This is really war: the incredible true story of a navy nurse pow in the occupied philippines emilie
This Is Really War: The Incredible True Story of a Navy Nurse POW in the Occupied
Philippines Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi
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And This Is How It Ends The True Story of Minivans Switchblade Combs and the Homeless 1st Edition Jen Sky
In January 1940, navy nurse Dorothy Still eagerly anticipated her new assignment at a military hospital in the Philippines. Her first year abroad was an adventure. She dated sailors and attended dances. But as 1941 progressed, signs of imminent war grew more urgent. Military wives and children were shipped home to the States, and the sailors increased their daily drills. Days after Pearl Harbor was attacked, the Japanese military assaulted the Philippines.
When Manila fell to Japan in early January 1942, Dorothy was held captive in a hospital and then transferred to a civilian prison camp. Under the direction of Chief Nurse Laura Cobb, Dorothy and ten other navy nurses maintained rank and reported each day to a makeshift hospital. Cramped conditions, disease, and poor nutrition meant the navy nurses and their army counterparts were overwhelmed caring for the camp.
In May 1943, a civilian physician asked Cobb if the navy nurses would consider transferring to a new prison camp in the countryside. The twelve nurses feared the unknown, but they could not deny they were needed. On the morning of their departure, inmates used the public address system to play the navy fight song, “Anchors Aweigh.” The nurses were overwhelmed by the response. They had indeed been the anchors of the camp, who kept ill inmates from drifting.
In the new prison camp, the “twelve anchors” turned a stripped infirmary into a functioning hospital. Despite their own ailments, they provided nonstop care for starving, diseased, and abused inmates. Over the years, their friendships deepened, and several of the women, including Dorothy, even found love.
This Is Really War is an inspiring story about a young nurse who fought for life during a dark time.
Published by Chicago Review Press Incorporated 814 North Franklin Street Chicago, Illinois 60610
ISBN 978‑1 64160‑076‑7
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Lucchesi, Emilie Le Beau, author.
Title: This is really war : the incredible true story of a Navy nurse POW in the occupied Philippines / Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi.
Description: Chicago, Illinois : Chicago Review Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018058584 (print) | LCCN 2019002844 (ebook) | ISBN 9781641600774 (PDF edition) | ISBN 9781641600798 (EPUB edition) | ISBN 9781641600781 (Kindle edition) | ISBN 9781641600767 (cloth edition)
Subjects: LCSH: Danner, Dorothy Still, 1914–2001. | Women prisoners of war—Philippines—Biography. | United States. Navy—Nurses— Biography. | United States. Navy—Officers—Biography. | Los Baños Internment Camp. | World War, 1939–1945—Prisoners and prisons, Japanese. | World War, 1939–1945—Philippines. | Philippines— History—Japanese occupation, 1942–1945.
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018058584
Typesetting: Nord Compo
Map design: Chris Erichsen
Printed in the United States of America
5 4 3 2 1
For my grandfather Leon J. Le Beau, PhD. US Army, 5th Medical Laboratory, South Pacific
And always, my husband, Michael Lucchesi, for many, many reasons
Author’s Note
No di A logue w A s re created for this book. Quotations were sourced from oral histories, interview transcripts, memoirs, and other documented sources.
Key Figures
The “Twelve Anchors”
The dozen nurses who served in the Santo Tomas and Los Baños prisoner of war camps as of January 1942. All but Basilia Torres Steward were members of the Navy Nurse Corps.
Dorothy Still: California native who was twenty seven years old and near the end of her two year assignment in the Philippines when Cavite was bombed. Had orders to return to the United States on January 1, 1942.
Mary Frances Chapman: Twenty eight years old, recently engaged; had submitted her resignation to the navy. Planned to return to her family in Chicago while waiting for her fiancé to finish his service.
L aura M. Cobb: Chief nurse. Longtime veteran of the navy who was strict with her nurses but fiercely protected them when she was able to do so. Almost fifty years old; originally from Kansas.
