Ada Langworthy Collier

“ Noblest the soul that self hath most forgot;
Strongest the self which hath most humbly wrought;
Purest the soul that in full light serene,
Unquestioning, enwrapt, God’s field doth glean.
I have seen worlds far hence; thy tender feet
Bleeding, will tread their stony ways. And sweet
Is love. And wedded love, grown cold and rude,
More bitter-seeming makes dull solitude.
Security is sweet; and light and warm
The young heart beats, close shut from every harm.”
“Yet,” Lilith answered slow, “in that still night
Ere He, the garden’s Lord, passed from our sight,
Hast thou forgot his words? ”

“ Red, baby lips can drain revenge, and start
Unbidden tears. And pity wakes to life
When ’mong dead embers she sits lone, and strife
Is done.
“Then, at Regret’s dull heels, lo, fast,
Retrieving follows. Happy days long past
She will recall. If so for love she yearn,
Back to her early home once more will turn,
Pardoning her wilful lord. And he again
Shall win the woman I so love, and fain
Would hold forever. Lilith, thou one balm
Of my lost soul in all this world! Shall calm
My sufferings, or love me, any one, save thee,
When thou in Adam’s arms forgettest me? ”

“ And through wild tumbling waves our sails to urge?”
“Yea, sweet is love,” she said, “and sweet to roam
By listless currents lulled; or ’mid the foam
Low dip our feathery oars,” she sighed, “yet sore
Is still the mother-heart that hears no more
The lisping tongues. And sad, when baby smiles
Have left it desolate. And baby wiles
Shall cheer it never more.”
“Yet,” Eblis said,
“Lilith, no longer mourn. For I have read
Upon a scroll as samite glistening white,
All coming fate, close hid from human sight,
Great peoples yet shall dwell in these dusk lands. ”

“ Ah, Lilith, sure the love that basely weighs,
That stoops to count its gifts, and hoarding, says,
‘Such and so many, these indeed are mine;
I hold my treasure dear, nor covet thine;’
This is not love; ’tis Thrift in borrowed dress,
Deceiving thee. Love giveth free largess
With open hand, clean as the whitest day;
Yea, that it gave, forgetteth it straightway.
Beyond these walls dwells bliss that lives not here?
When thou hast bartered peace, outshining clear
And storm-tossed wide, art wildly driven hence,
The outer world gives thee no recompense. ”

“ Till Eblis wrathful cried: “Because this Eve
Adam holds dear, art mourning? Still dost yearn
To mate his sordid soul? Or wouldst thou turn
From summer land to Eden walls?
“The man
Belike, ne’er loved thee. So is it young Eve can
His pulses sway. Is she not passing fair?
Her fancies wild, it is her daily care
To bend beneath his ever fickle will.
Red-lipped and soft, she deftly rules him still,
Though he wist not. Yet sweeter Lilith’s frown
Than archest smile she wears. Great Soul! The crown
Thou bearest of fadeless life. ”

“ When dwelt a prince discrowned, well satisfied?
And fallen, loving, still art thou a prince,
And otherwhiles might sorrow bring me, since
It might hap thou wouldst much desire her realm,
Were Lilith thine; for princes seize the helm
When Love lies moored, and bid the shallop seek
Across the waves new lands. But Love is weak,
And so, alas, the craft upon the sands
Is dashed, while one, on-looking, wrings her hands.
Such days I have outlived. Like Adam, thou
Perchance will seek to bind the loosed. Then how
(If one hath drunken wine of liberty)
Shall she, athirst, rejoice ”

“ Close, close in her strong arms she bears my babe, smiling;
She hath sucked the soft bloom from the lips of my dead.
Now far speeds the vampire, with yellow-gold hair—
Oh! lullaby, baby—of Lilith beware!
Art frighted, my baby? Nay, then, thy mother
Low singing enfolds thee all safe from the snare;
Afar flit the Elf-babes ’mid gray, misty shadows,
Afar flees the temptress with yellow-gold hair. ”

