Blanche, Henry Abbey [good book club books TXT] 📗

THE VENDER OF VIOLETS.

"Violets! Violets! Violets!"
This was the cry I heard
As I passed through the street of a city;
And quickly my heart was stirred
To an incomprehensible pity,
At the undertone of the cry;
For it seemed like the voice of one
Who was stricken, and all undone,
Who was only longing to die.

"Violets! Violets! Violets!"
The voice came nearer still.
"Surely," I said, "it is May,
And out on valley and hill,
The violets blooming to-day,
Send this invitation to me
To come and be with them once more;
I know they are dear as can be,
And I hate the town with its roar."

"Violets! Violets! Violets!"
Children of sun and of dew,
Flakes of the blue of the sky,
There is somebody calling to you
Who seems to be longing to die;
Yet violets are so sweet
They can scarcely have dealings with death.
Can it be, that the dying breath,
That comes from the one last beat
Of a true heart, turns to the flowers?

"Violets! Violets! Violets!"
The crier is near me at last.
With my eyes I am holding her fast.
She is a lovely seller of flowers.
She is one whom the town devours
In its jaws of bustle and strife.
How poverty grinds down a life;
For, lost in the slime of a city,
What is a beautiful face?
Few are they who have pity
For loveliness in disgrace.
Yet she that I hold with my eyes,
Who seems so modest and wise,
Has not yet fallen, I am sure.
She has nobly learned to endure.
Large, and mournful, and meek,
Her eyes seem to drink from my own.
Her curls are carelessly thrown
Back from white shoulder and cheek;
And her lips seem strawberries, lost
In some Arctic country of frost.
The slightest curve on a face,
May give an expression unmeet;
Yet hers is so perfect and sweet,
And shaped with such delicate grace,
Its loveliness is complete.

"Violets! Violets! Violets!"
I hear the cry once more;
But not as I heard it before.
It whispers no more of death;
But only of odorous breath,
And modest flowers, and life.
I purchased a cluster, so rife
With the touch of her tapering hand,
I seem to hold it in mine.
I would I could understand,
Why a touch seems so divine.

II.

A FLOWER FOUND IN THE STREET.

To-day in passing down the street,
I found a flower upon the walk,
A dear syringa, white and sweet,
Wrung idly from the missing stalk.

And something in its odor speaks
Of dark brown eyes, and arms of snow,
And rainbow smiles on sunset cheeks--
The maid I saw a month ago.

I waited for her many a day,
On the dear ground where first we met;
I sought her up and down the way,
And all in vain I seek her yet.

Syringa, naught your odor tells,
Or whispers so I cannot hear;
Speak out, and tell me where she dwells,
In perfume accents, loud and clear.

Shake out the music of your speech,
In quavers of delicious breath;
The conscious melody may teach
A lover where love wandereth.

If so you speak, with smile and look,
You will not wither, but endure;
And in my heart's still open book,
Keep your white petals ever pure.

If so you speak, upon her breast
You yet may rest, nor sigh afar;
But in the moonlight's silver dressed,
Seem 'gainst your heaven the evening star.

III.

ODYLE.

We know that they are often near
Of whom we think, of whom we talk,
Though we have missed them many a year,
And lost them from our daily walk.

Some strange clairvoyance dwells in all,
And webs the souls of human kind.
I would that I could learn its thrall,
And know the power of mind on mind.

I then might quickly use the sense,
To find where one I worship dwells,
If in the city, or if thence
Among the breeze-rung lily bells.

IV.

WHAT ONE FINDS IN THE COUNTRY.

I went out in the country
To spend an idle day--
To see the flowers in blossom,
And scent the fragrant hay.

The dawn's spears smote the mountains
Upon their shields of blue,
And space, in her black valleys,
Joined in the conflict too.

The clouds were jellied amber;
The crickets in the grass
Blew pipe and hammered tabor,
And laughed to see me pass.

The cows down in the pasture,
The mowers in the field,
The birds that sang in heaven,
Their happiness revealed.

My heart was light and joyful,
I could not answer why;
And I thought that it was better
Always to smile than sigh.

How could I hope to meet her
Whom most I wished to meet?
If always I had lost her,
Then life were incomplete.

The road ran o'er a brooklet;
Upon the bridge she stood,
With wild flowers in her ringlets,
And in her hand her hood.

The morn laid on her features
An envious golden kiss;
She might have fancied truly,
I longed to share its bliss.

I said, "O, lovely maiden,
I have sought you many a day.
That I love you, love you, love you,
Is all that I can say."

Her mournful eyes grew brighter,
And archly glanced, though meek.
A bacchanalian dimple
Dipt a wine-cup in her cheek.

"If you love me, love me, love me,
If you love me as you say,
You must prove it, prove it, prove it!"
And she lightly turned away.

