ROLLA
Do YOU regret the age when, in majestic grace,
Fair heaven amid the gods made earth her dwell-
ing-place ;
When Venus Astarte, child of the mighty sea,
Rose from the bitter wave in virgin purity?
The time, when drifting nymphs lay on the
river's breast,
And with their wanton laughter vexed the lazy
rest
Of fauns stretched out to sleep upon the reedy
shore?
When in the pool Narcissus his fair image saw,
And when great Hercules eternal justice dealt,
Clad in his gory mantle of a lion's pelt;
When mocking satyrs swayed the leafy boughs
among,
Whistling a jeering echo to the traveler's song?
1
2 HOLLA
When all things were divine, even to human ills,
And fickle earth adored, where now she spurns
and kills;
When all on earth knew joy, surpassing words
to tell-
All save Prometheus who, deeply sinning, fell ?
And when oh, monstrous change! the earth
became the tomb
Of all man's pristine glory, all his primal bloom,
And northern hurricane, with devastating
breath,
Across Rome's ruins spread her winding-sheet of
death.
Would you restore the time when weary earth
emerged
From barbarism's curse, all newly cleansed and
purged,
Into a golden age of fair fertility,
And found again her long-lost juvenility?
Or sigh you for that age when our romances old,
First in the realms of earth, unfurled their wings
of gold;
When all our monuments, and acts of faith and
truth,
Wore still the virgin garb of pure and spotless
youth ;
When holy Jesus died that men might live again,
And earth was raised anew from depths of sin
and pain ;
HOLLA 3
When from o'er palace tow'r, or monastery wall,
Sign of eternal love, Christ's cross shone over
all?
When Strasburg and Cologne, St. Peter's, Notre
Dame,
Embodiments of faith, in their majestic calm
Intoned the Gloria of centuries new-born;
When famous deeds of hist'ry were conceived
and done;
When Life was fresh and young as early spring,
And Death, by Faith made fair, knew not its
sting?
Christ; I am not one of those who bend in
prayer
Within the solemn sanctu'ry of thy temples fair,
Kissing thy holy cross, and lifting pleading eyes
Up to thy peaceful Heav'n, beyond the azure
skies ;
Unbent I stand beneath the shadow of those
walls,
Where humbly on his knees the true believer
falls,
While murmurs, like the winds along a reedy
shore,
Arise from trembling lips that worship and
adore !
1 am not one, O Christ, who dwells within thy
fold;
Too late have I set foot within a world too old.
4 HOLLA
The earth has long outgrown her superstitious
youth,
And sought and found the things of a material
truth,
And 'mid the ruined temples of long-vanished
days
The phantom of her Faith in veiled silence stays.
Now wakes the human race from vain imagin-
ings,
And sees the hand of chance impelling earthly
things ;
And Jesus Christ, twice crucified and killed of
men,
From out his tomb divine issues not forth again.
Oh, thou, whose simple faith is pure and unde-
filed,
And who of Heav'n art still the loving, trustful
child,
Cling to thy holy symbols, cast them not away,
Nor grasp the impious creeds of this unfaithful
day.
Weep o'er the tomb of him who died the world
to save,
And on thy bended knees His tender mercy
crave.
For in this fallen age, who is there that would
give
His blood that man might drink, and turn from
death and live?
ROLLA 5
Within his awful tomb, with pale and livid brow,
Once more lies Lazarus ah, who will raise him
now!
What profits it to-day that, moved by heavenly
zeal,
Clad in his rags, St. Paul did to old Rome ap-
peal,
Reclaiming heathen souls, lifting a nation high
Out of the filth of crime and black debauchery?
Where now the perfumes rare of fallen Mag-
dalen ;
Where now the heavenly voice, once heard of
doubting men;
About whose head plays now the fiery aureole;
Where now the ardent fire faith kindled in each
soul?
Gone are they all! Oh, world, to thee again have
come,
In filthy habit dressed, the days of ancient Rome !
And Hope, once fruitful, lies with weary,
shrunken breast,
And takes in sad sterility her meed of rest.
