Page:Maurine and Other Poems (1910).pdf/59

 PART VI

There was a week of bustle and of hurry; A stately home echoed to voices sweet, Calling, replying; and to tripping feet Of busy bridesmaids, running to and fro, With all that girlish fluttering and flurry Preceding such occasions.

Helen’s room Was like a lily-garden, all in bloom, Decked with the dainty robes of her trousseau. My robe was fashioned by swift, skilful hands— A thing of beauty, elegant and rich, A mystery of loopings, puffs and bands; And as I watched it growing, stitch by stitch, I felt as one might feel who should behold With vision trance-like, where his body lay In deathly slumber, simulating clay, His grave-cloth sewed together, fold on fold.

I lived with ev’ry nerve upon the strain, As men go into battle; and the pain, That, more and more, to my sad heart revealed Grew ghastly with its horrors, was concealed From mortal eyes by superhuman power, That God bestowed upon me, hour by hour. What night the Old Year gave unto the New The key of human happiness and woe, The pointed stars, upon their field of blue, Shone, white and perfect, o’er a world below, Of snow-clad beauty; all the trees were dressed In gleaming garments, decked with diadems, Each seeming like a bridal-bidden guest, Coming o’erladen with a gift of gems. The bustle of the dressing-room; the sound Of eager voices in discourse; the clang Of “sweet bells jangled”; thud of steel-clad feet That beat swift music on the frozen ground— All blent together in my brain, and rang A medley of strange noises, incomplete, And full of discords.

Then out on the night Streamed from the open vestibule, a light That lit the velvet blossoms which we trod,