Nevermore

“ And the sunlight burned the blue, much-beaded tepee of the sky, and left it black; and as it burned and blackened, burned and blackened, he who dreamed the strange dream found no pleasure in the ways of men. Only in gazing upon the round moon did he find pleasure. And when even this was hidden from him for many nights and days he went about with drooping head, and an ache was in his eyes.
And in these days he made wild songs; for never do the happy ones make songs—they only sing them. ”

“ All sense, all measure of anything, could only leave one—leave one indifferent and dumb. There was nothing to be done—the show was upside-down. John Northmore was immortal and Warren Hope was damned. And for herself, she was finished. She was beaten. She leaned thus, motionless, muffled, for a time of which, as I say, she took no account; then at last she was reached by a great sound that made her turn her veiled head. It was the report of the appearance of Lady Northmore's volumes. ”

“ Hope really felt how beautiful her own chance would now have been and how sweet her revenge. The success of her volumes, for the inevitability of which nobody had had an instinct, would have been as great as the failure of Lady Northmore's, for the inevitability of which everybody had had one. ”

“ I felt queer again and a little scared while I sat there all alone with the old man in his tepee, and maybe a ghost behind me that he was seeing. When he had looked at me that way for a long time and I wanted to get up and run away, he said: ‘This is a sacred thing you are doing, and if the heart is not good something very bad will happen. But do not be afraid, for I have seen into your heart. Already you have fed old people, and you want to be a man they all praise. While you were in the sweat-lodge your father came to me, and he will help you on the hill. ”

“ There, on her couch, in all the artless grace of slumber, lay the only being on earth whom he loved. One faultless arm was hidden beneath the pillow, the other half shadowed her face, and bore a glossy veil of flaxen curls. Her ruby lips were apart, as though she had fallen asleep while yet the evening prayer was on her tongue. Dimly streamed the light of the swinging lamp upon the human temple of purity, and Hermann, the Demented, wept like an artless child. ”

“ And the woman moaned, saying: “He will not take me, and the dream will be true. Never on the [218] long trail did my heart fail; but now I am weak. My breast aches.”
But the man said: “Sun Eyes, had not Rain Walker ever a soft heart? He will take you back. Look!”
And the woman, who had been gazing through tears upon the village of her people, turned and saw that the man had torn the buckskin from his face. She gave a cry and shrank from what she saw.
But the man took her gently by the hand.
“He will take you back,” he said; “dreams are wiser than men!” ”

“ I sat alone much, and as I sat alone, I had big thoughts. I said: ‘This that I have seen was a dream thing. It is gone; and I cannot find the sleep trail that leads to it again. [247] Therefore, I will do as others. I will take a woman of my own people. I will eat again; for this dream has only made me thin.’
“So I made a young woman of my people glad. I took her into my lodge. But even through the time of driving snows, I smelled the smell of spring. Mignon! Mignon! I heard the rain winds singing in the first leaves! Mignon! Mignon! I heard the sighing of summer waters! Mignon! Mignon! ”

“ Nay, so awful was the stillness that brooded over this valley of death, that it seemed as if the motion of the earth on its axis must be audible, and the pulses of his temples were to his tortured ear like the roaring of the distant sea.
Venturing forth, he groped his way from grave to grave, from vault to vault, from corridor to corridor, but no light, no sound, no hope! Ever denser seemed the darkness, ever deeper the silence, ever more appalling the gloom. ”

“ Tell me what I must do, that you and I may make our heaven here—as now, my dear love."
"I will tell you to-morrow," she said. "Be alone here to-morrow night—twelve is ghost's time, isn't it?—and then I will come out of the picture and never go back to it. I shall live with you, and die, and be buried, and there will be an end of me. But we shall live first, my heart's heart." ”

“ Hope, I have hunted high and low and have found nothing whatever. My husband evidently, before his death, destroyed everything. I'm so sorry—I should have liked so much to help you. Yours most truly.' This was all Lady Northmore wrote, without the grace of an allusion to the assistance she herself had received; though even in the first flush of amazement and resentment our friend recognised the odd identity of form between her note and another that had never been written. ”

