A goddess, with a siren's grace,—A sun-haired girl on a craggy
Above a bay where fish-boats
Drifting about like birds of prey.
Wrought was she of a painter's dream,—Wise only as are artists wise,
My artist-friend,
Rolf Herschkelhiem,
With deep sad eyes of oversize,
And face of melancholy guise.
I pressed him that he tell to
This masterpiece's history.
He turned—Returned—and thus
Me with the tale of Orlie Wilde:—"We artists live ideally:
We breed our firmest facts of air;
We make our own reality—We dream a thing and it is so.
The fairest scenes we ever
Are mirages of memory;
The sweetest thoughts we ever
We plagiarize from Long Ago:
And as the girl on canvas
Is marvelously rare and fair,'Tis only inasmuch as
Is dumb and may not speak to me!"He tapped me with his
The picture,—and went on again:"Orlie Wilde, the fisher's child—I see her yet, as fair and
As ever nursling summer
Dreamed on the bosom of the bay:
For I was twenty then, and
Alone and long-haired—all
With promises of sounding
And fantasies of future fame,
And thoughts that now my mind
As editor a fledgling bard's."At evening once I chanced to go,
With pencil and portfolio,
Adown the street of silver
That winds beneath this craggy land,
To make a sketch of some old
Of driftage, nosing through the surfA splintered mast, with knarl and
Of rigging-rope and tattered
Of flag and streamer and of
That fluttered idly in the
Or whipped themselves to sadder shreds.
The while I wrought, half listlessly,
On my dismantled subject, cameA sea-bird, settling on the
With plaintive moan, as though that
Had lost his mate upon the sea;
And—with my melancholy trend—It brought dim dreams half understood—It wrought upon my morbid mood,—I thought of my own
That had no end—that have no end.—And, like the sea-bird,
I made
That I was loveless and alone.
And when at last with weary
It went upon its wanderings,
With upturned face I watched its
Until this picture met my sight:
A goddess, with a siren's grace,—A sun-haired girl on a craggy
Above a bay where fish-boats
Drifting about like birds of prey."In airy poise she, gazing, stoodA machless form of womanhood,
That brought a thought that if for
Such eyes had sought across the sea,
I could have swum the widest
That ever mariner defied,
And, at the shore, could on have
To that high crag she stood upon,
To there entreat and say, 'My Sweet,
Behold thy servant at thy feet.'And to my soul I said: 'Above,
There stands the idol of thy love!'"In this rapt, awed, ecstatic stateI gazed—till lo!
I was awareA fisherman had joined her there—A weary man, with halting gait,
Who toiled beneath a basket's weight:
Her father, as I guessed, for
Had run to meet him
And ta'en his burden to herself,
That perched upon her shoulder's
So lightly that she, tripping, nearedA jutting crag and disappeared;
But she left the echo of a
That thrills me yet, and will as
As I have being! . . .. . . "Evenings
And went,—but each the same—the same:
She watched above, and even soI stood there watching from below;
Till, grown so bold at last,
I sung,—(What matter now the theme thereof!)—It brought an answer from her tongue—Faint as the murmur of a dove,
Yet all the more the song of love. . . ."I turned and looked upon the bay,
With palm to forehead—eyes
In the sea's smile—meant but for her!—I saw the fish-boats far
In misty distance, lightly
In chalk-dots on the horizon—Looked back at her, long, wistfully;—And, pushing off an empty skiff,
I beckoned her to quit the
And yield me her rare
Upon a little pleasure-cruise.—She stood, as loathful to refuse,
To muse for full a moment's time,—Then answered back in pantomime'She feared some danger from the
Were she discovered thus with me.'I motioned then to ask her ifI might not join her on the
And back again, with graceful
Of lifted arm, she anwer gave'She feared some danger from the sea.'"Impatient, piqued, impetuous,
Sprang in the boat, and flung 'Good-by'From pouted mouth with angry hand,
And madly pulled away from
With lusty stroke, despite that
Held out her hands entreatingly:
And when far out, with covert eyeI shoreward glanced,
I saw her
In reckless haste adown the crag,
Her hair a-flutter like a
Of gold that danced across the
In little mists of silver sand.
All curious I, pausing,
To fancy what it all implied,—When suddenly I found my
Were wet; and, underneath the
On which I sat,
I heard the
Of gurgling waters, and I
The boat aleak alarmingly. . . .
I turned and looked upon the sea,
Whose every wave seemed mocking me;
I saw the fishers' sails once more—In dimmer distance than before;
I saw the sea-bird wheeling by,
With foolish wish that I could fly:
I thought of firm earth, home and friends—I thought of everything that
To drive a man to frenzy
To wholly lose his own command;
I thought of all my waywardness—Thought of a mother's deep distress;
Of youthful follies yet unpurged—Sins, as the seas, about me surged—Thought of the printer's ready
To-morrow drowning me again;—A million things without a name—I thought of everything but—Fame. . . ."A memory yet is in my mind,
So keenly clear and sharp-defined,
I picture every phase and
Of life and death, and neither mine,—While some fair seraph, golden-haired,
Bends over me,—with white arms bared,
That strongly plait themselves
My drowning weight and lift me out—With joy too great for words to
Or tongue to dare articulate!"And this seraphic
And heroine was Orlie Wilde:
And thus it was I came to
Her voice's music in my ear—Ay, thus it was Fate paved the
That I walk desolate to-day!" . . .
The artist paused and bowed his
Within his palms a little space,
While reverently on his formI bent my gaze and marked a
That shook his frame as
As some typhoon of agony,
And fraught with sobs—the more
For that peculiar laughing
We hear when strong men weep. . . .
I
With warmest sympathy—I
To stroke with soothing hand his brow,
He murmuring—"Tis over now!—And shall I tie the silken
Of my frail romance?" "Yes," I said.—He faintly smiled; and then, with
In kneading palm, as one in dread—His tasseled cap pushed from his head" 'Her voice's music,' I repeat,"He said,—" 'twas sweet—O passing sweet!—Though she herself, in
Its melody, proved not the
Of loveliness my dreams made
For me—there, yearning, at her feet—Prone at her feet—a worshiper,—For lo! she spake a tongue," moaned he,"Unknown to me;—unknown to
As mine to her—as mine to her."