II
In Paris, of the world that most notorious town
Of viciousness and sin, Jacques Rolla wore the
crown.
A gambler in the lowest dens of crime and in-
famy,
To noble impulses quite dead and lost was he.
6 ROLLA
Alone on Holla's life dark passions held their
sway,
Nor did he strive to check those passions' wilful
play;
Nay, more: as one who muses by a running
stream,
He smiling watched their course as in a chang-
ing dream.
His father, senile, weak, but of a noble birth,
A spendthrift, most unreasoning and nothing
worth,
Reared Rolla in the false belief that one day he
Would be the heir to wealth and golden luxury.
And when, at nineteen years, Jacques, by his
father's death,
Became untrammeled master of his every breath,
He, having learned no craft, profession, busi-
ness, art,
Lived on in luxury, nor strove with temp'rate
hand
To hoard the meager fortune left at his com-
mand.
'Tis said that Hercules, in weariness one day
Of endless toil, sat down where two paths forked
away ;
From one, fair Virtue stretched to him her
snowy arms,
While from the other Pleasure lured him with
her charms.
HOLLA 7
He followed Virtue; but to-day are vanished
quite
The paths where trod those nymphs with foot-
steps fleet and light.
Betwixt the two, now lost 'neath weeds and
mosses gray,
The ages, as they passed, have worn a broad
highway.
As, in approaching a great town, the trav'ler
sees
First of the city's life, its vilest dregs and lees,
So Youth, on entering life, greets first its dark-
est side,
Nor sees the halls of gold where Purity doth
bide.
By him fair modesty in foul corruption veiled,
In accents of delight is passionately hailed.
And men receive him not, until the mighty
sword,
That blade which, fired in heaven, was given him
by God
To guard his inmost soul from sin's most dread
attack,
Dragged in the filth of crime, is tarnished, foul,
and black.
Thus was't with Jacques, a youth of much in-
trinsic worth,
Whose better, nobler parts were strangled at
their birth;
8 HOLLA
In boldness and in haughtiness he walked the
world,
And customs and conventions to the winds he
hurled.
Making three separate purses of his fortune
small,
For each a year he gave, then vowed to end it
all;
Nor did he myst'ry make of this, his dread in-
tent,
But openly his gold in wildest pleasure spent.
And the world, smiling, cynical, and wise,
Beheld him run his course, nor, seeing, felt sur-
prise.
Ah, Holla! in thy armor dressed, of haughty
pride,
Who all life's truest worth thus blindly cast
aside,
For Happiness you sought amid the ways of
ruth,
Nor grasped her as she passed along the path
of Truth.
Like the wild desert mare, who, starved and
famishing,
Seeks madly on the plain the brackish, putrid
spring,
Wert thou. At last, despairing and with bitter
cries,
Amid the burning sands in agony she dies:
HOLLA 9
Nor sees the laden caravans that pass her by,
Bound for a fertile land, beneath a cloud-flecked
sky,
Where earth by gushing wells and blooming
fields is blest,
Whither, but humbly following, she had found
rest.
Out of what clay, O God, what strange, un-
wholesome dust,
Didst fashion him who spurns his honest share of
trust ;
Who from his duty's call doth ever swiftly flee,
Who finds in wealth alone unlicensed liberty?
Ill
Is it upon a form of marble, or of snow,
That yon dim, golden lamp doth shed its wav'-
ring glow,
Making the tender azure of the draperies
To shimmer like the leaves on waving aspen
trees?
Ah, no; snow is more pale, and marble far less
white ;
'Tis a fair, sleeping child that meets the won'-
dring sight;
And lighter than the sigh of sea-weeds bending
low
Beneath the ardent kiss of gentle winds that
blow,
10 HOLLA
Is the soft, childish sigh that from the maiden's
lips
Ofttimes, in sweet unconsciousness, all trembling
slips.
It is a child who lies beneath those draperies'
sheen,
Not yet a woman grown a maid of scarce
fifteen.
Fair is her immature and slender, girlish grace;
Love in her youthful heart has not yet found a
place.
