William Vaughn Moody

“ Was over, and her young heart free to live
Until to-morrow brought her nursing-task
Again, and made her feel how dark and still
That life could be to others which to her
Was full of dreams that beckoned, reaching hands,
And thrilling invitations young girls hear.
My boy was sleeping, little mind and frame
More tired just lying there awake two hours
Than with a whole day's romp he should have been.
He would not know his mother had come home;
But after supper I would sit awhile
Beside his bed, and let my heart have time
For that worst love that stabs and breaks and kills. ”

“ Over the mantel shelf hangs a large map of the United States and Mexico, faded and fly-specked.
As the curtain rises, the room is dark, except for a dull fire in the grate. The ticking of the clock is heard; it strikes six. Martha Beeler, a woman of forty-five, enters from the kitchen, carrying a lighted lamp. She wears a shawl over her shoulders, a print dress, and a kitchen apron. She places the lamp on the table, which is set for breakfast, and puts coal on the grate, which soon flames more brightly. ”

“ That question yonder whether all be well,
And pause a little ere they dare rejoice.
Question and be thou answered, passionate face!
For I am worthy, worthy now at last
After so long unworth; strong now at last
To give myself to beauty and be saved;
Now, being man, to give myself to thee,
As once the tumult of my boyish heart
Companioned thee with rapture through the world,
Forth from a land whereof no poet's lip
Made mention how the leas were lily-sprent,
Into a land God's eyes had looked not on
To love the tender bloom upon the hills. ”

“ Beeler turns to Michaelis and gazes intently into his face.
Mrs. Beeler.
The light has come into your face again! You are—you are—Oh, my brother, what has come to you?
Michaelis.
I have shaken off my burden. Do you shake off yours. What is pain but a kind of selfishness? What is disease but a kind of sin? Lay your suffering and your sickness from you as an out-worn garment. Rise up! It is Easter morning. One comes, needing you. Rise up and welcome her!
Mrs. Beeler rises and goes to meet Rhoda, entering from the porch.
Rhoda.
Aunt Mary! You are walking again! ”

“ Nor such a sign as happy friend sets on his friend's dear brow
[Pg 66] When meadow-pipings break and blend to a key of autumn woe,
And the woodland says playtime 's at end, best unclasp hands and go.
But where she strays, through blight or blooth, one fadeless flower she wears,
A little gift God gave my youth,—whose petals dim were fears,
Awes, adorations, songs of ruth, hesitancies, and tears.
O heart of mine, with all thy powers of white beatitude,
What are the dearest of God's dowers to the children of his blood?
How blow the shy, shy wilding flowers in the hollows of his wood? ”

“ The fair-haired keeper of their love and trust.
Now limb doth mingle with dissolvèd limb
In nature's busy old democracy
To flush the mountain laurel when she blows
Sweet by the southern sea,
And heart with crumbled heart climbs in the rose:—
The untaught hearts with the high heart that knew
This mountain fortress for no earthly hold
Of temporal quarrel, but the bastion old
Of spiritual wrong,
Built by an unjust nation sheer and strong,
Expugnable but by a nation's rue
And bowing down before that equal shrine
By all men held divine,
Whereof his band and he were the most holy sign. ”

“ Now you will think I am—not quite right in my mind, as Mat does, and Martha!
Michaelis.
Mrs. Beeler, there is such a perfume about us this beautiful Easter morning. You perceive it, with senses which suffering and a pure soul have made fine beyond the measure of woman. There is a kindness in the air, new-born happiness, and new-risen hope. ”

“ The gross of the planet's destiny
Through one more sullen gyre.
[Pg 83]
Stolidly the town flings down
Its lust by day for its nightly lust;
Who does his given stint, 't is known,
Shall have his mug and crust.—
Too base of mood, too harsh of blood,
Too stout to seize the grosser good,
Too hungry after dust!
O hark! how it blooms in the falling dark,
That flower of mystical yearning song:
Sad as a hermit thrush, as a lark
Uplifted, glad, and strong.
Heart, we have chosen the better part!
Save sacred love and sacred art
Nothing is good for long. ”

