Chapter V

Then Elbert, when we met, talk’d much of this:
How, all its chairs made vacant one by one,
Th’ applause rose thinner at his bachelor-club;
How, brief as birds’, are human mating-times;
How men, mere songs forgot, withdraw to nests—
To homes—their worlds, where all the sky is fill’d
With sunny smiles they love, and shadowy locks.
How sweet were life whose light and shade were these!

“We, Norman,” said he, “were contented once;
To love each other only; but men part;
And I confess that, while this light of love
Plays lambent round so many glowing lips,
I feel as chill, and lost, and out of place,
As one lone dew-drop, prison’d in a shade
Of universal noon.”
“The sun,” said I,
“Will free it, by and by. Our time will come.”

“Must come,” replied he, “or I go to it.
Henceforth, let beauty’s beams but gleam for me,
I shall not shun them, as has been my wont,
But make my eyes a sun-glass for my heart,
And let them burn it.”

“May they burn,” I cried,
“Until love’s fragrant opiate fume so strong
It make your brain beclouded as a Turk’s.
But I, alas, though wild o’er many a maid,
Am never mad enough to marry her.”

“You poets,” laugh’d he, “soar above earth so
That common clouds like these can reach you not.
But why say ‘clouds’? for clouds rise o’er a flame
That smoulders. Love that burns is always clear.”

“But mine will not burn clearly, till it show
A woman,” said I, “fitted for a mate,
Whose mind, like yours, can really match my own.
Till then must memory, jealous for her past,
Out-do love’s hope that cannot promise more.”

“But maidens,” cried he, “are not loved like men.
Bind beauty to their souls, then weigh the twain.
If one weigh naught, he waives his judgment then.
We must be practical.”

Thus Elbert spoke,
While I, for whom these light and vapory moods
Had gather’d o’er that soul in slightest clouds,
Not tokening the storm that yet should burst,
Smiled only, thinking how, where throbb’d his heart,
Some maid unnamed must surely stand and knock;
Though this I had forgotten, save for that
Which happen’d later. You shall hear of it.