V.

AN AUNT AND AN UNCLE.

I have but an aunt and an uncle
For kinsfolk on the earth,
And one has passed me unnoticed
And hated me from my birth;
But the first has reared me and taught me,
Whatever I have of worth.

This is my uncle by marriage,
For his wife my aunt had died,
And left him all her possessions,
With much that was mine beside--
'Tis said that he hated her brother,
As much as he loved the bride.

That brother, my father, forgave him,
As his last hour ran its sand,
And begged in return his forgiveness,
As he placed in his sister's hand
The bonds, that when I was twenty,
Should be at my command.

For my mother was dead, God rest her,
And I would be left alone.
The bride to her trust was unfaithful--
Her heart was harder than stone.
And her widowed sister, left childless,
Adopted me as her own.

So we dwelt in opposite houses--
We in a dwelling low,
And he in a brown stone mansion.
I toiled and my gain was slow.
My uncle rode in a carriage
As fine as there was in the row.

Once, in a useless anger,
With courage not mine before,
I bearded the crafty lion,
Demanding my own, no more.
He said the law gave me nothing,
And showed me out of his door.

VI.

MY AUNT INVITES HER IN TO DINE.

This is the place, this is the hour,
And through the shine, or through the shower,
She promised she would come.
O, darling day, she is so sweet
I could kneel down and kiss her feet.
Her presence makes me dumb.

A thousand things that I would say,
And ponder when she is away,
Desert me when she's near--
When she is near--twice we have met!
Though but a month has passed as yet,
It seems almost a year.

O, now she comes, and here she stands,
And gives me hers in both my hands,
And blushes to her brow.
She eyes askance her simple gown,
And folds a Judas tatter down
She has not seen till now.

I said, "My love you made me wait,
I grew almost disconsolate
Thinking you would not come.
Ah, tell me what you have to do,
That makes your duty, sweet, for you
My rival in your home."

"My home!" she answered, "I have none.
For me, 'tis years since there was one,
And that was scarcely mine.
Father and mother both are dead;
I sell sweet flowers to earn my bread--
Their fragrance is my wine.

"Sometimes the house upon the farm,
Sometimes the city's friendly arm,
Shields me from rain and dew.
I did not know that it was late;
The minutes you have had to wait,
Are truly but a few."

A smile shone through her large dark eyes,
As sometimes, in the stormy skies,
The light puts through an arm,
Which, spreading glory far and wide,
Draws the broad curtain cloud aside,
Making the whole earth warm.

She took my arm; we walked away;
We saw, in parks, the fountains play;
My heart was all elate.
I scarcely noticed when I stood,
With my dear waif of womanhood,
Beside our lowly gate.

"You have no home," I gently said,
"But, till the day that we are wed,
And after if you will,
This home, my love, is mine and thine."
My aunt came out and bade us dine--
I see her smiling still.

My Blanche, reluctant, gave consent;
Then 'neath the humble roof we went,
And sat about the board.
I saw how sweet the whole surprise;
I saw her fond uplifted eyes,
Give thanks unto the Lord.

VII.

THE PROPHECY.

There is a prophecy of our line,
Told by some great grand-dame of mine
I once attempted to divine.

'Tis that two children, then unborn,
Would know a wealthy wedding morn,
Or die in poverty forlorn.

These children would be of her name.
If to the bridal bans they came,
The house would gather strength and fame.

But if they came not, woe is me,
The line would ever cease to be,
The wealth would take its wings and flee.

If all the signs are coming true,
I am the child she pictured, who
The name should keep or hide from view.

In our domain of liberty,
Our heed is light of pedigree,
I care not for the prophecy.

For what to me our wealth or line?
I only wish to make her mine--
The maid my aunt asked in to dine.

VIII.

HOW A POOR GIRL WAS MADE RICH.

All the day my toil was easy, for I knew that in the evening,
I could go home from my labor, and find Blanche at the door;
How could I dream the sunlight in my sky was so deceiving?
And I ceased in my believing 'twould be cloudy ever more.

When at last the twilight deepened, I entered our low dwelling,
And my darling rose to meet me, with the love-light in her eyes;
On that day her simple story to my aunt she had been telling,
And I saw her words were welling, fraught with ominous surprise.

For it seems my hated uncle, once had given him a daughter,
Who on a saddened morning had been stolen from the door,
And through the panting city the criers cried and sought her,
But in vain; they never brought her to his threshold any more.

Blanche was she, my uncle's daughter; no unwelcome truth was plainer;
For a small peculiar birth-mark was apparent on her arm.
Had I lost her? Was it possible ever more now to regain her?
Would he spurn me, and restrain her with his wily golden charm?

All that night my heart was bitter with