Chapter I: Front Matter

A WOMAN OF THIRTY

Marjorie Allen Seiffert

New York

1919

To O.H.S.

CONTENTS

I. The Old Woman

A Morality Play

II. Love Poems in Summer

Singalese Love Songs I-V
The Silent Pool
Nocturne
Theme Arranged for Organ I-III
The Moonlight Sonata
Possession
Evening: the Taj Mahal
The Gift
The Bridge
A Temple I-VII
Candles
Winter Night
Last Days I-V
Sorrow
Prison
The Dream House

III. Studies and Designs

Design for a Japanese Vase
The Bow Moon (A Print by Hirosage)
An Italian Chest
The Pedlar
Portrait of a Lady in Bed I-V
Portrait of a Gentleman
From the Madison Street Police Station
La Felice
The Journey
The Last Illusion
The Desert
The Picnic

IV. Interlude

Mountain Trails I-VII
October Morning
October Afternoon
Maternity
The Father Speaks
To Allen
To Helen
The Immortal
To an Absent Child I-IV
Summer Night
Maura I-VI
November Dusk
Winter Valley I-IV

V. Love Poems in Autumn

Ballad
The Pathway of Black Leaves I-IV
Elegy
Sequence I-X
Disillusion
November Afternoon
Yareth at Solomon's Tomb
Argolis
St. Faith's Eve

Poems of Elijah Hay

The Golden Stag
To Anne Knish
Lolita
Spectrum of Mrs. Q
Epitaph
A Sixpence
Three Spectra
Two Commentaries
A Womanly Woman
Lolita Now is Old
The Shining Bird
The King Sends Three Cats to Guinevere
Ode in the New Mode
Night

I. The Old Woman
(A Morality Play)

The Old Woman
(A Morality Play)

Characters:
The Woman
The House
The Doctor
The Deacon
The Landlady

Doctor:
There is an old woman
Who ought to die--

Deacon:
And nobody knows
But what she's dead--

Doctor:
The air will be cleaner
When she's gone--

Deacon:
But we dare not bury her
Till she's dead--

Landlady:
Come, young doctor
From the first floor front,
Come, dusty deacon,
From the fourth floor back,
You take her heels
And I'll take her head--

Doctor and Deacon:
We'll carry her
And bury her
If she's dead!

House:
They roll her up
In her old, red quilt,
They carry her down
At a horizontal tilt,
She doesn't say "Yes"
And she doesn't say "No,"
She doesn't say, "Gentlemen,
Where do we go?"

Doctor:
Out in the lot
Where ash-cans die,
There, old woman,
There shall you lie!

Deacon:
Let's hurry away
And never look behind
To see if her eyes
Are dead and blind,
To see if the quilt
Lies over her face--
Perhaps she'll groan
Or move in her place!

House:
The room is empty
Where the old woman lay,
And I no longer
Smell like a tomb--

Landlady:
Doctor, deacon,
Can you say
Who'll pay rent
For the old woman's room?

* * * * * * *

House:
The room is empty
Down the hall,
There are mice in the closet,
Ghosts in the wall--
A pretty little lady
Comes to see--

Woman:
Oh, what a dark room,
Not for me!

Landlady:
The room is large
And the rent is low,
There's a deacon above
And a doctor below--

Deacon:
When the little mice squeak
I shall pray--

Doctor:
I'll psycho-analyse
The ghosts away--

Landlady:
The bed is large
And the mattress deep,
Wrapped in a feather-bed
You shall sleep--

Woman:
But here's the door
Without a key!
An unlocked room
Won't do for me!

Doctor:
Here's a bolt--

Deacon:
And here's a bar--

Landlady:
You'll sleep soundly
Where you are!

Woman:
Good night, gentlemen,
It's growing late,
Good night, landlady,
Pray don't wait!
I'm going to bed,
I'll bolt the door
And sleep more soundly
Than ever before!

Deacon:
Good night, madam,
I'll steal away--

Doctor:
Glad a pretty lady
Has come to stay!

House:
She lights a candle--
What do I see!
That cloak looks like
A quilt to me!
She climbs into bed
Where long she's lain,
She's come back home,
She won't leave again.
She's found once more
Her rightful place,
Same old lady
With a pretty new face.
Let the deacon pray
And the doctor talk,
The mice will squeak
And the ghosts will walk.
There's a crafty smile
On the landlady's face,
The old woman's gone,
But she's filled her place!

Landlady:
It's nothing to me
If the old woman's dead,
There's somebody sleeping
In every bed!

II. Love Poems in Summer

Singalese Love Songs

I

Your eyes are beautiful beggars,
Careless singing minstrels,
Who will not starve
Nor sleep cold under the sky
If they receive no largess
Of mine.

Once lived a woman
Of great charity--

At last
Her own children
Begged for bread.

II

I would make you love me
That you might possess
Desire--

For to your heart
Beauty is a burned-out torch,
And Faith, a blind pigeon,
Friendship, a curious Persian myth,
And Love, blank emptiness,
Bearing no significance
Nor any reality.

Only Weariness is yours:
I would make you love me
That you might possess
Desire.

III

Is my love
Of flesh or spirit?
I only know to me
Your eyes are wholly you.

Our glances dart
Like the flash of a bird
Gone, before the colour of his wing
Is seen.

I have not bathed my soul
In your eyes,
My soul would drown.

IV

I have starved to know your lips
Yet my soul
Does not die of want.

For only dreams are real,
And fulfilment is an illusion,
There is but one fulfilment,
Blind Nature's way--

My arms reach toward illusion,
And I would carry mist against my heart,
Not the warm, heavy head
Of a sleeping child.

Starving, I hold my dream.

V

What do you seek,
Beloved?

When you have had
All of me
There will remain for you
One beautiful desire the less.

You think you seek my love
But you seek
My denial.

Hunger, Want,
Is the only pain
I would not spare you--
Alas, that too
Will die!

The Silent Pool

Your smile is a heron, flying
Over waters cool,
My thoughts of you are blue Iris!
Today is the silent pool
Which shining heron and Iris blue
Are mirrored on.

Tomorrow
Will still reflect the Iris--
My thoughts of you;
But the heron will be gone.

Nocturne

It is enough
To feel your beauty
With the lingers
Of my heart,

Your beauty, like the starlight,
Filling night so gently, that it dreams
Unwakened.

I should feel your beauty against my face
Though I were blind.

Theme Arranged for Organ

I. PRELUDE

What would you have of me, my friend, in truth,
A breath of understanding, or a glance
Into your soul's dark places? Can a word
Aid in your brave attempt to smother youth?
Of what avail that trifling circumstance,
In such a tumult could my voice be heard?

Before your bitter need my lips are dumb
So little can I give you. Should I come
To feed a starving Titan with a crumb?

II. INTERLUDE

Alas, I am too foolish or too wise,
Too soon am blinded or I see too far!
How can I follow with expectant feet,
What is the beacon light that holds your eyes,
Can this blind alley lead to any star
And through this dark confusion, what retreat?

For heaven is awed when comets crash to earth,
But we, who grope and question our soul's worth,
Stumbling, awaken only bitter mirth.