Classic Poem

Not three years since—and now he asks my name!
Not know me?—God! am I so changed, so changed?

Now that I stay to seek it, how it stares
Out of this scrap of wretched looking-glass,
Just big enough to hold my face, no more.
'Twas in this same, small, ragged bit of glass
I looked, when first I wore the little pearls
He gave me for my ears, three Easters back—
Poor little paltry things enough they are!
But then, they seemed almost too beautiful
To wear in such a weekday world as mine.

Still looking for it—yes, I understand,
I see the reason why he sent to-day,
And fetched me, having passed me in the street.
Herodias is his picture, and my face
Will make her all he wants. Strange luck he has!
(I've heard him say it fifty times before)
Unfailingly just finds the face he needs.
Tis hard to see in this unlighted place,
With but one guttering wick—yet, even here,
It only wants the shoulder-slipping garb,
The great gold serpents coiled about the throat,
And writhing up the large, round, naked arm—
It only wants the hair, cloud-falling—so!
And, lo, Herodias gleams there in the glass!
'Tis but to drop the chin into the palm,
Thrust both a little forward—thus! as though
Inviting hatred from a world contemned,
And there she sits, the beautiful, bad thing,
With superciliously defiant eyes,
And stealthy smile beneath the half-dropped lids,
Cruel as panther crouching for the spring.
Add but the whiteness of a bosom bared,
Large jewelled hoops for earrings—cast away
These clumsy shoes, and bind about with gold
The sleek, ripe-rounded ankles—and enough!
'Tis she, just as he paints her—nothing lacks—
Half animal, half fiend—not old, not young—
Steeped to the brows in splendid shamelessness.

Curse on this draught that takes the candle flame!
'Twill flicker out for end of all its flare—
And if I hold it up, for better view,
The roof will be on fire, it slopes so low.
Who'd choose the garret for their dwelling place?
Oven in the summer, ice-hole in the frost,
Rain dripping through, and rats for company,
Half a day's climb to reach it—Once, indeed,
To be so high seemed but the nearer heaven!
And there was one that mounted—was it I?—
The steep, uneven stair, three steps at once,
Sweet singing like some soul in Paradise.
And violet scents would linger in the air—
A little jar, set here upon the shelf,
Weighting the place with breath as fine and faint
As when the incense cloud goes floating up
Among the fretted aisles, and in the hush
The Host is lifted, and the organ dies.
Perhaps he gave the violets—I forget!
He gave me many things, in idleness,
As one might give a child. Here, too, at nights,
If you were pleasure-loving, you could lean
Both arms upon the sill, and see beneath
The lamps all twinkling, twinkling through the town,
And hear the half articulate music sound
From off the boulevard and the gaslit trees,
While out of heaven the great white stars looked down,
And trembled where they hung—the whole night through
One felt them shine athwart the uncurtained pane,
Like friends of old, and turned, and dreamed anew;
And in the morning, long before the light,
How loud the swallows cheeped beneath the eaves,
Until their twitter drove the dreams apart,
And waking seemed mere joy of being alive!
But that was long ago! three years ago!
I was young, then, and he was painting me
As Mary Maiden, grave and innocent,
Sitting untroubled at a spinning-wheel,
With sunset flaming through a pane behind,
And groups of lilies, and a garden plot,
Before the angel came.


And now, to-day,
He looked, looked twice and thrice—and asked my name!

He stirred as though the dead had come to life—
He thought of his Maid-Mother first, I know,
And would not credit, and ‘Thank God,’ he said,
—Thick muttered in his throat, but I could hear—
‘Thank God I never loved her!’ And I laughed—
Herodias must have laughed that very laugh!
Full-eyed I faced him, as he turned about,
And cried between his teeth, ‘You think I loved?
Not I! not I! Never so near I came,
But at the last, a look was in your eyes
That said no man could love you and be blest,
And on the brink I stayed—for that, thank God!’
Then up I sprang—‘Pity, in sooth,’ I said—
More hiss than speech it sounded to myself,
As though a snake had spat into his face—
‘Pity, in sooth, to have squandered, all in vain,
Such love as yours, most perfect man of love!’
The mesh of silk, wherein his subtle hand
Had wound me, half across the room I flung,
And snatched my old, dim, faded cloak again,
And dragged its hood above my storm of hair—
‘One thing alone Herodias lacked,’ I said,
‘She should have smitten, herself, with her own palm,
The scorner, the rebuker’—and stepped close,
And lifted up my slim, unfolded hand,
And struck him, slightly, swiftly, in the face,
And nodded him farewell, and went, or ere
The outraged red could spring into his cheek.

So now, belike, he will not brook again
That I should sit to him; or if he do,
Belike I shall not go. To me all's one,
His loathing or his loving—yet, sometimes,
I think that had he loved me in those days,
Never so little, only for one hour,
To-day, perhaps, I were not all I am—
Perhaps Herodias had not worn my face.