登陆注册
5451800000007

第7章

Eros TurannosShe fears him, and will always ask What fated her to choose him;She meets in his engaging mask All reasons to refuse him;But what she meets and what she fears Are less than are the downward years, Drawn slowly to the foamless weirs Of age, were she to lose him.

Between a blurred sagacity That once had power to sound him, And Love, that will not let him be The Judas that she found him, Her pride assuages her almost, As if it were alone the cost.--He sees that he will not be lost, And waits and looks around him.

A sense of ocean and old trees Envelops and allures him;Tradition, touching all he sees, Beguiles and reassures him;And all her doubts of what he says Are dimmed of what she knows of days --Till even prejudice delays And fades, and she secures him.

The falling leaf inaugurates The reign of her confusion;The pounding wave reverberates The dirge of her illusion;And home, where passion lived and died, Becomes a place where she can hide, While all the town and harbor side Vibrate with her seclusion.

We tell you, tapping on our brows, The story as it should be, --As if the story of a house Were told, or ever could be;We'll have no kindly veil between Her visions and those we have seen, --As if we guessed what hers have been, Or what they are or would be.

Meanwhile we do no harm; for they That with a god have striven, Not hearing much of what we say, Take what the god has given;Though like waves breaking it may be, Or like a changed familiar tree, Or like a stairway to the sea Where down the blind are driven.

Old Trails(Washington Square)

I met him, as one meets a ghost or two, Between the gray Arch and the old Hotel.

"King Solomon was right, there's nothing new,"Said he."Behold a ruin who meant well."He led me down familiar steps again, Appealingly, and set me in a chair.

"My dreams have all come true to other men,"Said he; "God lives, however, and why care?

"An hour among the ghosts will do no harm."He laughed, and something glad within me sank.

I may have eyed him with a faint alarm, For now his laugh was lost in what he drank.

"They chill things here with ice from hell," he said;"I might have known it." And he made a face That showed again how much of him was dead, And how much was alive and out of place,And out of reach.He knew as well as IThat all the words of wise men who are skilled In using them are not much to defy What comes when memory meets the unfulfilled.

What evil and infirm perversity Had been at work with him to bring him back?

Never among the ghosts, assuredly, Would he originate a new attack;Never among the ghosts, or anywhere, Till what was dead of him was put away, Would he attain to his offended share Of honor among others of his day.

"You ponder like an owl," he said at last;"You always did, and here you have a cause.

For I'm a confirmation of the past, A vengeance, and a flowering of what was.

"Sorry? Of course you are, though you compress, With even your most impenetrable fears, A placid and a proper consciousness Of anxious angels over my arrears.

"I see them there against me in a book As large as hope, in ink that shines by night.

For sure I see; but now I'd rather look At you, and you are not a pleasant sight.

"Forbear, forgive.Ten years are on my soul, And on my conscience.I've an incubus:

My one distinction, and a parlous toll To glory; but hope lives on clamorous.

"'Twas hope, though heaven I grant you knows of what --The kind that blinks and rises when it falls, Whether it sees a reason why or not --That heard Broadway's hard-throated siren-calls;"'Twas hope that brought me through December storms, To shores again where I'll not have to be A lonely man with only foreign worms To cheer him in his last obscurity.

"But what it was that hurried me down here To be among the ghosts, I leave to you.

My thanks are yours, no less, for one thing clear:

Though you are silent, what you say is true.

"There may have been the devil in my feet, For down I blundered, like a fugitive, To find the old room in Eleventh Street.

God save us! -- I came here again to live."We rose at that, and all the ghosts rose then, And followed us unseen to his old room.

No longer a good place for living men We found it, and we shivered in the gloom.

The goods he took away from there were few, And soon we found ourselves outside once more, Where now the lamps along the Avenue Bloomed white for miles above an iron floor.

"Now lead me to the newest of hotels,"

He said, "and let your spleen be undeceived:

This ruin is not myself, but some one else;I haven't failed; I've merely not achieved."Whether he knew or not, he laughed and dined With more of an immune regardlessness Of pits before him and of sands behind Than many a child at forty would confess;And after, when the bells in `Boris' rang Their tumult at the Metropolitan, He rocked himself, and I believe he sang.

"God lives," he crooned aloud, "and I'm the man!"He was.And even though the creature spoiled All prophecies, I cherish his acclaim.

Three weeks he fattened; and five years he toiled In Yonkers, -- and then sauntered into fame.

And he may go now to what streets he will --Eleventh, or the last, and little care;

But he would find the old room very still Of evenings, and the ghosts would all be there.

I doubt if he goes after them; I doubt If many of them ever come to him.

His memories are like lamps, and they go out;Or if they burn, they flicker and are dim.

A light of other gleams he has to-day And adulations of applauding hosts;A famous danger, but a safer way Than growing old alone among the ghosts.

But we may still be glad that we were wrong:

He fooled us, and we'd shrivel to deny it;Though sometimes when old echoes ring too long, I wish the bells in `Boris' would be quiet.

The UnforgivenWhen he, who is the unforgiven, Beheld her first, he found her fair:

No promise ever dreamt in heaven Could then have lured him anywhere That would have been away from there;And all his wits had lightly striven, Foiled with her voice, and eyes, and hair.