She sleeps, while round her falls her long, luxu-
riant hair,
Covering as with a cloak her tender beauty rare ;
And close within her hand's weak and unstable
hold
Is clasped the cross suspended from a chain of
gold,
As if to prove that she had humbly knelt to
pray
Ere on her maiden couch thus slumbering she
lay.
She sleeps, and oh, behold that noble, candid
brow!
Pure as a limpid wave, white as the driven snow.
She sleeps. Ah, does not night make her fair
form more fair?
Do not the softened lights that 'round her gently,
stir,
HOLLA 11
Throw an enchanted glamour o'er her loveliness,
As though dark Night bent down with flut'ring
robe to press
Upon her sleeping form a lingering, light
caress?
The tread of priest beneath the monastery wall
No purer sentiments to human heart could call,
O virgin, than the sound of thy soft, fitful sigh,
That gently comes and goes, as in deep sleep
you lie.
Behold this chamber, fresh with air of purity!
Here stands in perfumed bloom a verdant
orange-tree ;
There, books, embroidery; yonder, a branch of
palm
Drops on an ancient crucifix its holy balm.
The spinning-wheel of Marguerite might fitly be
Sought in this maid'nly room of spotless purity.
Is it not true that Innocence, all fresh and un-
defiled,
Blesses the peaceful rest of a fair, sleeping child ;
And Beauty, bending low on white, seraphic
wings,
Guards its pure, tender soul, from foul and evil
things ?
Is it not true that Love, when in the maiden's
breast
With veiled glance, downcast, he pauses first to
rest,
12 HOLLA
Wears on his head a crown of pure, celestial
light?
An angel form is he, all wonderously bright!
What woman is't who sits beside you maiden
fair?
Is it your mother kind, who gently watches there,
And who the clock's swift hands consults with
anxious eyes
Who shakes her head to note, with fear, how fast
time flies?
What waits she for so late your father, gentle
one?
All, no; your father, child, has long been dead
and gone.
For whom that table spread, with steaming food
and wine?
Who, at this hour late, is coming here to dine?
Whoe'er it be, you sleep, nor watch for him,
Marie.
You sleep, and fair your dreams, and white as
purity.
Too young your tender heart, even in dreams,
to know
One am'rous thought, one kiss, or feel Love's
burning glow.
How comes it, then, O child, so innocent and
fair,
That the bleak rains of night have drenched thy
heavy hair?
ROLLA 13
Where wandered you beneath the black and
low'ring sky?
From perils of the night children like you should
fly-
Hark ! on the silence breaks the sound of laughter
wild;
Will it not wake from dreams the lovely, sleep-
ing child?
Ah, shame! A stranger hand the chamber-door
has burst
Oh, shield those girlish eyes from yonder sight
accurst !
A most revolting scene the doorway doth re-
veal
Women, disheveled, drunk, who down the pas-
sage reel!
Look down the corridor to yonder distant room:
See the disordered feast spread in the deep'ning
gloom!
Once more, 'mid moving lights that passing wax
and wane,
That laughter shrill! A door is closed! Silence
again.
Was it a horrid dream, fantastic, hideous, wild,
That threw its mantle 'curst about the sleeping
child?
Ah, woman! by her couch watching and waiting
there,
Say, 'tis a rare perfume that bathes thy
daughter's hair?
14 HOLLA
Say, that the rosy glow tinging her brow's pure
white,
Comes from her heart's warm blood, not from
chill blasts of night?
Listen! A step resounds upon the cold, dark
stone.
A knock is heard ; two forms, on which dim lights
are thrown,
Approach from out the deep and shadowy gloom.
'Tis thou,
Ah, haggard Holla, pale, and with disordered
brow!
O Faust, on that last night, so agonized, so grim,
When the dark angel bore you to the silence dim,
Did you not utter then your last anathema?
Or, quiv'ring at the sound of sacred chanting,
ah,
Did you not wildly strike, in your last blas-
phemy,
Your hoary head against the walls that sheltered
thee?
Upon your livid lips e'en then the poison hung,
And Death, your comrade dark in dreadful
works so long,
Passed out with thee upon the black and silent
tide,
Into the hopeless night of thy long suicide!
