Classic Poem

An heroic poem

I

Once, when my youthful head of dreams was full,
Society to me was deadly dull.
The life Bohemian I followed then,
Wrote fervid poems and tore them up again.
Over my punch I wept and played the fool,
At times was reckless, and at others cool;
And went and dreamed of laurels and of gold
Till I grew thin and wretched to behold.

About this time there chanced to be a ball
One winter evening at the public hall.
I hung about the door in borrowed rig,
The coat too long and every way too big,
My shirt-front, stiffly starched and very high,
Stood proudly out beyond my new white tie.
A shirt-stud missing and my shoe-heel torn,
I chafed there full of restlessness and scorn.
Meanwhile before me bustled the élite,
The dignitaries of the county-seat:
Here high officials glittered in gold lace
About the stately chieftain of the place,
And knights of trade with many worthies more
Thronged round their brandy-king, our senator.
Off to one side stood Major Gyldenstorm
And Captain Adelfeldt in uniform,
Yonder a trim lieutenant sauntered by
Twirling his blond mustache impressively,
While over there in eager expectation
A group of stiff civilians had their station.
And, aunt by aunt along the wall, arrayed
In lilac, gold and every other shade,
En-isled in lace, with air serenely grand,
The elder ladies sat and gently fanned
Their youthful cheeks with many a blandishment
Of gracious aristocratic self-content.
A worldly-wise embittered pessimist,
I found the whole thing empty, dull and “triste.”
I fumed and fretted at my gaping shoe
And at my accursed borrowed dress-coat too,
And thought: “How stupid! going to a ball.”
But stop! the chief is speaking. Silence, all!
Champagne corks pop, and then we hear a song
“Straight from the Swedish heart, sincere and strong.”

II

But hark! these ghostly shuffles now
On stair, till in her ruffles now,
Amid a general bustling
And sound of silks a-rustling,
Old Madame Owl sails in.
Of ancient style her dress is,
Her manner too no less is,
For seventy years have written
Such lines as well befit in
Her white and high-born skin.
But stoutly still she bears herself,
Steers family affairs herself,
And faces wind and weather
As fought of old her father
At Lech and Holofzin.
All others leave their prattle now,
Heads bend and bracelets rattle now,
The while 'mid fluttering banners
And due ancestral honors
Old Madame Owl sails in.

III

Then—as a pleasure-yacht with light wind sailing
Tacks nimbly round a sturdy admiral-ship,
From mast and sail and wheel and rudder trailing
Festoons of myrtle for her maiden trip,
With flags that stream afresh at every turn—
Comes the granddaughter, Mistress Elsa Erne.

Above her hair a flame-red rose enhances
The gold arranged in classic Swedish line,
With head held like a princess she advances;
Slim is her figure, spirited and fine.
She moves with supple tread in ballet style,
Coquettishly, like town-girls too, the while.

Her eyes are brimming o'er with roguish malice,
Her fresh lips pout most tantalizingly
Just like a budding flower's half-opened chalice,
A snub and disputatious nose has she.
Of grandma's dignity she wears no jot;
She's not a warship but a pleasure-yacht.

A trim yacht on her maiden voyage, riding
The glad waves when the dawn is glimmering pale,
So—in her grandma's wake demurely gliding,
While the spring breeze fills every murmuring sail,
With flags that stream afresh at every turn,—
Comes the granddaughter, Mistress Elsa Erne.

IV

And with that moment all things took new form,
Wearing a gayer, more elusive charm:
The music seemed more musically rare,
More clear and brilliant grew the gas-light's flare,
And my contempt for human-kind took flight;
The chieftain now looked clever in my sight,
The knights of trade went by with decorous heed,
Their brandy-monarch seemed of noble breed;
The Major too,—with laced and thickset body,
A kindly-souled receptacle for toddy,—
Was now a veteran in life's hard game;
And all the titled aunties now became
Enshrined in light from days that once had been,
And Mistress Elsa was a glorious queen.

For it was she whom every day I met,
When every day I hurried out to get
My walk to nowhere in particular,
Sunk deep in dreams of things that never were
Or would be; it was she to whose sweet name
I wrote my poems; it was she who came
In dreams, and sat and talked consolingly
With hopeful girlish wisdom then to me.

V

Then, their nonsense uttering,
Off they go
To dance a-fluttering
On nimble toe,
With soft combining
Of black coats twining
'Mid lace outstreaming
As moth-down light,
And shoulders gleaming,
And slippers white.

It was a billowing
Flood of spring,
When the fast-following
Breakers ring.
But mirth was highest
And rapture nighest
When in a corner
By a fern
Where the tide had borne her
Sank Elsa Erne.

She sat there panting,
Flushed and fair,
A young enchanting
Naiad there,
En-frothed in laces
And tulle-foam graces
As, restful-handed,
And eyes content,
She there was stranded
When the wave was spent.

VI

Then I, against bashfulness bracing myself,
Before the young girl boldly placing myself,
Bowed, begged and was given a dance.
Mistress Elsa bowed back and smiled at me,
And constrained herself to be mild to me
And give me a gracious glance.

And into the polka I flung myself,
And there 'mid the dances I swung myself
Like a resolute fighting-boat.
And we turned among them and bumped together,
Like whirling bobbins we jumped together,
And out flew the tails of my coat.

Mistress Elsa grew red, but controlled herself,
And lightly she managed to hold herself
And follow when I would go wrong.
Like Titania at first she tripped about,
But gasped with each step as we skipped about,
And her face became pale before long.