“ So Lilith backward turned to holier days,
Watching through misty tears where trod those ways
Her feet in other times.
Sudden and sweet
Came down those paths a glimpse of flying feet;
A sound of girlish laughter smote the air.
In jealous rage, Lilith uprose to dare
The guarding Angel’s wrath. But, silver clear,
The mocking laugh of Eblis caught her ear.
“Thou hast forgot,” he said, “this peaceful land,
Living, thou canst not enter.”
But her hand
Grasped once again the roses’ shining strand,
[72] And ’neath her guileful touch, like scarlet flame
The snowy flowers burned. ”

“ The English mother o’er her babe sings low;
Where red the cross burns on the ivied fane,
Unwitting, pagan Lilith lives again—
[104] And softer sings, nor feels the wailing pain
Still faintly surging through that low refrain;
Nor dreams she hears Love’s early cradle cry
Slow echoing through Earth’s song—sweet lullaby—
And in the shadow of that cross, her strain
Breathes sweetly; love, and hope, and ended pain.
Softlier while that small arm closely clings
About her heart, that mother peaceful sings:
O babe, my babe, the light doth fade! ”

“ And Lilith’s bitter loss and olden pain
O’er every cradle wake that sweet refrain.
[98] My memory still shall bloom. It cannot die
While rings Earth’s cradle-song—sweet lullaby.”
Slow passed dim cycles by, and in the earth
Strange peoples swarmed; new nations sprang to birth.
Then first ’mong tented tribes men shuddering spake
Dread tales of one that moved, an unseen shape,
’Mong chilling mists and snow. A spirit swift,
That dwelt in lands beyond day’s purple rift.
Phantom of presage ill to babes unborn,
Whose fast-sealed eyes ope not to earthly morn. ”

“ Lilith comes!
Listen, my babe!
See how the dusk pines
Tremble and crouch;
Over wide wastes borne, white are the snow-wreaths blown,
And loud the drear icy fjords shudder and moan;
Lilith comes!
Listen, my babe!
Ah! Hear the wild din,
Fierce o’er the linn,
The sea-gull, affrighted, soars seaward away,
And dark on the shores falls the wind-driven spray;
Lilith comes!
Listen, my babe!
The shuddering ice
Shivers. It cracks!
[100] Like a wild beast in pain, it cries to the wrack
Of the storm-cloud overhead. The sea answers back—
Dread Lilith comes!
Listen, my babe! ”

“ Dawned on her cheeks; and blue as in lone dells
Sleep the Forget-me-nots, her eyes. With bent
Brows, sullen-creased, swart Adam gazed intent
Upon a leopard, crouched low in its place
Beneath his feet. Not once in Lilith’s face
He looked, nor sought her wistful, downcast eyes
With shifting shadows dusk, and strange surprise.
“O, Love,” she said, “no more let us contend!
So sweet is life, anger, methinks, should end. ”

“ Lilith, doth not indeed my love outweigh
Caresses missed from phantom babes? Astray
From Eden long, here in this fair domain
To bide; and through long cycles fearless reign
[63] Methinks were joy. In summer sheen
Wide spreads thy land. The marge of islets green
The palm-trees skirt. Soft shine the dusk lagoons
And inland mountains. Mirk the jungle’s glooms,
And fair thy fertile plains. Oh, sweet the glow
When we together watch the day, that low
Among the winds lies still. Shut lilies blow
While here we wait. Come, for they fain would show
Their golden hearts. ”

“ Or gray-green spikes that glow, dull on the sands.
Fain would I pluck, out-reaching eager hands,
Save that a marvel grows of ruddier rind
Out-flinging fruity breath upon the wind,
Beneath harsh spines half-hid. Nor drains
My wilful spouse such nectars fine. Nor gains
His patient care the fruitage rare, these plains
That heaps unheeded. Nay, nor bearded grains
Golding this goodly land, where Lilith reigns.”
So passed the glad years on, and o’er her home—
Its woods and mountains, its clear streams—to roam,
She loved. The inmost throb of Nature’s heart
She felt amid the grass. ”