HOLLA 15
Over what ocean fair, what peaceful cave ob-
scure,
Blows there a breeze so soft, so perfumed, and so
pure,
So full of the sweet tears that from spring's eye-
lids start,
As the first breath of love that stirs a maiden's
heart ?
O Faust, grown old in sin, such gracious love
was thine,
Could it not warm thy soul with passion all
divine?
God gave to thee a boon, most holy and serene,
When to thy life he linked a maiden of fifteen.
Fifteen! Oh, age when o'er the verdant tree
of life
Blow pleasant winds with rare and balmy per-
fumes rife!
The age when woman at her first birthday came
out
Of God's almighty hand, girded and bound
about
With innocence as with a garment fresh and
pure !
O Eve, why kept you not that innocence secure?
O foolish Eve, to tear thy golden idol down,
To pluck the bursting bud ere yet the flower was
blown !
Alas! should heaven be given back to you once
more,
16 HOLLA
Again, thou wayward one, thou'dst lose it as
before ;
You know too well, frail child, that elsewhere
man adores;
Exiled with him, you'd be to those dark, doomed
shores,
Where, on his throbbing heart, with your last
trembling sigh,
You'd comfort him and bless, and, deeply loving,
die!
Across young Holla's brain what melancholy
thought
Passed, as his weary eyes the sleeping maiden
sought,
Or fiendish whisperings, low-breathed into his
ears,
Chilled all his blood and froze his heart with
nameless fears?
He knew that by his side, with fingers cold and
grim,
Stood Death, his mantle ready to envelop him.
Joy, youth, and fortune all for him were past
and dead,
And hope lay cold beneath the pall himself had
spread.
Three years of reckless pleasure, of sensuous de-
light,
Like to an airy dream, soon, soon would vanish
quite,
ROLLA 17
And as the song of bird that wings its distant
way,
Fades into silence with the dawn of coming
day.
Ah, solemn night of death, when to the groping
soul
God stretches tender hands to lead him to his
goal;
When sinners pray, and of forgiveness feel
secure ;
Who had defamed thee? ah, none but Holla,
sure.
He with grim arrogance thus miserably came
To spend this night, his last, within a house of
shame.
And she, that wretched child, that creature frag-
ile, slim,
Upon his open grave slept while awaiting him!
Eternal chaos, oh, to prostitute a child.
Were it not better far her form, so fair and
mild,
To gash with cruel knives? to wring that neck
of snow,
Or mask of burning lime to place upon that brow,
Than make of it the cloak of sin and vice most
foul,
Which have their home within the maiden's once
pure soul?
Like to a limpid stream, reflecting from afar
18 HOLLA
Bright flow'rs and waving trees and every pass-
ing star,
While hid beneath its waves are slime most black
and fell,
Where lurk the pois'nous germs that breed in
deepest hell.
And oh, what beauty still shines in her perfect
face.
What sweet fruit would have borne that flow'r
of radiant grace!
O Poverty, 'tis thou who art the courtesan ;
'Tis thou, who for this child a life of shame
began ;
This maid, whom Greece had cast Diana's altar
on.
Behold, she prayed last night, before she laid her
down-
Prayed, and to whom, ye gods? 'Tis thou, grim
tyrant gray,
To whom on bended knees she must most hum-
bly pray!
'Tis thou, who, whisp'ring in the night-wind
wild and bleak,
Low murm'ring to her mother, thus did'st vilely
speak :
" Thy daughter is a virgin fair she may be
sold;
A ready market waits her, and for thee much
gold."
ROLLA 19
Ah, for what fate had this poor child been given
bread,
And what malignant stars their fell light round
her shed?
Of some vile creature, haply, she was bred and
born?
But no behold that brow, fresh as the light of
dawn!
Poor girl! at fifteen years her senses slumbered,
Nor felt she the disgrace of the vile life she led.
'Twas not the love of gold, but helpless misery,
That urged her on a path from which she might
not flee.
