Collected Works (Vol. I)

156 THE MOTHER’S TRAGEDY CORA. Rest, sunny head! A little while to sleep, And then—perhaps the Mother in a dream May comfort you. A woman’s love is this To have one heart, an undivided love ; But Hers—division in the universe Makes multiple each part. Sweet Madeline, Believe me, She will come to maiden dreams, Bestow Her peace, and so direct the life That is not unto God unconsecrate For being dedicated unto love ! [#xzt MADELINE. Cora remains thinking. I was no bolder twenty years ago ! Time, Time, thou maker and destroyer both, Only in resurrection hast no part ! [ Broods, SPIRIT OF TRAGEDY (wth light enjoyment). How light and how agreeable, Paved pathway to the gate of hell! See how all virtues, graces, shine, Till woman half appears divine ! But I am waiting, watching still The treason of the powers of ill. Soft, moveless, as a tigress glides, Strange laughing devilry abides Its hour to poison. How they gloat, The fiends, upon her lips and throat ! They touch her heart, they speer/ her eyes, They linger on the lovely prize ! O dead she thought them! It is written: ‘¢ Eve’s heel is by the serpent bitten, His head she bruises.” No indeed ! Not woman, but the woman’s seed ! Hark ! in the cloak of ‘‘ Love of Truth” They whisper ‘‘ Memory of Youth” ; And, mindful of the deadliest sin, Hint: ‘‘ Sinful woman, look within !” 1 To search, with the idea of looking more deeply. The grotesque word is used to suggest the quaint inspection of the malicious goblins. CORA. Ah me! if she could look within a glass! With spells and pantacles? well fortified ! I have a glass whose bitter destiny No wizard may conjure. Arise ye there, Old hours of horror, clear by one and one, In the confused and tossing ocean, Where memory picks spar and spar from out The dreadful whirlpool hardly yet appeased, To join together in imagination The ship—the wreck! And yet I stand at last Secure in my unselfish love to them, Kepaid in mine own currency. I trust God hath made smooth the road beneath the hearse Of my forgetful age. All must be well. SPIRIT OF TRAGEDY (wzth sumbre joy). Mortals never learn from stories How catastrophe becomes ; How above the victor’s glories In the trumpets and the drums, And the cry of millions ‘‘ Master !”’ Looms the shadow of disaster. Every hour a man hath said ‘* That at least is scotched and dead.” Some one circumstance: ‘‘ At last That, and its effects, are past.” Some one terror—subtle foe !— ‘*T have laid that spectre low !” They know not, learn not, cannot calcu- late How subtly Fate 1 The crystal sphere is habitually used by clairvoyants and others for purposes of divina- tion. Such a globe should be ceremonially consecrated and vitalised. . 2 From say, all, a diminutive. The word thus means ‘‘a universe in little,’ It is usually a square or circle of vellum or other material, designed and painted appropriately to its purpose; aspirit is then evoked and com- manded to dwell therein, that it may do the required office.