough is the song we sing,
Little enough is the tale we tell,
When we think of the voices who erst did ring
Ere their owners in smoke of battle fell.
Little enough are the flowers we cull
To scatter afar on the grass-grown graves,
When we think of bright eyes, now dimmed and dull
For the cause they loyally strove to save.
And they fought right well, did these brave men,
For their banner still floats unto the breeze,
And the pæans of ages forever shall tell
Their glorious tale beyond the seas.
Ring out your voices in praises loud,
Sing sweet your notes of music gay,
Tell me in all you loyal crowd
Throbs there a heart unmoved to-day?
Meeting together again this year,
As met we in fealty and love before;
Men, maids, and matrons to reverently hear
Praises of brave men who fought of yore.
Tell to the little ones with wondering eyes,
The tale of the flag that floats so free;
Till their tiny voices shall merrily rise
In hymns of rejoicing and praises to Thee.
Many a pure and noble heart
Lies under the sod, all covered with green;
Many a soul that had felt the smart
Of life's sad torture, or mayhap had seen
The faint hope of love pass afar from the sight,
Like swift flight of bird to a rarer clime
Many a youth whose death caused the blight
Of tender hearts in that long, sad time.
Nay, but this is no hour for sorrow;
They died at their duty, shall we repine?
Let us gaze hopefully on to the morrow
Praying that our lives thus shall shine.
Ring out your bugles, sound out your cheers!
Man has been God-like so may we be.
Give cheering thanks, there dry up those tears,
Widowed and orphaned, the country is free!
Wreathes of lillies and immortelles,
Scattered upon each silent mound,
Voices in loving remembrance swell,
Chanting to heaven the solemn sound,
Glad skies above, and glad earth beneath,
And grateful hearts who silently
Gather earth's flowers, and tenderly wreath
Woman's sweet token of fragility.
AT EVENTIDE.
All day had she watched and waited for his coming, and still her
strained ears caught no sounds of the footsteps she loved and longed to
hear. All day while the great sun panted on his way around the brazen
skies; all day while the busy world throbbed its mighty engines of
labor, nor witted of the breaking hearts in its midst. And now when the
eve had come, and the sun sank slowly to rest, casting his red rays over
the earth he loved, and bidding tired nature a gentle radiant
good-night, she still watched and waited. Waited while the young moon
shone silvery in the crimson flush of the eastern sky, while the one
bright star trembled as he strove to near his love; waited while the hum
of soul-wearing traffic died in the distant streets, and the merry
voices of happy children floated to her ears.
And still he came not. What kept him from her side? Had he learned the
cold lesson of self-control, or found one other thing more potent than
love? Had some cruel chain of circumstances forced him to disobey her
bidding--or--did he love another? But no, she smiles triumphantly, he
could not having known and loved her.
Sitting in the deep imbrasure of the window through which the distant
wave sounds of city life floated to her, the pages of her life seemed to
turn back, and she read the almost forgotten tale of long ago, the story
of their love. In those days his wish had been her law; his smile her
sun; his frown her wretchedness. Within his arms, earth seemed a
far-away dream of empty nothingness, and when his lips touched and clung
to hers, sweet with the perfume of the South they floated away into a
Paradise of enfolding space, where Time and Death and the woes of this
great earth are naught, only these two--and love, the almighty.
And so their happiness drifted slowly across the sea of Time until it
struck a cruel rock, whose sharp teeth showed not above the dimpled
waves; and where once had been a craft of strength and beauty, now was
only a hideous wreck. For the Tempter had come into this Eden, and soon
his foul whisper found place in her heart.
And the Tempter's name was Ambition.
Often had the praises and plaudits of men rang in her ears when her
sweet voice sang to her chosen friends, often had the tears evoked by
her songs of love and hope and trust, thrilled her breast faintly, as
the young bird stirs in its nest under the loving mother's wing, but he
had clasped his arms around her, and that was enough. But one day the
Tempter whispered, "Why waste such talent; bring that beauty of voice
before the world and see men bow in homage, and women envy and praise.
Come forth and follow me."
But she put him fiercely aside, and cried, "I want no homage but his, I
want no envy from any one."
Still the whisper stayed in her heart, nor would the honeyed words of
praise be gone, even when he kissed her, and thanked the gods for this
pearl of great price.
Then as time fled on, the tiny whisper grew into a great roar, and all
the praise of men, and the sweet words of women, filled her brain, and
what had once been her aversion became a great desire, and caused her
brow to grow thoughtful, and her eyes moody.
But when she spoke to him of this new love, he smiled and said, "My wife
must be mine, and mine alone. I want not a woman whom the world claims,
and shouts her name abroad. My wife and my home must be inviolate." And
again as of yore, his wish controlled her--but only for a while.
