Man"s dual selves seem separate; He leaves his soul outside sin"s gate, And finds it waiting when he tires Of carnal pleasures and desires, Depleted, sickened, and depressed, As souls must be with such a test, Yet strong enough to help him grope Back into happiness and hope.
But woman, far more complicate, Can take no chances with her fate; A subtle creature, finely spun, Her body and her soul are one.
And now this erring woman wept The soul she murdered while it slept.
She felt too stunned with pain to think.
She seemed to stand upon a brink; Behind her loomed the sinful past, Below her, rocks, beyond her, vast And awful darkness. Not one ray Of sun or star to show the way!
She drew a long and shuddering breath; "There is no other path but death For me to tread," she sighed, "and so I will prepare my house and go."
As housewives move with willing feet And skilful hands to make things neat And ready for some welcome one, She toiled until her tasks were done.
Then, seated at her desk, she wrote, With painful care, a tear-wet note.
The childish penmanship was rude, Ill spelled the words, the phrasing crude; Yet thought and feeling both were there, And mighty love and great despair.
"Dear heart," it ran, "you did not know How, from the first, I loved you so, That sin grew hateful in my sight; And so I leave it all to-night.
The kiss I gave, dear heart, to you Was love"s first kiss, as pure and true As ever lips of maiden gave.
I think "twill warm my lonely grave, And light the pathway I must tread Among the hapless, homeless dead.
"When G.o.d formed worlds, He failed to make A path for erring feet to take Back into light and peace again, Unless they were the feet of men.
When woman errs, and then regrets, Her sun of hope for ever sets, And life is hung with deepest gloom.
In all the world there is no room For such as she; and so I hold That death itself is not so cold As life has seemed, since by love"s light I saw there was a wrong and right, And that my birthright had been sold, By my own hands, for tarnished gold.
I hated labour, hence I fell; But now I love you, dear, so well, No greater boon my soul could crave Than just to toil, a galley-slave, Through burdened years and years of life, If at the last you called me wife For one supreme and honoured hour.
Alas! too late I learn love"s power, Too late I realise my loss, And have no strength to bear my cross Of loneliness and dark disgrace.
There cannot be another place So desolate, so full of fear, As earth to me, without you, dear.
"You will not understand, I know, How one like me can love you so.
It was a strange, strange thing. Love came So like a swift, devouring flame And burned my frail, fair-weather boat And left me on the waves afloat, With nothing but a broken spar.
The distant sh.o.r.es seem very far; I cannot reach them, so I sink.
G.o.d will forgive my sins, I think, Because I die for love, like One The good Book tells about, His Son.
"For erring woman death can bring No pain so keen as memory"s sting.
Good-night, good-bye. G.o.d bless you, dear, And give you love, and joy, and cheer!
But sometimes, in the dark night, say A prayer for one who went astray, And found no pathway back, and died For love of you--a suicide."
When morn his glorious pinions spread, They found the erring woman, dead.
PART II
She woke as one wakes from a deep And dreamless, yet exhausting, sleep.
A strange confusion filled her mind, And sorrows vague and undefined,
Like half-remembered faces pressed To memory"s window, in her breast,
Gazed at her with reproachful eyes.
She felt a sudden, dazed surprise,
Commingled with a sense of dread, "I did but sleep--I am not dead,
"The potion and the purpose failed, And I still live," she wildly wailed.
"Nay, thou art dead, rash suicide,"
A sad voice spake: and at her side
She saw a weird and shadowy crowd With anguished lips, and shoulders bowed,
And orbs that seemed the wells of woe.
She shrieked and veiled her eyes. "No, no!
"I am not dead! I ache with life.
An earthly pa.s.sion"s hopeless strife
"Still tortures me." "Yet thou art dead,"
The voice with sad insistence said.
"But love and sorrow and regret All die with death. _I_ feel them yet."
"G.o.d bade thee live, and only He Can say when thou shalt cease to be."
"But I was sin-sick, sad, alone - I thought by death I could atone,
"And died that Christ might show me how."
"Christ bore His burden, why not thou?"
"Oh! lead me to His holy feet And let my penance be complete."
"What! thinkest thou to find that path - Thou who hast tempted Heaven"s wrath
"By thy rash deed? Nay, nay, not so, "Tis but perfected spirits go
"To that supreme and final goal.
A self-sought death delays the soul.
"With yonder shuddering, woeful throng Of suicides thy ways belong.
"Close to the earth a shadowy band, Unseen, but seeing all, they stand
"Until their natural time to die, As G.o.d intended, shall draw nigh.
"On earth, repentant, sick of sin, A ministering angel thou hadst been
"Whose patient toil and deeds divine Had rescued souls as sad as thine,
"Each deed a firm ascending stair To lead beyond thy great despair.
"But now it is thy mournful fate To linger here and meditate
"On thy dark past--to stand so near The earthly plane that thou canst hear
"Thy lover"s voice, while old desire Shall burn within thee like a fire,
"And grief shall root thee to the spot To find how soon thou art forgot.