“ Rhoda.
Yes, he's coming down, right out of the blue sky.
Annie.
In a panic.
Let me go.
She breaks away and retreats to the hall door, watching the stair door open, and Ulrich Michaelis enter. Thereupon, with a glance of frightened curiosity, she flees. Michaelis is a man of twenty-eight or thirty, and his dark, emaciated face, wrinkled by sun and wind, looks older. His abundant hair is worn longer than common. His frame, though slight, is powerful, and his way of handling himself has the freedom and largeness which come from much open-air life. ”

“ What I am is no matter. What this girl is, though you lived a thousand years, you would never have the grace to imagine. She gave you her young love, in childish blindness, not knowing what she did, and you killed it idly, wantonly, as a beast tortures its frail victim, for sport. You find her again, still weak and bleeding from her wounds, and you fling her marriage, in words whose every syllable is an insult. Marriage! When every fibre of her nature must cry out against you, if she is woman. ”

“ Of battle 'neath the heaven-suspended sign,
And nightly refuge 'neath God's ægis-rim;
Increase of wisdom, and acquaintance held
With the heart's austerities; still governance,
And ripening of the blood in the weekday sun
To make the full-orbed consecrated fruit
At life's end for the Sabbath supper meet.
I shall not sit beside you at that feast,
For ere a seedling of my golden tree
Pushed off its petals to get room to grow,
I stripped the boughs to make an April gaud
And wreathe a spendthrift garland for my hair. ”

“ Crawling, but pestered with the thought of wings;
Spreading through every inch of earth's old mire
Mystical hanker after something higher.
Wishes are horses, as I understand.
I guess a wistful polyp that has strokes
Of feeling faint to gallivant on land
Will come to be a scandal to his folks;
Legs he will sprout, in spite of threats and jokes.
And at the core of every life that crawls
Or runs or flies or swims or vegetates—
Churning the mammoth's heart-blood, in the galls
Of shark and tiger planting gorgeous hates,
Lighting the love of eagles for their mates ”

“ Mr. Moody with a finer art shows in the play that love and work are not necessarily irreconcilable interests and that by substituting for the selfishness of a personal claim the more impersonal and unselfish type of love, the hero could make a resolution of his problem which included every aspect of a man's life.
The most convenient form in which to read Mr. Moody's work is in the complete edition, the Poems and Plays of William Vaughn Moody, in two volumes, published by the Houghton, Mifflin Company in 1912. ”

“ Annie Beeler! Don't want your mother to be cured?
Annie.
No, I don't. I want her to be like she always has been. She don't seem like my Mamma at all this way. What's the matter with all those people out there? Why don't we have any supper?
She bursts out crying and clings feverishly to Martha.
Oh, what's going to happen to us?
Martha.
There, Annie, don't cry.
She looks at Rhoda, throws a cover over her knees, and draws Annie away, speaking low.
Come out in the kitchen, and I'll give you your supper.
Exeunt. The singing grows louder and nearer. Michaelis enters from the hall. ”

“ This crown shall crown their struggle and their ruth?
Are we the eagle nation Milton saw
Mewing its mighty youth,
Soon to possess the mountain winds of truth,
And be a swift familiar of the sun
Where aye before God's face his trumpets run?
Or have we but the talons and the maw,
And for the abject likeness of our heart
Shall some less lordly bird be set apart?—
Some gross-billed wader where the swamps are fat?
Some gorger in the sun? Some prowler with the bat?
IX
Ah no!
We have not fallen so.
[Pg 20] We are our fathers' sons: let those who lead us know! ”

“ I thought that love had come to me. Girls are so eager for love. They snatch at the shadow of it.—That is what I did.—I am not trying to plead for myself.—Some things are not to be forgiven.—Somewhere in my nature there was a taint—a plague-spot.—If life is given me, I shall find it and root it out. I only ask for time to do that. But meanwhile I have done what I could. I have told you the truth. I have set you free. I have given you back your mission.
Dr. Littlefield enters, carrying his hat and medicine case. He looks sharply at Rhoda, then turns to Michaelis. ”

