74
ALICE: AN ADULTERY
Cold and inténse ; the one-and-twentieth day
They drew my life out, one exceeding
stress,
Volcanic anguish !—Here’s the strange
€XCESS:
I called, ere waking, on the name
Eheteh !
Solve me the riddle of the dream who can !
That night I sought a new toy for a lure,
And she would not: but knew how hard
to endure |
Is love like ours, the love of purity.
So she: “ Dispute it like a man!” and I:
“* But I must also feel it as a man!”
Note. Eheieh is the Hebrew for ‘‘I] am that
Iam.” Its numerical value is 21. I was not
aware at the time that this was the 21st day.—
AUTHOR.!
THE TWENTY-SECOND DAY.
‘*T’ll have her: but I will not keep her long.”
Richard Ill,
IT was impossible that she should come
Over the leagues of summer-coloured sea
Alone with love and laughter. and tears
and me
To the toy land ? of the chrysanthemum,
Where. all the flowers lack scent, the birds
are dumb,
The fruits are tasteless :
jewelled lea
And all the many-leavéd greenery
Is dwarf: French gem-work on a baby’s
thumb.
where the
The Yankee God frowned also on the plan.
We had enough, no more. But I insist,
Still thinking I was master of my heart:
Saying, ‘ Another month to be a man,
Another month to kiss her and be kissed,
And then—all time to Magic and to
Art!”
1 That is, the imaginary author.
2 Japan. 3 The dollar.
THE TWENTY-THIRD DAY.
‘* He has strangled
His language in his tears.”
K. Hen, VII.
My comedy has changed its blithe aspect
To bitterest face of tragedy ; she said:
‘*Alas! O soul of mine! I am surely
dead,
Seeing my life is by a‘serpent wrecked
Of sore disease: but spare me, and reflect
That in few months I die: but were I
* wed—
O lover! O desire discomfited !
I die at once: consider, and elect.”
How could I otherwise than spare my wife?
With tender lips and fingers one strong
kiss
Swooned slave-wise even before the gate
of bliss,
No more: for I rose up and cursed my life,
Hating the God that made us to dissever
So soon so sweet a love, and that for ever,
Ut, Canc. sublatum iri dixisse.
Vae Capri-
corno!! (Author's Note.)
THE TWENTY-FOURTH DAY.
‘She having the truth of honour in her, hath
made him that gracious denial which he is
most glad to receive,”
Measure for Measure.
OF course I might have known it was a lie.
Nathless, I wept all morning and de-
spaired.
Nothing for any life of earth I cared,
Neither for heaven: I railed against the
sky,
1 This intentionally obscure note means that
she said she had cancer. Now Capricorn; the
opposite to Cancer in the Zodiac, is called ‘* the
symbol of gross passion.”