Chapter XIII: To Iris

"Daughter of the Marshes, the winds have told me you are sad. If
I could, I would bear it for you, but there is no way by which
one of us may take another's burden.

"I wish I might come to you, but now, when you are troubled,
I will not ask you for a signal, even for a flower on the
gate-post. I would always have you happy, dear, if my love could
buy it from the Fates--those deep eyes of yours should never be
veiled by the mist of tears.

"Do you know where the marsh is, Iris? You have lived in East
Lancaster for many years, so the gossips tell me, yet I doubt
whether you could find it unless someone showed you the way. To
reach it, you must follow the river, through all its turns and
windings, for many a weary mile.

"Up in those distant hills, so far that I have never found
it, the river begins--perhaps in some tiny pool of crystal
clearness. It sings along over its rocky bed until it reaches a
low, sandy plain, and here is the marsh. I was there the other
day, just at sunset; my heart thrilled with the beauty of it
because it is the beauty of you.

"How shall I tell you of the wonder of the marshes, those wide,
watery plains embroidered with strange bloom? Tall, slender
rushes stand there, bending gracefully when the wind passes, and
answering with music to the touch. Have you ever heard the song
of the marshes when the wind moves through the rushes and plays
upon them like strings? Some day, I will take you there, and you
shall listen, too, and tell me what you think it means.

"Here and there are pools, set like jewels among the rushes,
with never a hint of growth. Sometimes you see a wide sweep of
grass, starred with tiny yellow flowers, or a lily, surrounded
by its leaves, drinking in the loveliness of the day and
forgetting all the maze of slime and dark water through which it
has somehow come. I think our souls are like that, Iris--we grow
through the world, with all its darkness, borne upward by
unfailing aspiration, until we reach the end, which we have been
taught to call Heaven, but which is only blossoming in the
light.

"But of all the radiant beauty of marshes, the best is
this--that part of it which bears the purple flower of your
name. In and out of the rushes, like the thread of a strange
tapestry, it winds and wanders, hidden for an instant, maybe,
but never lost. I have gathered an armful of the blossoms, and
put my face down to them, closing my eyes, and dreaming that
it was you--you whom I must ever hold apart as something too
beautiful for me to touch--you, whom I can only love from afar.

"I have told you that I would come when the iris bloomed, but
now, when the marsh is glorious with the purple banners, I dare
not. It is not only because you are sad, though not for worlds
would I trouble you now, but because I am afraid.

"Only in my wildest moments do I dare to hope--you were never
meant for such as I. By day, I bow my soul before you in shame
at my own unworthiness, but at night, like some flaming star
which speeds across the uncharted dark, you light the barren
country of my dreams.

"I think sometimes that I shall never dare to tell you; that it
must be like this, year after year. If you knew your lover, who
is so bold and yet so fearful, I think you would cast him aside
in scorn. So it is better for me to believe, though that belief
has no foundation,--better for me to hope than utterly to
despair. Without you, I dare not think what life might be.

"Like the marsh, the years stretch out before me--a vast plain
of which the uncertainty only is sure. They are full of strange
pitfalls, of unsounded deeps and silences, of impassable
barriers which I, disheartened and doubting, must one day meet
face to face.

"Night lies upon it, and I cannot see the way. Storm beats upon
me and turns me from my course. The clouded day ends in sunset,
and the crystal pools, by which I thought to mark my path,
become beacons of blood-red flame.

"The will o' the wisp leads me into the mire, where the rushes
cling tightly about me and keep me back. But the night wind
blows from the east, where the dawn sleeps, and on the strings
of the marsh grass breathes a little song. 'Iris! Iris!' it
sings, then all at once my sore heart grows strangely glad, for
whatever may come to me, I shall have the memory of you.

"Like the flags that glorify the marshes and spread their elfin
sweetness afar, you shine upon the desert wastes of my life. I
can never wholly lose you--you are there for always, and graven
on my heart forever is the symbol of the fleur-de-lis."