Classic Poem

I

When Maisie came to Wraithwood Hill
She looked back from it to the town,
Across green tops of pines far down,
And wondered how her fate would fall.
Straight from the doorway through the trees,
That sighed as only pines can sigh,
She saw, swathed in the setting light,
The court-house tower cut the sky,
And a pang quivered in her eye.

She was the bride of Allen Graves,
Master of Wraithwood and its Hill,
That rose behind, at the weird will
Of Nature, into rocky waves.
And crevices between the rocks
Ran dark and deep under pine glooms
Up to the peak, where was a place
Of family burial — whose nine tombs,
One yet unfilled, bespoke life's dooms.

Allen had won her, for about
Him was a lure of mystery.
He had lived solitarily
At Wraithwood — a romantic Doubt,
A Speculation for the tongues
Of the drab little town, when through
The streets at times he spurred his roan,
As if he had some deed to do
That but an evil spirit knew.

And now, the bodeful wedding done,
She looked back with a pang of fear.
She had left so much that was dear;
Had she for shadows given the sun?
Under that tower, pale, perhaps,
Now, with the loss of her, she saw
The deep eyes of another , whom
Love with its unrequiting law
Had left for loneliness to gnaw.

One she had known from childhood days,
Quentin Gillespie, a glad boy,
With whom her girl's heart, in its joy,
Had first learnt Nature's wilding ways.
'Twixt the Toll Gate and Crows' Retreat,
Or by creek windings east and west,
They knew a hundred happy dells —
One happier than all the rest,
Because love there had been confessed.

Happier till — with Quentin grown
To manhood and a hope of fame
In the Law's corridors — there came
Allen across her heart, unknown.
And as a willow wand is drawn
By darkling water underground,
She to the strange mood of his blood
Was drawn — and now to him was bound:
Though Quentin's wrong could not be drowned.

It wrung her. ... But she started, for
Her bridegroom's gaze was on her. " Well?"
He questioned, with a tone whose spell
She almost wished now to abhor.
" Well, is that tower Regret's; and Law
More tempting than a bridal feast
For two who from a stench of flowers
And a mellifluous marriage-priest
Are for a honeymoon released?"

She laughed, but somehow shuddered. This
Was his well wonted way ... and yet,
Tuned as she was to reach and get
His vibrance, there was some Abyss,
Some more than tempting mystery
In which his words rang resonant.
" Allen," she said, " I 'm half afraid;
Tell me what is it that can haunt
Me so in you — for oh, I want — — "

She did not finish, for a cloud
Sullen as that blotting the sun
Out of the west seemed darkly spun
Across his mood, a bitter shroud.
So to bring brightness back, she said,
" Come, we will have some wine," not knowing
That of all words flung lightly forth,
None that were meant for April sowing
Could bring a more relentless mowing.

She did not see that as he wheeled
A duel raged upon his lips,
A spasm with his soul at grips,
Or how his eye thirstily reeled.
They feasted, and the wine went singing
Into her heart with rilly joy.
To his, amid her bubbling talk,
It crept with madness to destroy,
As well he knew, their life's alloy.

For while she lifted to her lips
The happy foam that set joy free,
Each silent glass of devilry
He drained lashed him with sullen whips;
She babbled till across the wings
Of her light words a low oath fell.
" By God, you little fool," he said,
" Could you not see what was my spell?
This drink for me is fire of Hell.

" I 'm drunk, upon my wedding night,
And I 'll be drunker ere the day.
Not even your soft body's sway
Can tempt me now this thirst to slight."
He rose and left her in the glitter
There of the candles and cold glass,
That seemed to burn or freeze the horror
Of what had darkly come to pass
Into her heart's fate-stricken mass.

II

So began life for Maisie Graves —
Or was it death? The morning came;
The moon lost all her silver flame,
The crows flew fieldward, hunger-slaves.
The dewy stillness of the pines
Grew on her eyes that had not closed.
The Court House clock across cool space
Rang to her over roofs that dozed.
A tense sob shook her: then she rose.

No sound from Allen through the night
Had come to her, none came with day.
Locked fiercely in, he drank away
His soul and reason — and her right,
Her bridal right, her woman right,
Her love he swallowed through those hours:
While servants tended silently,
As if compelled by occult powers
To watch death settle on fair flowers.