Bertha Evans: Thirty seven years old. Also trained as a dietitian. Originally from Oregon; recently engaged.
Helen C. G orzelanski: Thirty four years old; from Nebraska.
Key Figures
Mary Rose Harrington: Considered “an Irish beauty,” with auburn hair. Native of South Dakota. Moved her widowed mother to San Diego after she enlisted. Age twenty eight.
Margaret “Peg” Nash: Thirty years old; recently engaged. Originally from Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. Petite, energetic, and bright.
G oldia O’Haver: Age thirty nine; from Iowa. Practical and efficient yet warm in personality. Also trained as a surgical nurse.
Eldene Paige: Turned twenty eight on the day of the Cavite bombing. Originally from South Dakota but raised in Southern California. Petite, shy, and kind.
Susie Pitcher: Born in Iowa in 1901. Nurse anesthetist who had been in the navy for more than a decade. Heavy smoker; living with emphysema.
Basilia Torres Steward: Twenty eight years old. Filipina married to an American naval officer. Served alongside the navy nurses throughout their captivity.
Carrie Edwina Todd: California native who had the same assign ment as Dorothy Still and was expecting new orders. Known as Edwina; age thirty at time of capture.
Other Medical Personnel
Ann Bernatitus: Navy nurse with surgical experience. Became the only nurse from Cavite to escape imprisonment after the army requested her service and then evacuated her to Australia.
Dana Nance, MD: Civilian. Surgeon at Los Baños prison camp.
Gwendolyn L. Henshaw: Army nurse POW; native of California. Reunited with fellow nursing school graduate Dorothy Still at Santo Tomas prison camp.
Key Figures
Eleven of the twelve anchors. Seated, left to right: Mary Rose Harrington, Eldene Paige, Laura Cobb, Peg Nash, Edwina Todd, Bertha Evans. Standing, left to right: Mary Chapman, Goldia O’Haver, Dorothy Still, Susie Pitcher, Helen Gorzelanski. Not pictured: Basilia Torres Steward. Courtesy of Bureau of Medicine and Surgery
Chronology
1937
November: Dorothy Still applies to the Navy Nurse Corps after seeing an article in the American Journal of Nursing. December: Dorothy joins the navy and is assigned to San Diego.
1940
January: Dorothy transfers to Cavite Naval Base at Cañacao, Philip pines.
1941
Summer: US Navy orders all spouses and dependents to return to the United States.
December 7: Pearl Harbor is attacked by the Japanese.
December 8: US Congress declares war on Japan.
December 10: Japan attacks Cavite Naval Base in Philippines.
Chronology
December 11: Dorothy and the other navy nurses are evacuated to Manila.
December 26: General MacArthur declares Manila an “open city.” US and Filipino forces evacuate Manila for Bataan and Corregidor.
1942
January 2: Dorothy and ten other navy nurses are taken prisoners of war. Chief Nurse Laura Cobb allows civilian nurse Basilia Torres Steward to be absorbed into the group.
March 8: Dorothy and the other navy nurse POWs are transferred to Santo Tomas, a former college converted into a prison camp.
April 9: Bataan falls.
May 3: Navy nurse Ann Bernatitus escapes on an army submarine.
May 6: Corregidor falls.
July 2: Army nurses are brought to Santo Tomas prison camp but seg regated from the general population. Dorothy reunites with her school friend Gwendolyn Henshaw.
August 25: Army nurses are integrated with rest of the population.
1943
May 14: The eleven navy nurses transfer to Los Baños prison camp with 788 male inmates.
1944
October 20: General MacArthur lands on the Philippine island of Leyte and announces, “I have returned.”
December 14: Prisoners are massacred at Palawan prisoner of war camp.
February 3: Santo Tomas is liberated.
February 23: Los Baños is liberated.
March 10: Dorothy and the other navy nurses arrive in mainland United States.
July 5: Philippines is completely liberated.
August 15: Japan surrenders.
