第59章 THE ELOPEMENT

"A woman never agreed to it!" said my knowing friend to me.

"That one thing she'd refuse to do for Solomon's mines in fee:

No woman ever will make herself look older than she is."

I did not answer; but I thought, "you err there, ancient Quiz."

It took a rare one, true, to do it; for she was surely rare -

As rare a soul at that sweet time of her life as she was fair.

And urging motives, too, were strong, for ours was a passionate case, Yea, passionate enough to lead to freaking with that young face.

I have told no one about it, should perhaps make few believe, But I think it over now that life looms dull and years bereave, How blank we stood at our bright wits' end, two frail barks in distress, How self-regard in her was slain by her large tenderness.

I said: "The only chance for us in a crisis of this kind Is going it thorough!"--"Yes," she calmly breathed. "Well, I don't mind."

And we blanched her dark locks ruthlessly: set wrinkles on her brow;

Ay--she was a right rare woman then, whatever she may be now.

That night we heard a coach drive up, and questions asked below.

"A gent with an elderly wife, sir," was returned from the bureau.

And the wheels went rattling on, and free at last from public ken We washed all off in her chamber and restored her youth again.

How many years ago it was! Some fifty can it be Since that adventure held us, and she played old wife to me?

But in time convention won her, as it wins all women at last, And now she is rich and respectable, and time has buried the past.

"I ROSE UP AS MY CUSTOM IS"

I rose up as my custom is On the eve of All-Souls' day, And left my grave for an hour or so To call on those I used to know Before I passed away.

I visited my former Love As she lay by her husband's side;

I asked her if life pleased her, now She was rid of a poet wrung in brow, And crazed with the ills he eyed;

Who used to drag her here and there Wherever his fancies led, And point out pale phantasmal things, And talk of vain vague purposings That she discredited.

She was quite civil, and replied, "Old comrade, is that you?

Well, on the whole, I like my life. -

I know I swore I'd be no wife, But what was I to do?

"You see, of all men for my sex A poet is the worst;

Women are practical, and they Crave the wherewith to pay their way, And slake their social thirst.

"You were a poet--quite the ideal That we all love awhile:

But look at this man snoring here -

He's no romantic chanticleer, Yet keeps me in good style.

"He makes no quest into my thoughts, But a poet wants to know What one has felt from earliest days, Why one thought not in other ways, And one's Loves of long ago."

Her words benumbed my fond frail ghost;

The nightmares neighed from their stalls The vampires screeched, the harpies flew, And under the dim dawn I withdrew To Death's inviolate halls.