Then the tiny whisper grown into the great roar urging her on, became a
mighty wind which drove her before it, nor could she turn aside from the
path of ambition, but swept on, and conquered.
Ah, sweet, sweet the exultation of the victor! Dear the plaudits of the
admiring world; wild the joy, when queen of song, admired of men, she
stood upon the pinnacle of fame! And he? True to his old convictions,
turned sadly from the woman who placed the admiration of the world
before his love and the happiness of his home--and went out from her
life broken-hearted, disappointed, miserable.
All these things, and more, she thought upon in the first flush of
eventide, as the bold, young star climbed toward his lady-love, the
moon, all these things, and what had come to pass after the victory.
For there came a day when the world wearied of its toy, and turned with
shouts of joy, and wreaths of fresh laurels for the new star. Then came
disappointments and miseries crowding fast upon her; the sorrows which
a loving heart knows when it finds its idols faithless. Then the love
for him which she had once repressed arose in all its strength which had
gained during the long struggle with the world, arose and overwhelmed
her with its might, and filled her soul with an unutterable longing for
peace and rest and him.
She wrote to him and told him all her heart, and begged of him to come
back to her, for Fame was but an empty bubble while love was supreme and
the only happiness, after all. And now she waited while the crimson and
gold of the west grew dark, and gray and lowering.
Hark! She hears his loved step. He comes, ah, joy of heaven he comes!
Soon will he clasp her in his arms, and there on his bosom shall she
know peace and rest and love.
As he enters the door she hastens to meet him, the love-light shining in
her tired eyes, her soft rounded arms outstretched to meet him. But he
folds her not in his embrace, nor yet does he look with love into her
upturned eyes; the voice she loves, ah so well, breaks upon the dusky
silence, pitiless, stern.
"Most faithless of faithless women, think you that like the toy of a
fickle child I can be thrown aside, then picked up again? Think you that
I can take a soiled lily to my bosom? Think you that I can cherish the
gaudy sun-flower that ever turns to the broad, brazen glare of the
uncaring sun, rather than the modest shrinking violet? Nay, be not
deceived, I loved you once, but that love you killed in its youth and
beauty leaving me to stand and weep alone over its grave. I came
to-night, not to kiss you, and to forgive you as you entreat, but to
tell that you I have wed another."
The pitiless voice ceased, and she was alone in the dusky silence; alone
in all the shame and agony and grief of unrequited love and worthless
fame. Alone to writhe and groan in despair while the roseate flush of
eventide passed into the coldness of midnight.
Oh faithless woman, oh, faithless man! How frail the memory of thy
binding vows, thy blissful hours of love! Are they forgotten? Only the
record of broken hearts and loveless lives will show.
THE IDLER.
An idle lingerer on the wayside's road,
He gathers up his work and yawns away;
A little longer, ere the tiresome load
Shall be reduced to ashes or to clay.
No matter if the world has marched along,
And scorned his slowness as it quickly passed;
No matter, if amid the busy throng,
He greets some face, infantile at the last.
His mission? Well, there is but one,
And if it is a mission he knows it, nay,
To be a happy idler, to lounge and sun,
And dreaming, pass his long-drawn days away.
So dreams he on, his happy life to pass
Content, without ambitions painful sighs,
Until the sands run down into the glass;
He smiles--content--unmoved and dies.
And yet, with all the pity that you feel
For this poor mothling of that flame, the world;
Are you the better for your desperate deal,
When you, like him, into infinitude are hurled?
LOVE AND THE BUTTERFLY.
I heard a merry voice one day
And glancing at my side,
Fair Love, all breathless, flushed with play,
A butterfly did ride.
"Whither away, oh sportive boy?"
I asked, he tossed his head;
Laughing aloud for purest joy,
And past me swiftly sped.
Next day I heard a plaintive cry
And Love crept in my arms;
Weeping he held the butterfly,
Devoid of all its charms.
Sweet words of comfort, whispered I
Into his dainty ears,
But Love still hugged the butterfly,
And bathed its wounds with tears.
THE BEE-MAN.
We were glancing over the mental photograph album, and commenting on the
great lack of dissimilarity in tastes. Nearly every one preferred spring
to any other season, with a very few exceptions in favor of autumn. The
women loved Mrs. Browning and Longfellow; the men showed decided
preferences after Emerson and Macauley. Conceit stuck out when the
majority wanted to be themselves and none other, and only two did not
want to live in the 19th century. But in one place, in answer to the
question, "Whom would you rather be, if not yourself?" the answer was,
"A baby!"
"Why would you rather be a baby than any other personage?" queried
someone glancing at the writer, who blushed as she replied.
"Because then I might be able to live a better life, I might have better
opportunities and better chances for improving them, and it would bring
me nearer the 20th century."