Part I 1941
i ’d d ie Before i w ore Those
doro T hy s T ill slep T soundly in her bed in the nurses’ quarters. It was comfortably dark, and a breeze flowed through the veranda attached to her private room. She did not stir as the telephone rang downstairs, sending a shrill scream through the quiet house. Dietitian Bertha Evans picked up the handset and heard her fiancé’s voice on the other end of the extension. He was an officer assigned to the nearby naval yard in Cañacao, Philippines, and he was calling with urgent news.
“Bertha,” he said. “Pearl Harbor has been bombed. We’ve been up all night with the admiral.”
The US armed forces in the Philippines anticipated they would be next. At one point during the night, radar had detected a formation near Manila Bay. Warhawks took to the sky to intercept the threat, but no contact had been made.
Bertha knew she had to wake her superior, Chief Nurse Laura M. Cobb. She hurried up the stairs and knocked on Cobb’s door. “We’re at war with Japan,” she reported.
Doorways began to crack as the other women heard the commo tion. Cobb instinctively knew a blackout order was in effect. “Do not turn on your lights,” she warned.
Nurse Mary Rose Harrington squinted in the darkness. Cobb ordered her to dress and accompany her to receive orders. Dorothy continued to sleep through the disturbances. She didn’t hear Cobb and Mary Rose return to the quarters. Nor did she wake when Mary Rose clanked around the kitchen, looking to start a pot of coffee. Dorothy finally opened her eyes when the auburn haired woman stood over her bed.
“Dottie! Wake up!” Mary Rose urged.
Dorothy stumbled from bed and followed Mary Rose. The other nurses stood in the darkened hallway, stunned and confused. Cobb was brief. All they knew for certain was Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor around midnight Manila time. It would be only a matter of hours before Congress officially declared war. But what did that mean to the nurses? Should they expect an attack as well? Cobb didn’t know. She ordered her nurses into uniform.
Dorothy felt her way back to her room. She went to her washbasin and turned on the water, thinking about newspaper reports describing the fighting in Europe. She had seen photos of decimated villages and images of destroyed battlefields. Would war in the South Pacific look the same? Dorothy thought not. If there was indeed a war with Japan, she assumed the United States would quickly win. It wasn’t the same as the hostilities between the Europeans.
Dorothy opened her dresser drawers and selected a pair of white knee high tights. She stepped into the white dress, fixing the buttons that ran down to the high waist belt. She combed back her blond hair and secured her striped cap to her head. Dorothy pulled her flashlight from the box and screwed off the bottom. She slipped in two batteries and then felt the spring press tighten as she rotated the end back into place. After masking the top with blue cellophane so it was safe to use
in a blackout, she shone the light on her mirror and felt unnerved as she studied her reflection in the ghostly blue light.
Dorothy joined the other nurses in the living room. The women traded mixed expressions of doubt and reassurance. Several of the nurses didn’t think the Asiatic Fleet was prepared for battle. Others thought the same as Dorothy—Japan was a small nation and it was no match for the mighty United States. Susie Pitcher, a forty year old nurse anesthetist from Des Moines, lit a cigarette. Susie loved smoking
Navy nurse Dorothy Still. Courtesy of Bureau of Medicine and Surgery
and seemed determined to not let her emphysema interfere with her favorite pastime.
Susie inhaled and released a swirling cloud as she spoke. “You girls ready for war?” she asked.
The young nurses weren’t sure what to think. Earlier in 1941, the navy had begun censoring mail, and spouses and dependents of mili tary personnel had been shipped back to the States. At the time, the nurses felt odd to be the only women on base, but then they adjusted to the new routine. Blackouts and air raid drills became standard, yet with all the warnings and preparation, nothing ever happened. Now it was difficult to determine whether they should truly be alarmed.