“ Calm morn in Eden streaked the skies with red,
And flushed the waiting hills above the grassy bed
Where Adam, joyless, saw new rise the sun,
Unwinding golden webs night-vapors spun
Athwart low meads. Slow, droning murmurs sent
The waking bees, with bloom and fragrance blent.
[74] Unheeded poured her music blithesome Day
The reedy brooks beside and shallows gray.
For lone to Adam seemed the place, and cold;
The landscape dumb, as one aneath the mould.
For Lilith’s sake, no more was Eden fair. ”

“ As Eblis pushed aside the bent boughs light.
“O dame,” he said, “it seemeth surely meet
Earth’s richest gifts to lay at Lilith’s feet;
Therefore I said ‘unto the fairest one,
Things loveliest beneath the shining sun
I bring.’ Since of all crafts in this young earth
I am true master, unto her whose worth
So much deserves, I bear this marble sphere,
Whose hollowed husk, well polished, gleaming clear,
Hides rarest fruit.” ”

“ Yet ere she touched it, wide its wings outspread
In flight.
And still she, swift pursuing, sped
Among the groves, till wearied, slept the maid
Deep in the mid-day shadows, lowly laid.
Without, stooped Lilith. And with fingers swift,
Among the leaves she oped a small green rift,
That she might see the child. The hedge was wet
With starry blooms. Whereto her hand she set
When she awaked, seeing each dainty frond
Of fragrant ferns, dusk mirrored in the pond.
The child came near the copse, much wondering:
From glossy stems the smooth leaves sundering. ”

“ On its cold, fair surface, Eblis, canst thou
Such branches carve, or tender fronds, that we
Bright waving on the cocoa, these may see?”
And Eblis wrought till grew upon the stone
Such airy boughs as on the cocoa shone.
Then Lilith cried: “Skilled craftsman, proven thou!
Didst thou, then, make my cocoa-tree? Thy bough
Pale graven give the grace of its green crown
When through it night winds gently slip adown. ”

“ Thereat smiled Eblis bitterly. “I bring
One parting gift,” he said, “a dainty thing;
Perchance in other time it will recall
One who strove long and patiently through all
These days to win thy praise.” An oval plane
Of crystal gave he her; of fleck or stain
Clear-gleaming. Of ivory carven fine
The frame. And when she looked, “Divine,”
He laughed, “the beauty it enshrines. Canst claim
Aught else is fairer?” And Lilith again
Gazed in the glass, her face beholding there,
Her pink flushed cheeks, her yellow streaming hair. ”

“ Lo thine lay barren in the sand. Quick mine
Upspringing sifts o’er pale blooms odors fine:
Hateful thy chidings grow; each breeze doth bring
[16] Ever thy plaints—thy fretful murmuring.
These many days I weary of thy sighs;
Know, Lilith, I alone rule Paradise.”
Thereat he rose, and quick at every stride
The fawning leopard gambolled at his side.
So fell the first dark shadow of Earth’s strife.
With coming evil all the winds were rife.
Lone lay the land with sense of dull loss paled. ”

“ Pallid his face, and red
His smileless lips. “Who art thou?” Lilith said,
And faint a hidden pain her hot heart stirred,
When low, and rarely sweet, his voice she heard.
She looked, half-pleased—and half in strange surprise
Shrank ’neath the gaze of those wild, starry eyes.
“Oh, dame,” the stranger said, “where waters leap
Bright glancing down, I rested oft, where steep
Thy Eden o’er, bare-browed, a peak uprose.
Naught craving bloom or fruitage—nay, nor those
Frail joys Adam holds dear. One only boon
I sought of all his heritage. Fair ’neath the moon
I saw thee stand ”

“ Hath grasped the noblest fame; nor yet divine
Whose brows enwound with honor, brightest shine.
In pleasant labor lurks no thought of pain;
The greatest loss oft brings the noblest gain;
The heart’s warm pulse feels not one throb of strife,
And Love is holiest crown of human life. ”

“ Lilith yet fiercer clasped the child
When that lorn mother, tear-stained, weeping, wild,
Poured forth her woe.
As one that wakes to life
From peaceful dreams, leaps quick amid the strife
Of morning hours, so now the maid to pass
From Lilith’s arms strove hard. And loosed her clasp,
[88] And turned her shadowed face with plaintive moan
And fond beseeching eyes, where lay her mother lone. ”