Chapter XVI

I wander much. There came a change at last.
Our charge was better; and, one afternoon,
Almost before I found that he had waked,
Upon my cheeks arose a burning heat,
While, past a mist of tears that flow’d, there dawn’d
The light that waited in his clear, blue eye.
“Pauline,” he murmur’d then, “Pauline, my friend—
And what?—You weep for me! I shall not die.—
Nay, do not rise, nor call Doretta yet.
Hist, hist!—nor let her hear us. Why is this,
That you stay never with me when I wake?

“You think you ‘cannot do for me’?—do what?
And have I ask’d you any thing to do?—
I pray you stay: do not do any thing,—
What pretty cuffs!—There, there: it still shall lie,
The little hand; I like to look at it.—
Who said I wish’d for books, and prints, and tales,
And bustlings all about?—Who told you this?
Your sister?—She a good, kind nurse has been:
And you, you too, have been a good, kind nurse.
Think you that I have never lain awake,
Nor known the long hours you have watch’d with me?—

“What say?—‘Done’ but ‘your duty’?—Say not so.
A friend most pleases when, forgetting due,
He seems to do his pleasure; but a foe,—
Who does not shrink to feel him near enough
To freeze one with a chill though duteous touch?
Mere duty forms the body-part of love:
Let love be present, and this body seems
The fitting vestment of a finer life:
Let love be gone, it leaves a hideous corpse!
Pauline, I crave the life, I crave the soul:
Would you content me with a skeleton?

“I ‘meant’ your ‘sister’? Why?—who named her?—I?—
Name her, did I, as being duteous?—
Who ‘mean’ I then?—You little fluttering bird
Suppose you were some actual little bird,
How would you tell whence came or whither went
The wind that ruff’d your feathers?—Do you know,
You women always will match thoughts to things?
You chat as birds chirp, when their mates grow bright:
You love when comes a look that smiles on you.
We men are more creative. We love love,
Our own ideal long before aught real:
Our halo of young fancy circles naught
Save empty sky far off.—And yet those rays
Fit like a crown, at last, about the face
That fortune drives between our goal and us.

“Yet, all may fail of truth; none fail like those
Who deem themselves the most infallible:
None more than men who, fallible in proof,
Yet flout the failure of a woman’s guess.
And your guess?—it went right. I thought of her,
Your sister. We both honor her, and much.
And yet I fear her, lest her will so strong
Should overmatch by aught your strength of will.
For God has given you your own moods, friend;
And are you not responsible for them?
And if you yield them up too readily,
Not meaning wrong, yet may you not mistake?
Our lives, remember, are not sounding-boards,
Not senseless things, resounding for a world
That nothing new can find in what we give.
If one but echo back another’s note,
Can he give forth God’s message through his own?
Yet,—Nay, I would not chide, I caution you.
Wit heeds a hint; ’tis dulness questions it.

“And so you thought I wish’d my pillow turn’d,
And books, and tales, and bustlings all about?
Does not the world, then, worry life enough,—
That one should crave for more to worry him?
Do I so lack for exercise? Ah me!
Some nervous mothers—bless them!—shake their babes.
I never deem’d it wise; oh, no—am sure
The friction frets the temper of the child.—
Not natural, you see: God never shakes
The ground with earthquakes when we wish for spring.
He does not drive life from its germ, He draws
By still, bright warmth. Pauline, but look at me.
Too weak am I now to be driven to life;
Nay, nay, but must be drawn.—And ah! could tell
Where orbs there are more bright than suns could be—
Nay, do nor blush nor turn that face away.
You dream, aha, that I want sunset?—what?—
The colors come right pretty, but—there, there—

“What say?—I ‘dare not face’ you now?—Those eyes,
Too bright, are they? or loving? Love, like God,
So brightly dear is it, that lives like ours,
Poor vapory lives, mere dews before the dawn,
Dare not to face it lest we melt away?—
Then be it so. Then look, Pauline, I dare
Am I not yours? Should you not use your own?—
Ay, darling, draw me all within yourself.”