It was easy, however, to feel vulnerable. The naval base was located on a small peninsula just south of Manila. The peninsula had an odd shape, like a crab’s claw. The navy occupied the parts that resembled the pinchers, filling the area around the bay with an ammunition depot, hospital, living quarters, and a naval yard to service marine vessels. There were also two soaring radio towers, which the nurses detested for being an easy target. What would happen if they were bombed? The women shuddered to think, especially if the ammuni tions depot took a direct hit. The concussion could obliterate the entire peninsula.
Several of the nurses didn’t want to face the possibility of war. But others, like Bertha, experienced ominous warnings and sensed the time had come. Bertha had transferred to the Philippines in February. On the boat ride to Hawaii, a reserve officer said he felt sorry for her.
“You’ll be eating fish heads and rice before you come home,” he warned.
“Do you really think so?” Bertha asked.
“I know so,” he cautioned.
The comment stuck with Bertha. At thirty seven years old, she had been in the navy for a decade. She had wavy brown hair and beautiful dark eyes that turned downward at the corners. Most sailors
typically boasted in an attempt to impress her. The reserve officer’s lack of bravado felt like a chilling omen.
The women came to attention as Cobb entered the room. She reported they did not have specific orders from the admiral. However, the fleet surgeon had told Cobb they needed to evacuate the hospital. The women were to report immediately for duty. Dorothy followed the other nurses into the humid air. Rain had fallen overnight and the ground was spotted with puddles. Cobb instructed the nurses to run to the hospital as if they were under attack.
Dorothy and the other women began to jog without much enthu siasm. In the distance, a pathologist stood outside the hospital and watched the pack of approaching blue lights. He wondered how long it would take the nurses to run the two block distance. If the base was hit, how quickly could the nurses arrive? He pulled out a stopwatch and began to time them.
The nurses were hesitant in the dark. As they approached, the pathologist saw they were trying to avoid splashing in the puddles. The nurses did not want to get their shoes wet or their uniforms dirty. They took the long way around larger pools of water and care fully stepped over smaller puddles, sometimes stopping to hold on to each other for support. The pathologist looked at the second hand spinning around the dial. What were these nurses doing? Had they no sense of urgency?
The pathologist held up the stopwatch as Dorothy and the other nurses trotted up the circular drive. “Two minutes and twenty three seconds,” he scolded.
War was not what Arissa Still had intended for her daughter when she brought Dorothy to the Los Angeles County General Hospital for an interview with the nursing school. It was 1932, and Arissa knew
people who had lost their jobs and then their homes. She wanted her daughter to find a stable career, and Dorothy had failed to supply one practical idea of which her mother approved. Dorothy had dreamily proposed working as a costume designer in Hollywood. The girl could sew, yes, and she appreciated fashion, but Arissa thought Hollywood was unpredictable and competitive.
Nursing, Arissa had assumed, was a far safer choice. The Los Angeles County General Hospital offered a three year program with free tuition, room, and board. The student nurses worked at the hospi tal and received a small monthly stipend. Being paid to go to school? At a time when unemployment was near 25 percent? Arissa promptly brought Dorothy in for an interview and hovered in the hallway while her daughter met with the admissions director. She knew her daughter was an excellent candidate. Dorothy had performed well at Burbank High School, and she was one of a few students with enough merit points to join an exclusive honorary. The nursing school officials were impressed, as Arissa expected.
Arissa’s plan for her daughter was on track—until Dorothy grad uated and received her pin. Then Arissa realized nurses were not immune from the crippled economy. Low wages and job insecurity were standard, and nurses typically bounced from one short contract to the next. In the first two years after graduation, Dorothy cycled through three jobs. The last of these was at a small hospital in a desert town where a few senior nurses successfully campaigned to have Dorothy and another young nurse fired. Demoralized, Dorothy returned to her parents’ home and looked for a new position.
Dorothy flipped through the November 1937 issue of the American Journal of Nursing and stopped on an article about the Federal Nursing Services. Its military nurses enjoyed the “security of a regular salary,” the article promised. They also received medical care, four weeks’ leave, and the opportunity to train in a specialty. Dorothy was intrigued, but she still stung from her recent termination. She figured
she was wasting a stamp when she wrote to request an application. Within a month, she received notification that the navy was indeed interested. Before the year was over, Dorothy was instructed to report to duty in San Diego as a member of the Navy Nurse Corps.
