Old Road to Paradise/Womenfolk

by Margaret Widdemer

WOMEN

 
YOU fret and grieve and turn about
To make this world and living out,
With "This is so" and "That is so–"
Ah, sirs, we learned it long ago!

If you should make an angel tell
What Mary learned of Gabriel
Yet could you know the flaming words
That pierced her with the seven swords?
And if some fiend-snake hissed you low
All he told Eve where God's trees grow,
Yet could you learn the thing she learned
Who sobbing out of Eden turned?

We watched with smiling mother-eyes
The while you stormed, and thought you wise,
At God's great walls, as if you beat
Like babes, with angry hands and feet;
For God, who bound our feet and hands
And laid us under your commands,
Still left us silence, love, and pain,
And dreams to hide and peace to gain. . . .

Why, when you search beyond a doubt
The furthest star's last secret out,
Some woman from her nook shall smile,
Laying her needle down the while,
"Dear, that old dream I told to you?
You smiled . . . I thought you always knew!"

The thing we tell is no new thing,
A wisdom born of suffering,
That there is pain, and there is love,
And God's great silence still above,
And this is all– though you have hurled
Your strength forever on the world.
Quick, let us speak to you, ere yet
Passed from our silence we forget,
Like you, with crowds made deaf and blind,
With dealing close to humankind:
Be swift, for soon we too shall be
With no more place for memory,
Going unfettered as man goes
And scarcely wounded more– who knows?
And all our Vala-dreams shall lift
Like Tyre-smoke and Atlantis-drift . . .

• * * * * *
  

Listen, most dear, the while that we
At once have speech and memory.

EMBROIDERY

SHE sits and makes pink roses with her thread
And wonders what to do, her heart astir,
What road to take, where roads branch close ahead,
And how to know her true love calling her;
Whether to follow thorny paths (but sweet
The young wild heart's way!) or to fling the door
Wide to love's placid tread with wonted feet,
And how to build her life forevermore.

The rose-sprung needle keeps its darting deft . . .
When life has gone whichever way it goes,
Of all her wonderings shall be only left
The texture and the pattern of this rose:
And when her old eyes see its flowering spread,
Dull-faded, a known decking of her room,
(Wherever that may be then– all words said,
All life made certain then until the tomb!)

Something shall clutch her still of youth and pain,
From that far-thrilled girl-day, and she will see
Its shape grow in that breathless hour again
With all her ordered years were still to be;
From that brown silken flower shall flush in death
Youth with its rosy terrors quivering gay,
And she shall think, set free for one swift breath–
"Ah, yes, I made it on that very day!"

TEA

THEY'VE flowers and cakes and candle-light,
  And chair by crowded chair,
And I am very sweet and kind,
  Because I do not care . . .
I think that I am hoping still
  If I am very good
And talk to these around me
  As a courteous lady should
The room will softly split across
  And roll to left and right
With all its smiling pasteboard folks
  And colored things and light
And let me run into the grass
And climb a sunset hill,
And find three hours one year ago,
  When I was living still.

DREAM DEATH

WHAT though no folk who saw her knew
  At heart she was Pierrette,
Who went her sober way
In robe and face of gray?
Still down a laughing path of dream
  Her flashing feet were set,
To clink of gold guitars,
Rose-scent and glint of stars!

But when he came who should have known
  Her kin to star and flower
And left her heart unfound,
Nor robe nor mask unbound,
She went her way by daylight still,
  And seemed to live her hour,
Firm hands and lifted head–
Only Pierrette was dead.

TOYS

SHE loves the flowers, the wind that bends the fir;
When the Spring comes she dances; and her mirth
Comes always when the water laughs to her.
She holds the little daily sweets of earth
On high and pleasures in them; words that sing,
Clear music, lovely faces; all delight
We others pass use-dulled, unnoticing–
The sunrise and the sunset, day and night.

Yet somehow all her woven joys endure
Too perfect, too well-shapen to have rayed
Light-heartedly on her. Oh, I am sure
That once upon a time we do not know
God took away from her– once, long ago–
All life's real, rugged things, too sharp for joys,
And– for she looked at Him still unafraid–
He laid within her hands instead these toys.

Oh, on the gentle day when she goes hence
I hope that for her gay obedience
He has reward for her: that when she dies
He will not send her straight to Paradise.
She knows enough of Paradisal mirth–
Oh, surely He will give her back the earth,
And all its living that He made her miss,
Locked close to life by its most burning kiss,
Clutching decisions, terror-haunted breath,
Great grief, great raptures, passion, birth and death.

MOTHER-PRAYER

"LORD, make my loving a guard for them
    Day and night,
Let never pathway be hard for them;
    Keep all bright!
Let not harsh touch of a thorn for them
    Wound their ease–
All of the pain I have borne for them
    Spare to these!"

So I would pray for them,
Kneeling to God
Night and day for them.

"Lord, let the pain life must bring to them
    Make them strong,
Keep their hearts white though grief cling to them
    All life long,
Let all the joys Thou dost keep from them
    At Thy will
Give to them power to reap from them
    Courage still!"