Once she threw on her hat to go
Back to her mother — or to him,
Who under that clock tower, dim
Now in the dazzling overflow
Of the full sun would ... And yet, no,
She could not face her mother's plaint,
A widow's pale and privileged whine;
And Quentin's hungering restraint
Was not that of a selfless saint.

And so she waited, wandered, walked —
At last among the cone-strewn rocks
Of Wraithwood Hill; and by a fox
Up to its peak unknown was stalked.
Sudden she came upon that place
Of burial with its empty tomb
Agape — and in it almost stepped
Then fled back shuddering through the gloom
Of the pine boles to the sun's room.

And there, staggering out, he stood
Before her, on the columned porch,
Allen — his eyes a cunning torch,
And treachery within his mood.
" You did not go to him?" he said.
Then ere her lips moved, " No pale lies.
You 're mine, and if Gillespie dares
To take what has been in your eyes
For him to-day — he 's less than wise."

Which said, back to his drunkenness,
Till, soberly, on the third night,
He sought her room: there was no flight;
Her flesh shone through a thin night-dress.
" I ask no pardon," said he, " none.
I drink, for drink is in my blood.
The heat of those dead men upon
The Hill behind us rules my mood:
They rise in me and want 's at flood.

" But you — what will you do? Accept
My love and passion for the whiles
I am myself? By winning wiles
Ghosts from the blood might oft be kept.
And this might be our bridal hour
I want you — all your beauty calls
To me, in drunkenness or free,
Like trumpets from dream-lifted walls,
Like music that on yearning falls."

She heard in terror — heard and shrank
Back from him, covering her breast
With arms that ruthlessly were pressed
Into its beauty — which he drank.
" Go from me, go: give me again
My freedom!" shuddering she cried.
" What in me once was love is now
A corpse three days have horrified
With crawling moments. Love has died."

" Or never was, perhaps?" he shrugged.
And then, " There 's time. I 'll go to-night.
But see to it there is no flight,
No fears by your Gillespie drugged.
For half I think he stands between
Us now — or drink breeds jealousy."
When he was gone she could not move,
Till terror took her suddenly,
Lest he return — and worse things be.

She locked the door. Then in the moon
Out of her open window heard
The wild hoofs of his filly, spurred
Reckless into the night's swoon.
Asleep at last she fell, to dream
That she was mother to a child
Which was a drunkard at her breast,
And that her sotted husband smiled
And said, " Like me." She woke half wild.

III

Then came her friends to look upon
Her honeymoon and guess its glow.
They found instead a haunted woe,
And silence over pale lips drawn.
Rumour that panders to all ills
Was whispering soon — and Quentin heard.
" A drunkard's bride ... stricken with fear,"
Was the invariable word
That in the stream of tattle stirred.

So as forlorn, at a day's close,
She stood beside the sullen brook,
Half-circling Wraithwood with its hook
Of rainy waters, Quentin rose.
" Maisie, I had to come," he said.
" You are unhappy! Oh, my God,
Why did you leave me! Will you come
Away with me?" ... The oozy sod
Under her feet held her fear-shod.

Yet for a moment she reached out
Her arms to him, and " Quentin!" cried.
But as he leapt swift to her side,
Terror became for her too stout.
And so she fled, stumbling and falling,
Rising and stumbling once again.
Aware, she knew not how, that Allen
Had heard, and from the leaves would start,
To send some wild deed from his heart.

She knew — and yet, strangling and weeping,
As the hysteric moment hung,
She ran, her heart and knees unstrung,
Across her eyes wet branches sweeping.
She felt a flower crush beneath
Her foot into the sobbing soil.
Then a shot rang, and Quentin's life,
Under her feet, a bloody moil,
She seemed to trample in wild toil.

Fainting she fell at last within
Her chamber — all her terror still,
It was as if Death had his will,
Or as if breath had never been.
The minutes passed then, till a step,
That fell in stealth upon the stair
Without, went through her frigid frame:
A vibrant prescience in the air
Of him whose crime had laid her there.