As Dorothy reported to San Diego, the world was becoming increasingly unstable. The United States maintained an isolationist stance, but American military commanders watched with unease as Japan conquered Nanking, the capital city of China, on December 13, 1937. Within mere weeks, more than 250,000 Chinese were massacred by the Japanese army. It seemed that every newspaper in the United States had a front page story about the invasion, but few Americans understood the extent of the massacre. Chinese men, women, and children were rounded up, marched through the streets, and then sadistically executed. Every type of agony emerged in Nanking. Yet American attention instead focused on the sinking of a naval ship on a river near Nanking. President Franklin D. Roosevelt demanded an apology and payment, both of which Japan supplied. The US govern ment then edited the news footage. When newsreels spun in cinemas across the county, Americans were treated to a sanitized account of the violence, as well as a false sense that Japan knew better than to mess with Uncle Sam.
The world was darkening, and the United States simply wasn’t ready to defend itself. In 1937, the annual report of the secretary of war to the president described the country’s forces as a “peace time army.” Just one year later, the authors of the report were looking long and hard at their own inadequacies. With only about 162,000 enlisted men, the US military was merely the eighteenth largest in the world. The report also admitted that after the recent World War, the United States failed to keep pace with the development of defensive weapons. Materials shortages during the Great Depression added more bud getary challenges, and the military was woefully short on antiaircraft
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Motley, and other poems
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Motley, and other poems
Author: Walter De la Mare
Release date: July 4, 2022 [eBook #68458]
Language: English
Original publication: United Kingdom: Constable and Company Ltd, 1918
Credits: Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOTLEY, AND OTHER POEMS ***
MOTLEY
AND OTHER POEMS
BY
WALTER DE LA MARE
LONDON
CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LTD 1918
Printed in Great Britain
NOTE
The author wishes to thank the Editors of the English Review, the Times, the New Statesman, Form, the Gipsy, the Yale Review, and the Westminster
Gazette for permission to reprint poems included in this volume.
A selection from among the poems included in this volume has been published in a limited edition in a volume issued by the Beaumont Press.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE LISTENERS and Other Poems.
PEACOCK PIE. A Book of Rhymes. Also an Illustrated Edition, with Black and White Drawings by W. HEATH ROBINSON. POEMS.
A CHILD'S DAY. A Book of Rhymes. Illustrated.
HENRY BROCKEN. A Novel.
CONTENTS
THE LITTLE SALAMANDER
THE LINNET
THE SUNKEN GARDEN
THE RIDDLERS MOONLIGHT
THE BLIND BOY
THE QUARRY
MRS. GRUNDY
THE TRYST
ALONE EMPTY
MISTRESS FELL THE GHOST
THE STRANGER BETRAYAL
THE CAGE
THE REVENANT MUSIC
THE REMONSTRANCE NOCTURNE
THE EXILE
THE UNCHANGING NIGHTFALL
INVOCATION
EYES
LIFE
THE DISGUISE
VAIN QUESTIONING
VIGIL
THE OLD MEN
THE DREAMER
HAPPY ENGLAND
MOTLEY
THE MARIONETTES
TO E. T.: 1917
APRIL MOON
THE FOOL'S SONG
CLEAR EYES
DUST TO DUST
THE THREE STRANGERS ALEXANDER
THE REAWAKENING THE VACANT DAY THE FLIGHT THE TWO HOUSES FOR ALL THE GRIEF THE SCRIBE FARE WELL
THE LITTLE SALAMANDER
TO MARGOT
When I go free, I think 'twill be A night of stars and snow, And the wild fires of frost shall light My footsteps as I go; Nobody—nobody will be there With groping touch, or sight,
To see me in my bush of hair Dance burning through the night.