“ With starry grief, and men unborn shall sing
The mournful measure of the Ancient King!
50I’ll write an ode! (He stands for a moment, glorified with the thought.)
Great heart of Nero, strung
Harplike, endure till this last song be sung,
Then break—then break— (Turns and mounts the steps.)
Oh Fate, to be a bard!
The way is hard, the way is very hard! (A dim outburst of laughter from the revellers in the distance.) ”

“ Huge nerves to suffer, and a neck to choke—
That woman were Poppaea! I would rear
About the timeless sea, my mother’s bier,
A sky-roofed desolation groined with awe,
Where, nightly drifting in the stream of law,
The vestal stars should tend their fires, and weep
To hear upon the melancholy deep
That shipless wind, her ghost, amid the hush!
Alas! I have but one white throat to crush
With these world-hungry fingers! (From behind Nero, enter Page—a little boy—bearing a goblet of wine on a salver. Nero turns, startled.)
57Ah!—You!—You!
Page
I bring wine, mighty Caesar. ”

“ Why shouldn't he make his letters pay in death as he had made them pay in life? Such as they were they had paid. They would be a tremendous success. She thought again of her husband's rich, confused relics—thought of the loose blocks of marble that could only lie now where they had fallen; after which, with one of her deep and frequent sighs, she took up anew Lady Northmore's communication.
His letters to Warren, kept or not kept, had never so much as occurred to her. Those to herself were buried and safe—she knew where her hand would find them ”

“ Touch of the hand and a fall of the feet!
Voice that was coo of the dove and a cry
Heard in the night when the seraphim meet!
Sometimes I fancy Gehenna's abyss
Gleams with a light that is love; and I feel
Lips on my lips in the tenderest kiss,
Making hell heaven: as though the appeal
Sent from my soul to Pomona had gained
Heart and the whole of her throned on a star,
Where for an son of bliss she hath reigned
Lonely for Dives so lost and afar!
Lazarus! Nearer! The light on thy face
Shines through the dark! Oh, what glory is thine! ”

“ The poison has been proved—the hand is sure:—he shall die!—and Nevers—the hated Nevers, whose life I dare not attempt, shall feel my deadly revenge—nor shall any thing stop my vengeance! I shall make my country bleed in--" He stopped, as if exhausted by his fury and revenge.
During the time that the King was speaking, the lady drew from her bosom a phial filled with bright red liquor, and gave it to the Negerss, who rubbed the temples of the King of Navarre with it; after which he sat as if transfixed to the tripod. ”

“ The reviewers observed a decorum, but, frankly, when one came to look, their stupefaction matched her own. What she had taken in the morning for enthusiasm proved mere perfunctory attention, unwarned in advance and seeking an issue for its mystification. The question was, if one liked, asked civilly, but it was asked, none the less, all round: 'What could have made Lord Northmore's family take him for a letter-writer?' Pompous and ponderous, yet loose and obscure, he managed, by a trick of his own, to be both slipshod and stiff. ”

“ She drew up a list of these persons and immediately wrote to them or, in cases in which they had passed away, to their widows, children, representatives; reminding herself in the process not disagreeably, in fact quite inspiringly, of Lady Northmore. It had struck her that Lady Northmore took, somehow, a good deal for granted; but this idea failed, oddly enough, to occur to her in regard to Mrs. Hope. It was indeed with her ladyship she began, addressing her exactly in the terms of this personage's own appeal, every word of which she remembered. ”

“ But the beauty of the evening—of this old earth, which takes no account of the perishing of men—and Nelly's warm life beside him, hanging upon his, perhaps already containing within it the mysterious promise of another life, had suddenly brought upon him a tremor of soul—an inward shudder. ”

“ Mrs. Northmore was seated on the cool veranda with her hands in her lap, and that look of tired content which tells of a busy but successful day. A generous hospitality had left her a little worn. Esther sat down on the step at her feet and leaned her arms across her lap in a childish fashion she had never outgrown.
“I wish I didn’t get so tired of people whom I really like,” she said. “It would break Aunt Milly’s heart if she knew how she bores me. It seems to me sometimes I get tired of everybody—everybody but you, mother dear.”
Mrs. Northmore looked into her daughter’s eyes with a smile. ”