"About eight or nine years ago," said the first speaker, "I remember
reading a story in a magazine for young folks. It was merely a fairy
story, and perhaps was not intended to point a moral, but only to amuse
the little ones. It was something on this order:--"
Once upon a time, there lived in an out of the way spot an ancient
decrepit Bee-man. How old he was no one knew; whence he came, no one
could tell: to the memory of the oldest inhabitant he had always lived
in his dirty hut, surrounded by myriads of hives, attended always by a
swarm of bees. He was good to the bits of children, and always ready
with a sweet morsel of honeycomb for them. All his ambitions,
sympathies and hopes were centered in his hives; until one day a fairy
crept into his hut and whispered:
"You have not always been a common bee-man. Once you were something
else."
"Tell me what I was," he asked eagerly.
"Nay, that I cannot do," replied the fairy, "our queen sent me to tell
you this, and if you wished to search for your former self, I am to
assist you. You must search the entire valley, and the first thing you
meet to which you become violently attached, that is what you formerly
were, and I shall give you back your correct form."
So the next morning the Bee-man, strapping his usual hive upon his back,
and accompanied by the fairy in the form of a queen bee, set out upon
his search throughout the valley. At first he became violently attached
to the handsome person and fine castle of the Lord of the Realm, but on
being kicked out of the lord's domains, his love turned to dislike.
The Bee-man and the fairy travelled far and wide and carefully inspected
every thing they met. The very Imp, the Languid young man, the
Hippogriffith, the Thousand Tailed Hippopotamus, and many other types,
until the Bee-man grew weary and was about to give up the search in
disgust.
But suddenly amid all the vast halls of the enchanted domains through
which they were wandering, there sounded shrieks and wails, and the
inmates were thrown into the greatest confusion by the sight of the
hideous hippogriffith dashing through, a million sparks emanating from
his great eyes, his barbed tail waving high in the air, and holding in
his talons a tiny infant.
Now, as soon as the Bee-man saw this, a great wave of sorrow and pity
filled his breast, and he hastily followed the monster, arriving at his
cave just in time to see him preparing to devour his prey. Madly dashing
his hive of bees into the hippogriffith's face, and seizing the infant
while the disturbed and angry bees stung and swarmed, the Bee-man rushed
out followed by the Very Imp, the Languid young man and the fairy, and
made his way to the child's mother. Just as soon as the baby was safely
restored, the Bee-man ruminated thoughtfully awhile and finally remarked
to the fairy:
"Do you know of all the things I have met so far, I liked the baby best
of all, so I think I must have been a baby once!"
"Right you are," assented the fairy, "I knew it before, but, of course,
I couldn't tell. Now I shall change you into your former shape, but
remember, you must try to be something better than a Bee-man."
The Bee-man promised and was instantly changed into a baby. The fairy
inoculated him from harm with a bee-sting, and gave him to the rescued
infant's mother.
Nearly a cycle passed by, and one day the fairy having business in the
valley, thought she would make inquiries concerning her protege. In her
way she happened to pass a little, low, curious hut, with many bee hives
about it, and swarms of bees flying in and out. The fairy, tired as
well as curious, peeped in and discovered an ancient man attending to
the wants of his pets. Upon a closer inspection, she recognized her
infant of years ago. He had become a bee-man again!
* * * * *
"It points a pretty little moral," said the Fatalist, "for it certainly
proves that do what we will, we cannot get away from our natures. It was
inherent in that man's nature to tend bees. Bee-ing was the occupation
chosen for him by Fate, and had the beneficent Fairy changed him a dozen
times, he would ultimately have gone to bee-ing in some form or other."
The Fatalist was doubtless right, for it seems as though the inherent
things in our nature must come out. But if we want to dig deep into the
child's story for metaphysical morals, does it not also uphold the
theory of re-incarnation? the ancient bee-man, perhaps is but a type of
humanity growing old, and settled in its mode of living, while the fairy
is but thought, whispering into our souls things half dread half
pleasant.
There are moments when the consciousness of a former life comes sharply
upon us, in swift, lightning flashes, too sudden to be tangible, too
dazzling to leave an impress, or mayhap, in troubled dreams that
bewilder and confuse with vague remembrances. If only a burst of memory
would come upon some mortal, that the tale might be fully told, and
these theories established as facts. It would unfold great possibilities
of historical lore; of literary life; of religious speculation.
AMID THE ROSES.
There is tropical warmth and languorous life
Where the roses lie
In a tempting drift
Of pink and red and golden light
Untouched as yet by the pruning knife.
And the still, warm life of the roses fair
That whisper "Come,"
With promises
Of sweet caresses, close and pure
Has a thorny whiff in the perfumed air.
There are thorns and love in the roses' bed,
And Satan too
Must linger there;
So Satan's wiles and the conscience stings,
Must now abide--the roses are _dead_.