“ That this girl face, expectant, virginal,
Which gazes out at me
Boon as a sweetheart, as if nothing loth
(Save for the eyes, with other presage stored)
To pledge me troth,
And in the kingdom where the heart is lord
Take sail on the terrible gladness of the deep
Whose winds the gray Norns keep,—
That this should be indeed
The flesh which caught my soul, a flying seed,
Out of the to and fro
Of scattering hands where the seedsman Mage,
Stooping from star to star and age to age
Sings as he sows! ”

“ Littlefield goes on, watching him with interest.
Nervously speaking, you are a high power machine. The dynamo that runs you is what is called "faith," "religious inspiration," or whatnot. It's a dynamo which nowadays easily gets out of order. Well, my friend, as a doctor, I warn you that your little dynamo is out of order.—In other words, you've lost your grip. You're in a funk.
Rhoda opens the hall door and looks anxiously at the two. Michaelis approaches her with averted eyes. As he is about to pass out, she speaks timidly. ”

“ Whom Love has not left bare.
IV
LA PIA
Even as theirs, the chance was mine
To meet and mate beneath Love's sign,
To feel in soul and sense
The solemn influence
[Pg 93]
Which, breathed upon a man or maid,
Maketh forever unafraid,
Though life with death unite
That spirit to affright,—
Which lifts the changèd heart high up,
As the priest lifts the changèd cup,
Boldens the feet to pace
Before God's proving face. ”

“ As Beeler goes hurriedly to the door it bursts open and a young woman with a baby in her arms crowds past him, and stands looking wildly about the room.
Beeler.
As he forces the others back.
You can't come in here, my friends! Stand back!
The woman gazes from one to another of the men. The old negro points at Michaelis. She advances to him, holding out the child.
Mother.
Don't let my baby die! For Christ's sake, don't let him die!
He examines the child's face, touches the mother's head tenderly, and signs to Rhoda to take them into the inner room. ”

“ My heart is man's heart, strong to bear this night's
Unspeakable affliction of mute love
That crazes lesser things. The rocks and clods
Dissemble, feign a busy intercourse;
The bushes deal in shadowy subterfuge,
[Pg 41] Lurk dull, dart spiteful out, make heartless signs,
Utter awestricken purpose of no sense,—
But I walk quiet, crush aside the hands
Stretched furtively to drag me madmen's ways.
I know the thing they suffer, and the tricks
They must be at to help themselves endure. ”

“ Beeler goes out by the kitchen. Martha takes up mechanically her eternal task of setting things to rights—gathering up Annie's toys and arranging the furniture in more precise order. Meanwhile, Rhoda enters from the hall with the mother of the sick child, a frail young woman of nervous type. She clings to Rhoda feverishly.
Mother.
Don't leave me!
Rhoda.
You mustn't worry. Your baby will get well.
Rhoda sinks in a low easy chair before the fire, and the woman kneels beside her, her face hidden on the chair arm.
You must keep up your courage and your trust. ”

“ And make the fruitful tears to gush from the deep heart and clear.
He must give each man his portion, each his pride and worthy place;
He must batter down the arrogant and lift the weary face,
On each vile mouth set purity, on each low forehead grace. ”

“ The outer door opens. Mrs. Beeler enters, supported by her husband, and accompanied by Martha and the Rev. Culpepper, with Uncle Abe following in the rear. Rhoda hastens to her aunt's side.
Mrs. Beeler.
Ah, Rhoda, I wish you had been out there with me. Such beautiful human faces! Such poor, suffering, believing human faces, lit up by such a wonderful new hope!
She turns to the minister.
Wasn't it a wonderful thing to see?
Culpepper.
It is wonderful to see human nature so credulous. And to me, very painful.
Mrs. Beeler. ”

“ Wreathe pride now for his granite brow, lay love on his breast of stone.
Toll! Let the great bells toll
Till the clashing air is dim.
Did we wrong this parted soul?
We will make it up to him.
Toll! Let him never guess
What work we set him to.
Laurel, laurel, yes;
He did what we bade him do.
[Pg 25] Praise, and never a whispered hint but the fight he fought was good;
Never a word that the blood on his sword was his country's own heart's-blood.
A flag for the soldier's bier
Who dies that his land may live ”