THE LINNET
Upon this leafy bush With thorns and roses in it, Flutters a thing of light, A twittering linnet. And all the throbbing world Of dew and sun and air By this small parcel of life Is made more fair; As if each bramble-spray And mounded gold-wreathed furze, Harebell and little thyme, Were only hers; As if this beauty and grace Did to one bird belong, And, at a flutter of wing, Might vanish in song.
THE SUNKEN GARDEN
Speak not—whisper not; Here bloweth thyme and bergamot; Softly on the evening hour, Secret herbs their spices shower,
Dark-spiked rosemary and myrrh, Lean-stalked, purple lavender; Hides within her bosom, too, All her sorrows, bitter rue.
Breathe not—trespass not; Of this green and darkling spot, Latticed from the moon's beams, Perchance a distant dreamer dreams; Perchance upon its darkening air, The unseen ghosts of children fare, Faintly swinging, sway and sweep, Like lovely sea-flowers in its deep; While, unmoved, to watch and ward, 'Mid its gloomed and daisied sward, Stands with bowed and dewy head
That one little leaden Lad.
THE RIDDLERS
'Thou solitary!' the Blackbird cried, 'I, from the happy Wren, Linnet and Blackcap, Woodlark, Thrush, Perched all upon a sweetbrier bush, Have come at cold of midnight-tide
To ask thee, Why and when Grief smote thy heart so thou dost sing In solemn hush of evening, So sorrowfully, lovelorn Thing— Nay, nay, not sing, but rave, but wail, Most melancholic Nightingale?
Do not the dews of darkness steep
All pinings of the day in sleep?
Why, then, when rocked in starry nest
We mutely couch, secure, at rest, Doth thy lone heart delight to make Music for sorrow's sake?'
A Moon was there. So still her beam, It seemed the whole world lay a-dream, Lulled by the watery sea.
And from her leafy night-hung nook
Upon this stranger soft did look
The Nightingale: sighed he:—
''Tis strange, my friend; the Kingfisher But yestermorn conjured me here
Out of his green and gold to say Why thou, in splendour of the noon, Wearest of colour but golden shoon, And else dost thee array
In a most sombre suit of black?
"Surely," he sighed, "some load of grief, Past all our thinking—and belief— Must weigh upon his back!"
Do, then, in turn, tell me, If joy
Thy heart as well as voice employ, Why dost thou now, most Sable, shine In plumage woefuller far than mine?
Thy silence is a sadder thing Than any dirge I sing!'
Thus then these two small birds, perched there, Breathed a strange riddle both did share
Yet neither could expound.
And we—who sing but as we can, In the small knowledge of a man— Have we an answer found?
Nay, some are happy whose delight Is hid even from themselves from sight;
And some win peace who spend The skill of words to sweeten despair Of finding consolation where Life has but one dark end; Who, in rapt solitude, tell o'er A tale, as lovely as forlore, Into the midnight air.
MOONLIGHT
The far moon maketh lovers wise In her pale beauty trembling down, Lending curved cheeks, dark lips, dark eyes, A strangeness not their own. And, though they shut their lids to kiss, In starless darkness peace to win, Even on that secret world from this Her twilight enters in.
THE BLIND BOY
'I have no master,' said the Blind Boy, My mother, "Dame Venus," they do call; Cowled in this hood, she sent me begging For whate'er in pity may befall.
'Hard was her visage, me adjuring,— "Have no fond mercy on the kind!
Here be sharp arrows, bunched in quiver, Draw close ere striking—thou art blind."
'So stand I here, my woes entreating, In this dark alley, lest the Moon
Point with her sparkling my barbed armoury, Shine on my silver-laced shoon.
'Oh, sir, unkind this Dame to me-ward; Of the salt billow was her birth.... In your sweet charity draw nearer The saddest rogue on Earth!'
THE QUARRY
You hunted me with all the pack, Too blind, too blind, to see By no wild hope of force or greed
Could you make sure of me.
And like a phantom through the glades, With tender breast aglow, The goddess in me laughed to hear Your horns a-roving go.