And all she nightly earned from her nefarious
trade
She to her mother gave, to buy their daily bread.
Ah, women of the world, who live so merrily,
Who from all misery and woe quick turning,
swiftly flee,
Do you not pity her, you who with bolts secure
Your daughters' youthful lives, to keep them
fresh and pure?
You, for whose modesty the whole wide world
would vouch,
Yet who would hide a lover 'neath a husband's
couch,
You gild your private amours with poetic light,
Nor deem your hearts less pure, your flippant
souls less white;
20 HOLLA
And yet the specter Want ne'er stood beside your
bed,
And begged a kiss to pay him for a crust of
bread.
And thou, my century, oh, tell me, is it true
That all the shameful acts of viciousness you
do,
All time has done? Oh, river, flowing swiftly
on,
What hideous corpses float your murky breast
upon,
Drifting away to silence and old Earth per-
ceives
How men thus live and die, and murmurs not,
nor grieves,
Nor on her way across the vast and trackless sky,
Toward the eternal Father, doth she faster fly,
That humbly she, before the heavenly throne
above,
May crave the blessed aid of his all-chast'ning
love.
Ah, well, since so it is, arise, fair prostitute;
The pleading voice of Love within thy heart is
mute ;
Let the wine flow and sparkle, and the evening
wind
Rustle your curtains white! Dull care is cast
behind.
The night is beautiful. 'Tis I who for it pay.
ROLLA 21
Let's drink to Love and drunkenness. Come,
let's be gay!
Drink, and be happy. Fear? I know him not,
nor pain.
Come, let your burning kiss exhale the wine of
Spain.
Let's drink to time, to love, to life, to fleeting
breath.
Let's drink to gold, to night, to youth, the vine,
and death!
IV
Sleep you content, Voltaire, and does your hide-
ous smile
Flit o'er your fleshless skull in mockery the
while?
Your century was too young to read you, so
they say;
Our own must please you well your men are
born to-day!
The mighty edifice which your industrious hands
Worked with such zeal to undermine, no longer
stands.
'Tis fallen upon us! In its majestic place
No hand shall rear again a temple of such grace.
Death, whom you grimly courted, cynical Vol-
taire,
Had long to wait for you: time was there to
prepare
Your nuptial couch amid the silence of the tomb.
22 HOLLA
Come you not forth again from that deep, dread-
ful gloom,
To go alone to some deserted cloister, or
Knock with your bony hands at some old castle
door?
What do they tell you there, those silent, dreary
walls,
Those altars desolate, on which the sad light
falls,
And which your pois'nous breath for all eternity
Hath laid in ruins waste, hath blasted hope-
lessly?
How fare you, gaunt Voltaire, now that your
work is done?
Feel you a thrill of joy as it you brood upon?
If so, I bid you to the feast of good mine host.
Come, join the revelry, thou grim, unlovely
ghost !
Rise and come forth to-night, the glare and glit-
ter greet;
Sure some one dines, who'll give the great Com-
mander seat.
Hear you the sighs of those young, fair and
full of grace,
Who with dissembled love, heart pressed to heart,
embrace?
Youth, beauty, hope, to each her chast'ning
charm doth lend,
And, on beholding them, fair heaven should
descend
ROLLA 23
And bless their tender souls with glory from
above.
And yet ah, shame! alasl these children know
not love.
Where have they learned those words, so full
of holy charm,
Which only in the midst of tears and sacred
calm
Fair Pleasure has the right to murmur falt'-
ringly?
O woman, object strange of joy and misery,
Mysterious altar where, in blasphemy or prayer,
Is made the sacrifice most foul, or wond'rous
fair,
Tell me, in what far echo, in what atmosphere,
Dwell they, those nameless words, uttered with
smile or tear,
Which, through delirium alone, down countless
ages ring,
And which from Love's lips still are fondly
issuing?