同类推荐
  • 瘴疟指南

    瘴疟指南

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 普济本事方

    普济本事方

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 支诺皋上

    支诺皋上

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 和东观群贤七夕临泛

    和东观群贤七夕临泛

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 佛说观普贤菩萨行法经

    佛说观普贤菩萨行法经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 龙与少年游:江南随笔精选

    龙与少年游:江南随笔精选

    这是江南写作12年来首部集结出品的叙事散文集,讲述江南本人所见多年来的身边故事。一个作者哪能写尽世上的所有人呢?写来写去,写的还是自己和自己身边的人,无论孤独还是野心,都有自己人生某个侧面的写照。这是我的局限和浅薄,但也是我的真诚。——by江南
  • 答净土

    答净土

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 天生幸运儿

    天生幸运儿

    云泥大概是世界上最可怜的孩子了,五岁知道自己其实是孤儿,六岁魔法测试中感应不到魔法,七岁魔宠召唤中连一根草都不愿意当自己的魔宠,呜呜,哥哥姐姐们又一个比一个厉害,但是,为什么大家都这么喜欢她呢。姐姐哥哥无微不至的关心,妈妈时时刻刻的爱护,走到哪儿都是贵人,魔兽也是难得地改吃素了。什么叫天生幸运儿,无敌可爱云泥是也!能让神度折服的魔力!
  • 清穿之四爷的嫡福晋

    清穿之四爷的嫡福晋

    海瑶是女刑警,清穿当上皇四子奕詝的嫡福晋。哎,去跟慈安、慈禧等四爷的女人抢老公了!四爷行事却如无赖泼皮,跟后宫嫔妃过不去,跟兄弟打架,整治自己的女人、还跟皇阿玛怄气……这么过份,皇位你不想要了吗?“立正、稍息、向右转,排队去向四爷请安!”海瑶这刑警嫡福晋以铁腕手段管理四爷那些娇滴滴又有手段的女人。不过,傲娇的四爷跟穿越过来的女刑警海瑶虽然经常吵嘴,还是有共同语言的,推理约在热炕上……
  • 心素如简

    心素如简

    虽然常常会听到希望人生若只是初度的话语,可是当一个深深爱过的人在你的生命中——只是飘浮如一片黄叶,那么,这份爱的执拗还要不要进行下去?当名教授之女关心素偶遇商贾世家的简庭涛,从萍水相逢,到矛盾重重,再到两情相悦直至走进婚姻的殿堂,看似平静美满的背后隐藏着层层危机:逝去的初恋男友,别有用心的第三者,和平淡生活中不可避免的种种猜忌、不满还有误会,他们终于选择劳燕分飞。岁月的手,拂过心间。相爱的人,淡如秋菊。兜兜转转间始终在人生转角处帕逢的他们,是破镜重圆,还呈命中注定从此陌路?
  • 神秘相公,娘子有喜了

    神秘相公,娘子有喜了

    他冷漠,他狂暴,只因他累积了十多年的恨。她本是孤女遭遇雪崩,穿越到陌生的地方,认识了冷若冰霜的他,她爱上了他的狂虐与野性,想化解他心中的恨与怨。然而,她需要怎样的勇气,一直面对终日带着铁面具残忍对待自己的男人……怎样的爱情,才能化解一个男人心中十四年的恨。
  • 花的寿命有多长

    花的寿命有多长

    "这是我国第一部“问答寓言集”。全书题目均以问话形式出现,然后以有趣的故事来揭开问题的谜底。以问话做题目,不仅激发起读者的好奇心,也强化了寓言题目的引人入胜之功能,让每一个题目看起来不再平淡如水、相互重复。给问答寓言插上科学的翅膀,把复杂的科学问题故事化、简明化,让读者在简明的故事中,明了轻松地领会科学奥妙。使每一篇寓言除了哲理、教训和讽喻以外,还有新的知识看点。收入全书的192篇问答寓言,新颖独特,精彩纷呈。"
  • The Schoolmistress and Other Stories

    The Schoolmistress and Other Stories

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 良相如此多娇:皇上请多多关照

    良相如此多娇:皇上请多多关照

    人一倒霉起来喝凉水都塞牙,那如果是一条修炼了几千年的蛇精?先是挖错了坟被个道士打掉了真身;然后是碰上个倒霉时间被吸进了其他空间;阴差阳错接了一个古怪丞相的身,还要跟着一个疑似断袖的皇上!就凭他长得和那个臭道士一模一样,她就不会待见他的!深陷阴谋算个啥?道士皇上,有本事就追上本蛇妖吧!【此文慢热,另有重口情节,小白莲慎入】【Q群:乌龙山庄:373813342】
  • 摆平坏男人

    摆平坏男人

    穿越女不都是应该风生水起呼风唤雨咩?为毛到她这里老天就揪住不放呢?什么!被逐出师门!什么!败家老爹挂了!什么!被贱男未婚夫劈腿!什么!讨债的上门!老天,能不能来个喜感点的戏码??老天:嗯,好吧。送个大神包养你要不要?O(∩_∩)O~~沐非烟:-_-|||~~