Her anxious manner infected me,
And a cross look at last disconnected me
From my wits and my courage bold.
On tables and chairs we stranded then,
Shipwrecked in the corner we landed then;—
Mistress Elsa's laugh sounded cold.

VII

I understood that everything was over,
And melancholy round my soul did hover;
For I had danced away my happiness,
And drank of wormwood now in mute distress.
All that I saw was once more dead and drear,
All things were shameful, stupid, insincere;
Like fetters on my soul they seemed to close.
I twiddled with my thumbs, I blew my nose,
At floor and wall and ceiling then I peered,
And fingered awkwardly my youthful beard.
She looked at me the while, did Mistress Erne,
And wondered, for her eyes could not discern
My heart's hid sorrow and my spirit's gloom;
She bit her lips for fear a smile would come,
And finally, grown serious with surprise,
She toward her slender ankle drooped her eyes.
Then suddenly I felt a wild desire
To speak as Hamlet does in tragic ire,
And say in tones dramatically stern:
“Go, get thee to a nunnery, Mistress Erne!”
The words would not be clear, but still they'd be
Something not heard at dances frequently.

VIII

Then, looking at the floor, I said at last:
“Miss Erne, full well you know that youth is dead,
That love is gone, and life a desert vast
Through which like pallid ghosts we mortals tread
And see like smoke our fond illusions going.
In the last rays of twilight faintly glowing.

“Fata Morganas are the journey's goal,
Toward which we all resistlessly are hurried,
To find but emptiness that cheats the soul
Wherein we wander only to be buried.”.
—“Heaven forbid!” the girl cried in amazement,
And clasped her hands with pious self-abasement.

Still darkly staring at the floor, I said:
“Think not by laughter sorrow may be hid,
Nor hark to those who sport beneath the blade
Of fate's grim axe, as Scherezade did,
From day to day the menaced blow delaying,
Each night with poetry her ransom paying.

“Alas! the law of doom will hear no plea,
Is softened by no maiden hand's caress,
No poem stays that sultan's dread decree,
He smites the greater and he smites the less;
The simoon he, what boots it to withstand here
The desert whirlwind's blinding weight of sand here.
“And think you at this ball you can embrace
True joy?—'Tis but a death's-head you have kissed!
We seek for pleasure, pain is in its place;
We feed on husks, the kernel we have missed.”
Here anxiously she asked: “Are you insane, sir?”
Then waited very still to hear my answer.

“Yes,” I replied, “when wisdom would devour
Its liver for a jest, the mad are wise;
When life's last flame of joy has ceased to flower,
Only in madness our deliverance lies.”
Then she remarked: “Oh, yes, perhaps in one sense,—
For brainsick boys; but for young girls it's nonsense!”

IX

Once more I saw triumphantly advance
A trim yacht on the white wave of the dance.
How skilfully she tacked, how fleetly slid,
Her pride of race in everything she did,
From arm to arm she sailed superbly by,
With pliant grace, her bosom heaving high!

Though all around me purled a noisy stream,
Yet I heard nothing, I was in a dream.
I wished to sorrow with a true despair,
But could not, I was much too young for care.
I thought: This really is a stupid pose
To look so sick, so heavy and morose.

Then in my trance I saw a wondrous sight.
I was with Elsa in the starlit night
Upon a bench somewhere far, far away
Beside a lake with waves and splashing spray.
And while on us the moon shone coldly pale
As with the mystic light of some old tale,
I built a splendid castle out of air,
Of moonlight and of pretty nonsense there.

X

Think not that death the end of life shall be;
No, no, ye ageless powers of destiny,
Of whose dark shrine none knoweth certainly,
We shall live on into felicity.

Within the Seventh Heaven's festal hall
With harp and song is held an endless ball,
Whence music goes reëchoing through all
The colonnades from wall to crystal wall.

Star-lustres pour in rainbow tints
Their myriad-sparkling prismatic glints,
While many an archangel's daughter fair,
Shy lashes lowered, is dancing there
On the arm of a cherub prince.
Trains like shimmering mist they bring,
Their diadems blaze like a comet's trail
As through the joyous dance they swing,
And their locks float lightly as clouds that sail
On the languid breath of the summer gale,
While the daylight of lovers' dreams
Flushes each cheek with its beams.
Till, all aflame, they take wings and fly,
The glow of rapture in every eye.
And 'mid the throng in delicious trance
The love-pairs hovering thread the dance,
Then seek their way through the halls, and turn
Into quiet rooms where the lustres burn
With stars that more dimly glance.

And bliss is served in cups of fullest measure,
All redolent of hope, agleam with pleasure.
They sip it from the cups anon and oft
On their celestial couches, cloudy-soft.
And God the Father from his throne the while,
Looking, nods time with glad approving smile,
For He alone has fully understood
The worth of love, and knows that it is good.

At length with bashful step we two advance
Among the countless myriads there that dance,
And bow before the throne respectfully:
“We have come here to seek felicity.
Our wretched country town herewith we spurn—
And this is I and that is Elsa Erne.”

Then God smiles down with gentle irony
And good, grandfather-like solemnity:
“I'm glad that such a pair as you have come.
Take what you find here, make yourselves at home,
Amid these other youngsters have your fling,
And waltz till Heaven's arches seem to swing!”

So we dance off, we dance the whole night through,
Till, tiring, it is easy for us two
To find here in God's palace, when we look,
Somewhere a safe and quite secluded nook.
We steal there, and a life-warm, flood
(Like young and new-enamoured blood)
In waves of sheer love through our being streams.—
And then we fall asleep and dream sweet dreams.