Oh, sacrilege! no love, and yet two beings rare,
Two hearts as pure as gold, which angel-wings
might bear
Unto their God. No love! yet tears, and mur-
m'ring night,
And shiv'ring winds that sigh in the pale moon's
soft light,
24 HOLLA
And the whole quiv'ring world, in Pleasure's
glow grown bright,
And Love's sweet incense choked in heavy, per-
fumed air,
And downcast flasks from which pours wine of
vintage rare
And kisses numberless, and sweet words lightly
tossed,
Yet Love away, and, in his place, Love's grin-
ning ghost!
Ah, monastery walls, and cloisters pure and calm,
Dark, silent caves, 'tis you who know Love's
holy balm.
It is your cold, gray stones, your altars and your
walls,
On which Love's burning kiss ecstatically falls.
Oh, open wide your hearts, reveal your holy
treasure
To those two children fair, thus seeking sinful
pleasure.
Tell them how many stones must by their knees
be worn,
Ere in their wayward hearts such love as yours
is born.
See you, old Arouet, yon man with vigor blest,
Who covers with his kisses warm that lovely
breast ?
To-morrow's light will see his body in the tomb!
HOLLA 25
Dost envy him his joys? Oh, ancient scoffer,
come,
Be calm; no ray of hope now in his breast doth
dwell,
For he with eager eyes, Voltaire, hath read thee
well.
If incredulity a science is, why, then
Jacques might be classed among the scientific
men,
And with no fear or thought of sacrilege, you
might
Escort him, cynic, to your dusty tomb, to-night.
Think you that, if withheld by one faint thread
of faith,
He thus would come, to-night, to prostitute his
death?
His death! Or grant him but the faintest
thought that he,
By death, would pass into a place of misery
Would it not stay his hand, this thought of
punishment?
But now, he will not fear, nor turn from his
intent :
All smiling, he will raise the woman by his side,
And watch her gliding forth into dark space
so wide,
Bearing within her hands, into infinity,
To his dark, reckless heart, the precious golden
key.
26 ROLLA
And this, behold, is your creation, Arouet!
A man can die like this only since yesterday.
When Brutus, from amid the ruins of his fame,
Exclaimed, " O Virtue, thou art but an empty
name! "
He blasphemed not. His glory and repute had
fled;
His dream had passed; all earthly hope in him
was dead.
But when he sat alone and thought on death, his
eyes
Sought the unfathomable depths of the vast
skies ;
Hope breathed from out the azure world he
looked toward ;
There yet remained to him his altars and his
sword.
And what remains to us, oh, ye destroyers
fell,
Who have o'erthrown our heaven, and have con-
structed well
The world, which ye did seek with care to re-
create ;
And man, whom ye have made anew, what is
his fate?
Ah, what a work is yours! how perfect, how
sublime !
With wise and cunning hands you've fashioned
for all time.
ROLLA 27
All, all is well the hills you've razed, the plains
you've cleared;
The world's a barren waste, a desert dry and
seared,
And e'en the tree of life you've leveled to the
ground
All is most grand; but who can breathe the air
around,
Where strange, bombastic words vibrate and
float afar
On pestilential winds malignant words they
are;
The very birds of heaven affrighted from them
flee.
Priests holy are no more; dead is hypocrisy;
But virtue, too, is dying, and God to man is
lost,
And man's intelligence to the four winds is
tossed.
The pride of noble birth, of fair ancestral fame,
All are degraded now in haunts of sin and
shame.
Tawdry, corrupted joys inflame the public mind,
While simpler, purer tastes, are left far, far be-
hind;
And, whether rich or poor, of high or low de-
gree,
No man of sense would now a Trappist Father
be.
28 ROLLA
When o'er the silent roofs and spires of the town
The morning sun's first rays came streaming
redly down,
Holla arose and leaned upon the window-sill,
And looked upon the city, calm and slumb'ring
still;
Save for the distant rumble of some passing
dray,
Naught broke the silence of the newly wakened
day.
A group of shabby singers in the square below
Were mumbling well-remembered songs of long
ago.
How songs that in past happy times we used
to sing,
Strike to the very heart in times of suffering!
Old songs, they bridge for us the chasm of the
years ;
They bow our weary heads and blind our eyes
with tears.
Dark spirit of ruin, say, are these thine an-
guished sighs?
