the past; yet the past held her all. To the past she had plighted her vows; in the past Lay her one dream of happiness, first, only, last. 

'Twas so

 Alone in the world now, she felt the unrest Of an unanchored boat on the wild billow's breast. Two homes had been shattered; the West held but tombs. She drifted again where the magnolia blooms And the mocking bird sings. Oh! that song, that wild strain, Whose echoes still haunted her heart and her brain! How she listened to hear it repeated! It came Through the dawn to her heart, and the sound was like flame. It chased all the shadows of night from her room, And burst the closed bud of the day into bloom. It leaped to the heavens, it sank to the earth It gave life new rapture and love a new birth. It ran through her veins like a fiery stream, And the past and its sorrow—was only a dream. 

 The call of a bird in the spring for its lover Is the voice of all Nature when winter is over. The heart of the woman re-echoed the strain, And its meaning, at last, to her senses was plain. 

 Grief's winter was over, the snows from her heart Were melted; hope's blossoms were ready to start. The spring had returned with its siren delights, And her youth and emotions asserted their rights. Then memory struggled with passion. The dead Seemed to rise from the grave and accuse her. She fled From her thoughts as from lepers; returned to old ways, And strove to keep occupied, filling her days With devotional duties. But when the night came She heard through her slumber that song like a flame, And her dreams were sweet torture. She sought all too soon To chill the warm sun of her youth's ardent noon With the shadows of premature evening. Her mind Lacked direction and purpose. She tried in a blind, Groping fashion to follow an early ideal Of love and of constancy, starving the real Affectional nature God gave her. She prayed For God's help in unmaking the woman He made, As if He repented the thing He had done. With the soul of a Sappho, she lived like a nun, Hid her thoughts from all women, from men kept apart, And carefully guarded the book of her heart From the world's prying eyes. Yet men read through the cover, And knew that the story was food for a lover. (The dullest of men seemed possessed of the art To read what the passions inscribe on the heart. Though written in cipher and sealed from the sight, Yet masculine eyes will interpret aright.) Worn out with the unceasing conflict at last, Zoe fled from herself and her sorrowful past, And turned to new scenes for diversion from thought. 

 Prev. P 29/69 next