So I must ask for them,
Leaving to God
His own task for them.

THREE STUDIES FOR A PORTRAIT

OLD TALES

HER voice within the darkened room
  Tells on– old jests and tragedies
And little follies of her kin
  And futile old nobilities:

". . . If they had only done," she tells,
  "The thing that others said was wise
There would have been no death that year . . ."
  How fast her tiny shuttle flies!

The stiff old pictures on the wall,
  Who were those passionate girls and men
So sure of Youth and Righteousness,
  Look dully on the Now from Then;

And I look past her out the glass
  Where young Today goes to and fro . . .
But all she sees was past a change
  A changeless fifty years ago.

THE GRAY MASK

I wish I could not see her heart
  That is so passionate, so young,
For all love-words are said for her,
  All love-songs sung:

Over light griefs her eyes grow wet,
  Over gay silks her eyes grow gay,
She sighs, half-hopeful . . . "I forget
  My hair is gray–"

"I dreamed a lover came for me
  And courted me," she tells, "last night . . ."
Ah, kind dream-lover, who could find
  Such tired eyes bright!

And yet . . . Perhaps some lad in heaven
  Some day shall clasp her soul, and know
Unchanged, the little lass he left
  So long ago.

THE SEEKER

She was so full of restlessness,
  So ceaselessly went to and fro
That it was hard for us to guess
  What thing she wished to find or know:

Only the gifts the gray years brought
  So fretted her on cheek and brow–
Could it have been her youth she sought? . . .
  I hope that she has found it now.
TO A YOUNG GIRL AT A WINDOW

THE Poor Old Soul plods down the street,
  Contented, and forgetting
How Youth was wild, and Spring was wild
  And how her life is setting;

And you lean out to watch her there,
  And pity, nor remember,
That Youth is hard, and Life is hard,
  And quiet is December.

A LOST COMRADE

YOU live as the world would have you do–
Only the sleeping soul of you
Lies unwakened by wind or dew.

Your soul, that thrilled like a harpstring shaken
Dusty hands of the world have taken
And thrust it deeper than life can waken:

You, who quickened our heavy eyes,
Our hearts weighed down beyond will to rise,
With silver shadows of Paradise!

Were it only your heart that the years had broken,
Still should be for a shining token
How your soul had glowed and your lips had spoken–

Were it only your life that was crushed and through! . . .
They have taken the starry soul of you
And hidden it deep from the wind and dew!

DEPARTURE

IT was not when I plead with her,
  And on a tragic day
Clung sobbing to her skirts of rose,
  That Youth went away;

O not when from the cruel glass
  My face showed, lined and chill–
Her eyes burnt wild beneath the mask,
  Her pulse hurt me still.

But when I saw young lovers pass,
  And watched them, well-content,
Nor felt my eyes grow hot with tears
  To gaze where they went . . .

O then I knew my time was through,
  And pleasured in the day,
At peace to know of Love and Spring
  And Youth gone away.

DISCOVERY

WITHIN my mirror I could see
Last night as I gazed steadfastly
An old strange thing look out at me;

The smile my grandame used to wear;
Line on proud line it faced me there . . .
I had not known it meant Despair.

WOMAN-LORE

NOW this is what you learn at last
  Of men beneath the sun,
With all the gates of living passed
  And all the kisses done–
That none are ever old indeed
  And none are very wise,
And they will break you for their need
  Or give you earth and skies:

And out of all between you two
  For all the close years' gain,
The dearest gifts they give to you
  Shall come with sorest pain–
(A pain your lips find still untold,
  A joy they cannot see)
Your child they give your arms to hold,
  Your child they grow to be.

THE UNFOUND CITY

(For Alice Brown)

THERE is a city burning in a dream
  All women know and search for secretly;
The swift rose-hearted flame's eternal stream
  Laps round the changeless towers eternally.

It stands far off above a circling mist. . . .
  Have ye not seen our eyes that seek its light,
Felt the quick sigh between our lips late-kissed,
  Felt our loosed arms yearn toward it in the night?

Gold Helen found it not, nor white Deirdré:
  There is no woman, howso loved, can tell
Of those white changeless dream-towers seen by day,
  Of that flame calyxed, perfect citadel:

We shall not ever know its perfect joy,
  Yet we shall seek it till our years are gone . . .
Eternal Love whose fires shall not destroy
  Eternal Beauty that it beats upon.

THE DARK CAVALIER

I AM the Dark Cavalier; I am the Last Lover:
  My arms shall welcome you when other arms are tired;
I stand to wait for you, patient in the darkness,
  Offering forgetfulness of all that you desired.

I ask no merriment, no pretense of gladness,
  I can love heavy lids and lips without their rose;
Though you are sorrowful you will not weary me;
  I will not go from you when all the tired world goes.

I am the Dark Cavalier; I am the Last Lover;
  I promise faithfulness no other lips may keep;
Safe in my bridal place, comforted by darkness,
  You shall lie happily, smiling in your sleep.