Angel of memory, are these thy sobs which rise?
Ah, sweet, enchanted strains, flutt'ring like bird
above
The distant portals of some happy childish love,
ROLLA 29
Well know ye how to ope the graves of long
ago,
And bury us, ye who once lulled and soothed
us so.
When on calm autumn days the golden sun doth
rise,
Beneath his steps the world all fresh and radiant
lies,
And the fair, silv'ry shoulders of the shiv'ring
night
Are bathed in crimson blushes 'neath his rosy
light.
And thus, the maiden chaste will shiveringly
start
At some sweet thought that comes unbidden to
her heart.
King of the world, O Sun, the Earth thy mis-
tress is;
She lulls thee in her arms, and blushes at thy
kiss.
With the majestic flame of youth eternal,
thou
In everlasting light dost bathe her lovely brow.
Light-winged swallows, ye, swift-flying over
there,
Will ye not tell me why grim death has drawn
so near?
Oh, ghastly suicide! If I had wings, I'd fly
Above the encumb'ring earth, in yon pure, lovely
sky.
30 ROLLA
Ah, tell me, heaven and earth, what is the dawn,
I pray,
In this old universe what matters one more
day?
Tell me, green swards, I beg, and tell me, flow-
ing seas,
When touched by morning's glow, or tossed by
morning's breeze,
If moved by naught within, what power have
ye, then,
To stir the heart and bend the stubborn knees of
men?
O Earth, who is it to thy Sun has promised
you?
What sing the forest birds? What weeps the
evening dew?
Why come ye now to tell me of thy loves ah,
why?
What will ye all with me, who am about to die?
Ah, why to Holla's soul insistently recurred
That one word, " love," that sweet yet dreadful
word?
What wond'rous harmonies, what voice as music
clear,
Came thus to murmur it, when ghastly Death
stood near?
Who dared to speak of love to. him, the mori-
bund
To him, who as an ancient soldier shows a wound,
ROLLA 31
Pointed with arrant pride at his own rocky
heart,
Wherein no smallest flow'r of love had dared to
start?
To him, this reprobate, who held his life as
naught,
And deemed love merchandise that might be
sold or bought!
To him, who had no ties, no mistress, and no
home,
And who in open scorn defied what fate might
come;
Who with his sacred youth had trifled flippantly,
As toys the wind with a dead leaf beneath a tree ;
Who, having drained his glass, came now, at his
last hour,
To this vile den, where he his curses might out-
pour.
When from the nest the eaglet sees his mother
fly
Amid the azure depths of the ethereal sky,
Who tells him that he, too, may leave the shelf-
ring nest,
Leap into space and soar above the mountain's
crest?
How knows he that his wings were made to
cleave the skies?
He is an eagle! from the nest he springs, and
flies.
32 HOLLA
As unto lowest life the lowest life gives birth,
So do degraded, abject souls come forth on earth,
Who die amid the mire and filth where they were
born,
Leaving behind, in turn, their loathsome, filthy
spawn.
To feed her ravens and to fertilize her tombs,
Nature does need these products of their vicious
wombs.
But when her noble creatures she does model, lo!
'Neath her deft, careful ringers, they do slowly
grow.
Made of such substance are they, that the world's
black tide
Of vice and sin may o'er their heavenly beauty
glide,
And leave no taint upon their soul's white purity,
That still remains unharmed, in blest security.
In haunts of vice for years they may assimi-
late
With types of men the lowest and most profli-
gate;
But from their heart's dark night the viper's
coils will be,
Or soon or late, unwound, leaving their beings
free.
Negroes of San Domingo, say, how many years
Of fierce and stupid silence and of wretched
fears
ROLLA 33
Continued ye in chains, before you courage
found
To rise in might and tread your masters to the
ground?
Thus, Rolla, is't to-day your sleeping thoughts
awake,
And you from heavy chains your captive spirit
shake.
Before your maddened eyes innumerable lights
Pass and repass again, in broken, endless flights.
The fragments of your life now crush into the
ground ;
Upon your broken flasks your bare feet deeply
wound,
And in the last, long toast of your last orgy
press
In your exhausted arms the ghost of nothing-
ness.