“ Sir Nevil said rather huskily. "You ought to sleep sound in there. Don't dream."
"But I love to dream," said Roy; and his father laughed.
"You're not so staggeringly changed inside! As sure as a gun, you'll be late for breakfast!"
And he did dream. The moment his lids fell—she was there with him, under the beeches, their sanctuary—she who all day had hovered on the confines of his spirit, like a light, felt not seen. There were no words between them, nor any need of words; only the ineffable peace of understanding, of reunion.... ”

“ While Falling Star was looking, he saw a little tepee made of old skins patched together; so that is where he went. And when he lifted the flap an old, old man and an old, old woman were sitting inside with their chins on their breasts. When the old man lifted his head to look, it was shaking, and he said, ‘Hun-hun-hi, here is my grandson! Sit down.’ When the old woman lifted her head to look, it was shaking too, and she said, ‘It is good that you came, my grandson, for the people are all starving. I can see that you are Falling Star.’ And the old man said, ‘It is true. We are all starving. ”

“ His face had the look of much pain; his hands gripped at the wet grass. And the lonesome one looked long upon the dead man, thinking deep thoughts. “Even the dead have pain,” he said, “and they seek to hold to the good earth. See how he clutches it! I shall live and follow my trail, for on all trails there is pain; and Wakunda wishes me to live.”
So he dressed himself in the garments of the dead warrior who needed them no more. He threw away the smoke-flap, and in a gully that roared with rapid waters, he washed the smutch from his forehead—the mud of dust and tears. ”

“ Never was hold upon earthly treasure more reluctantly relinquished than was my hope of possessing Velma. Surely, death could not erect so absolute a barrier. There must be a way—some loophole of communication―some chance for a disembodied man to contend with his corporal rival for a woman's love. ”

“ And while she read, Nevil stood at his easel, seizing and recording, the unconscious grace of her pose, the rapt stillness of her face. He was never weary of painting her—never quite satisfied with the result; always within an ace of achieving the one perfect picture that should immortalise a gleam from her inner uncaptured loveliness—the essence of personality that eternally foils the sense, while it sways the spirit. ”

“ La Nébuleuse is a poem of lovely and deep perspective, where, symbolized by artless beings, are seen the successive generations of men following each other uncomprehendingly, almost undiscerningly, so different are their souls, and always summed up, to the moment of their decline, by the child, the future, the "nebula," whose birth, finally confirmed, brings death, under its morning clearness, to the faded smiles of the aged stars. ”

“ As a child Lord Northam had had peculiar dreams when sleeping in the older parts of the castle, and had acquired a constant habit of looking back through his memory for half-amorphous scenes and patterns and impressions which formed no part of his waking experience. He became a dreamer who found life tame and unsatisfying; a searcher for strange realms and relationships once familiar, yet lying nowhere in the visible regions of earth. ”

“ Thunder slept in her face. And her hair seemed as a black cloud that blows up angrily out of the hot south!
“She went to the tepee; she made ready to go; and all the while I watched with fires in my breast. Then suddenly she turned upon me—her face was a flame. She flung words at me: ‘You are all the same!’ She spit in my face! I have been struck in the teeth by strong men, but never have I felt so hard a blow. I sat as a man in a dream. I heard the angry song of her skirts as she fled up the back-trail. And then I was as one who wakens with a great hunger, and smells raw meat! ”

“ Then like a faint wail of winds toiling up a wooded bluff, his thunder song began.
The drone and whine of the mysterious, untranslatable words pierced the drowse of the day, lived for a moment with the echoes of the drums among the surrounding hills, and languished from a whisper into silence. At intervals the old man raised his face, radiant with fanatic ecstasy, to the meridian glare of the sun, and the song swelled to a supplicating shout.
Faster and faster the old man moved about the circle; louder and wilder grew the song. ”