She moaned. He entered — blood upon
His hand and cheek that bore no wound;
And horror's desperation runed
His haggard look, drunken and drawn.
" Get up," he cursed her, " there 's no time;
Damn you, I must be gone from here.
And you must stay" — her eyes unclosed —
" Stay and do all you can to clear ..."
She saw the blood and screamed with fear.

" What have you done? what have you done?"
He wiped a finger of its blood;
Then a cold mockery seemed to flood
His drunken sense, and through it run.
" Oh, you have killed him!" At the words
He straightened. In the pines without
A dark wind went. It seemed like death
To Maisie, like the moaning shout
Of Quentin's soul, gone out, gone out!

She tried to move — toward the door.
Was Quentin killed? Oh, was he? Oh!
Her soul was swimming in blind woe,
A sea beneath her was the floor.
Then through her suddenly the stare
Of Allen went, searching her eyes.
A dark hate and a drunken light
Of new suspicion seemed to rise
Through him, and cunning — coldly wise.

It broke, " You 'll go with me, not stay,
And treacherously tell! Get ready!"
Rage made his tongue a moment steady.
Maisie was like a reed asway.
And yet she knew that she must go
There to the brook and see! Her hair
Fell as she fled him, ere he knew,
And found her foot upon the stair,
He following with fuddled care.

He overtook her at the gate.
" Run? You would run away and tell?
I 'll put you where you will be well
Away from words — and power to prate."
By her hair-tangled wrist he drew
Her then: the pines were moaning, moaning.
And the new moon hung in the West,
Like a cold blade some hand was honing
Against the clouds for an atoning.

He forced her feet up the dark path
Toward the Hill's summit — and the tombs.
Horror was in its rocky glooms;
She wept, she pled against his wrath.
The night-things all seemed listening
Around her, hostile, frightened, wild.
A startled owl swept past, and with
A hoot their stumbling way reviled:
Through Allen's teeth one curse more filed.

At last they reached it — that death-place,
Where the wind went wilder — and where
The shadows on the nine stones there
Danced like dark ghosts, then sank apace.
Maisie cried out, trembling and shaking,
For now she knew. In that void tomb
He meant to put her, in that one
Digged for his final resting-room ...
Her swooning did not stay the doom.

IV

Such nights have been — and that night was.
The hand that whetted the sharp moon
For sacrifice had drawn it soon
Down through the stars: then came a pause.
An hour: yet Maisie had not moved.
Then a chill pierced her heart and fluttered
Her pulseless lids; a troubled sigh
Through her insensate lips was uttered,
Such as the pines above her muttered.

Then her eyes opened. Where was she?
Only the darkness and dank stone;
And somewhere still that low pine-moan,
Familiar, yet ... where could she be?
A drop fell on her from the slab
Over her head — then memory
Let in, on her oblivion,
A drop which set those terrors free
That swept her to insentiency:

Those, terrors of the nine death-stones,
Where now she knew she was shut in,
By Allen's wild and drunken sin,
Under the earth beside dead bones.
She sought to rise, and struck her brow
Against the slab that covered her.
The pain and horror as she fell
Took from her limbs the strength to stir —
And left wraiths where no true wraiths were.

For through the tombs around her those
Forbears of Allen seemed to ooze,
And their pale shapes to interfuse
With all her body's haunted throes.
Their deathly inebriety
So wrought upon her that a shriek
Broke from her lips, despite all terror,
And then another, till, fear-weak,
Life once more from her seemed to leak.

But death, the swiftest of all things,
Can be so lingeringly slow
That time seems cruelty a-flow
Out of eternity's dry springs.
And so for Maisie to and fro
Came trance and terror — came and went,
Till the last beat within her veins
Was frozen, its cold anguish spent,
And in sure Silence she was pent.

They found her — after Quentin's death
Had set the quest a-cry. Her hair
Was dewed with the damp dripping there,
Her sweet lips absent of all breath.
Under the pines they bore her down,
Tenderly, by each rocky place
Whence wild-flowers leaned with swaying sigh
To look into her passing face
And say above her a still grace.

And now Wraithwood is tenantless,
Save for the fox — and, it is said,
For stealthier footsteps of the dead
That sometimes sadly round it press.
For Murder is a landlord none
Will lease from save the neediest.
So the town clock a verdict still
Strikes through each unforgetting breast
Of that dark night's forlorn inquest.