Of nothingness! whose black, gigantic shadow
grows,
Till o'er the radiant sun an inky pall it throws,
And all is darkest, night no light below, above.
Death! and thou hast not loved, and thou wilt
never love!
As Rolla, pale and shiv'ring, closed the window,
he
Broke from its slender stem a dahlia, carelessly.
" I love," the flower murmured, " and I sadly
die.
34 ROLLA
Last night the zephyr kissed me with a long,
sweet sigh;
But now, on summer nights his kiss will come in
vain;
It cannot call me back to life and hope again.
No elements impure marred this our first caress;
He kissed my upturned face, as in my golden
dress
I waited, hoping for some dear and tender token.
I bloomed to love. I die my heart is broken."
"I love!" Those are the words that all great
Nature cries,
That rings in songs of birds, that in the night-
winds sighs,
And Mother Earth will sob it with her last low
breath,
Ere in eternal night she sinks to endless death.
And you, ye morning stars, down shining from
above,
Speaks not your quenchless light of love, of
ceaseless love?
All motionless Jacques stood and gazed on
Marie's face;
What was it lent her brow a new and wond'rous
grace,
A beauty which had ne'er appealed to him be-
fore,
That made him thrill and shiver to his being's
core?
ROLLA 35
Was not this poor, frail girl his sister, and this
room
Was it not meant for both to be their common
tomb?
Did he not feel her suff'ring from his torture
grim,
And bleeding from the deadly wound that would
kill him?
' Yes, in you, slender creature, sweet," he said,
'* Walks resignation with a weak and feeble
tread.
Her suff'ring is my sister. Yes, that form
should be
Extended on my tomb in marble effigy.
Wake not, fair child to earth your waking
hours belong,
But sleeping, God holds you within his keeping
strong.
Yes, to your holy sleep I wish to bid good-by
Your sleep, that I may love, and have not
thought to buy;
Your sleep, that once again renews your childish
bliss.
Upon your lashes dark, 'tis you that I would
kiss.
" Is it an angel form, that like a perfumed air
Glides 'neath those filmy hangings, causing
them to stir !
36 HOLLA
If it be true that when the dying swan doth
glide
Down to his lonely death upon the glim'ring tide,
The inspiration for his wond'rous death-song
springs
From the divine contour of real and living
things ;
If it be also true that here, upon the earth,
Unto deceit ofttimes true love itself gives birth,
And that the ardent lover sees his love arrayed
In radiant beauty he in his own heart hath made,
What need for me to seek elsewhere? For are
not youth
And life in all their beauty here in very truth?
Love, thou may'st come ! What matters, Marie,
while you bloom,
And thy sad flow'r of life exhales its sweet per-
fume!"
With a deep sigh Marie awoke, and turned her
eyes,
Blue as the azure depths of morning skies,
On Holla's face. " I've had a strange, wild
dream," she said;
" I thought that I was lying here, upon this bed ;
I woke, and looked around; the room appeared
to me
Like to some very old and spacious cemet'ry,
And half -decaying bones lay scattered every'
where;
ROLLA 37
And presently four men came, carrying a bier.
They paused, and set it down and kneeled to
pray,
And then, surprised, I saw the cover fall away,
And in its inky depths your countenance ap-
peared,
Pallid and cold in death, with streaks of blood
besmeared !
And then it seemed as if you rose and came to me,
And took my hand in yours, and asked me won-
d'ringly,
* What do you in this place? Tell me, why come
you here?
And would you take my place within that ghastly
bier?
Tell me,' you urged again, ' why hither are you
come ? '
I turned and looked, and lo! I lay upon a tomb."
"And you dreamed thus? " Jacques said. " 'Twas
a strange dream indeed,
But it was true, my friend. To-morrow you'll
not need
To be asleep to have that vision cross your sight,
For, Marie, do you know, I kill myself to-
night!"
'What mean you, Jacques?" she cried, in ter-
rified dismay.
" I mean," said he, " that I'm a ruined man to-
day.