Chapter XVI

This is the tale they tell
Of that Hallowe'en;
This is the thing that befell
Me and the village belle,
Beautiful Amy Dean.

MATER DOLOROSA

The nuns sing, "_Ora pro nobis_;"
The casements glitter above;
And the beautiful Virgin, whose robe is
Woven of infinite love,
Infinite love and sorrow,
Prays for them there on high--
Who has most need of her prayers,--to-morrow
Shall tell them!--they or I?

Up in the hills together
We loved, where the world was true;
Our world of the whin and heather,
Our skies of a nearer blue;
A blue from which one borrows
A faith that helps one die--
O Mother, thou Mother of Sorrows,
None needs such more than I!

We lived, we loved unwedded--
Love's sin and its shame that slays!--
No ill of the years we dreaded,
No day of their coming days;
Their coming days, their many
Trials by noon and night--
And I know no land, not any
Where the sun shines half so bright.

Was he false to me, my Mother!
Or I to him, my God!--
Who gave thee right, O brother!
To take God's right and rod!
God's rod of avenging morrows--
And the life here in my side!--
O Mother, sweet Mother of Sorrows,
Would that I, too, had died!

By the wall of the Chantry kneeling
I pray, and the organ rings,
"_Gloria! gloria!_" pealing,
"_Sancta Maria!_" sings.
They will find us dead to-morrow
By the wall of their nunnery--
O Mother, thou Mother of Sorrow,
His unborn babe and me.

LOVE AS IT WAS IN THE TIME OF LOUIS XIV

I

Thrice on the lips and twice on the eyes
I kiss you or ever I kiss your bosom.--
When love is young would you have it wise,
Wise as the world goes?--No! 'tis a blossom
Lovely and wise since it's lovely; content
To live or to die as its folly pleases:
Life is a rose and the rose's scent
Is love, that grows as the rose increases.

II

If I tell you the Marquis will die, will you smile?
And laugh when he's dead?--This powder, my lily,
That seems but an innocent sweet in this phial--
Do not touch it! breathe distant!--a poison Exili
Used a life to discover. Its formula left
To a pupil (well worthy the master!), the prudent
And pious Sainte Croix. Him, of teacher bereft,
The Devil, I deem, must have taken as student.

III

Quite a dealer in death. And ours was a case
That those difficult drugs of his laboratory
Demanded. I visited; found him; his face,
Bent over a sublimate,--safe from the hoary
Light particles,--masked with a mask of fine glass.
I told him your danger, Marie, and expounded
Our passion, despair, with many an "Alas!"
He smiled while a paste in a mortar he pounded.

IV

Three fistfuls of Louis!--"He'd do it," he said.--
A delicate dust, gum, liquid and metal
Crushed, crucibled.... "Stay! tie this mask on your head.
You see, but a grain on your rose's pink petal
Has shriveled and blasted it--look, how it dries!--
A perilous pulver ... could Satan make better?...
To mix with that present of perfumes--she dies,
And who is the wiser? Or, say in a letter

V

"To the husband of her who has smiled on you since
Another grows bald?"--And he poured in a bottle
The subtlety.--"Bah! be he beggar or prince,
If he kiss but the seal the venom will throttle."--
"Well," I thought, "I will test ere I risk." Slyly drew
My dagger; approached to the bandlet, that tightly
Supported his mask, its keen point.... It was true!--
When it cracked he fell dead; he but breathed of it lightly.