She laughed to think no mortal e'er By dint of mortal flesh
The very Cause that was the Hunt One moment could enmesh:
That though with captive limbs I lay, Stilled breath and vanquished eyes,
He that hunts Love with horse and hound Hunts out his heart and eyes.
MRS. GRUNDY
'Step very softly, sweet Quiet-foot, Stumble not, whisper not, smile not: By this dark ivy stoop cheek and brow. Still even thy heart! What seest thou?'
'High-coifed, broad-browed, aged, suave yet grim, A large flat face, eyes keenly dim, Staring at nothing—that's me!—and yet, With a hate one could never, no, never forget...'
'This is my world, my garden, my home, Hither my father bade mother to come And bear me out of the dark into light, And happy I was in her tender sight.
'And then, thou frail flower, she died and went, Forgetting my pitiless banishment, And that Old Woman—an Aunt—she said, Came hither, lodged, fattened, and made her bed.
'Oh yes, thou most blessed, from Monday to Sunday Has lived on me, preyed on me, Mrs. Grundy: Called me, "dear Nephew"; on each of those chairs Has gloated in righteousness, heard my prayers.
'Why didst thou dare the thorns of the grove, Timidest trespasser, huntress of love?
Now thou hast peeped, and now dost know What kind of creature is thine for foe.
'Not that she'll tear out thy innocent eyes, Poison thy mouth with deviltries. Watch thou, wait thou: soon will begin The guile of a voice: hark!...' 'Come in, Come in!'
THE TRYST
Flee into some forgotten night and be Of all dark long my moon-bright company: Beyond the rumour even of Paradise come, There, out of all remembrance, make our home: Seek we some close hid shadow for our lair, Hollowed by Noah's mouse beneath the chair Wherein the Omnipotent, in slumber bound, Nods till the piteous Trump of Judgment sound. Perchance Leviathan of the deep sea Would lease a lost mermaiden's grot to me, There of your beauty we would joyance make— A music wistful for the sea-nymph's sake: Haply Elijah, o'er his spokes of fibre, Cresting steep Leo, or the heavenly Lyre, Spied, tranced in azure of inanest space, Some eyrie hostel, meet for human grace, Where two might happy be—just you and I— Lost in the uttermost of Eternity.
Think! in Time's smallest clock's minutest beat Might there not rest be found for wandering feet? Or, 'twixt the sleep and wake of a Helen's dream, Silence wherein to sing love's requiem?
No, no. Nor earth, nor air, nor fire, nor deep Could lull poor mortal longingness asleep. Somewhere there Nothing is; and there lost Man Shall win what changeless vague of peace he can.
ALONE
The abode of the nightingale is bare, Flowered frost congeals in the gelid air, The fox howls from his frozen lair: Alas, my loved one is gone, I am alone: It is winter.
Once the pink cast a winy smell, The wild bee hung in the hyacinth bell, Light in effulgence of beauty fell: Alas, my loved one is gone, I am alone: It is winter.
My candle a silent fire doth shed, Starry Orion hunts o'erhead; Come moth, come shadow, the world is dead: Alas, my loved one is gone, I am alone; It is winter.
THE EMPTY HOUSE
See this house, how dark it is Beneath its vast-boughed trees! Not one trembling leaflet cries To that Watcher in the skies— 'Remove, remove thy searching gaze, Innocent, of heaven's ways, Brood not, Moon, so wildly bright, On secrets hidden from sight.'
'Secrets,' sighs the night-wind, 'Vacancy is all I find; Every keyhole I have made Wail a summons, faint and sad, No voice ever answers me, Only vacancy.'
'Once, once...' the cricket shrills, And far and near the quiet fills With its tiny voice, and then Hush falls again.
Mute shadows creeping slow Mark how the hours go. Every stone is mouldering slow. And the least winds that blow Some minutest atom shake, Some fretting ruin make In roof and walls. How black it is Beneath these thick-boughed trees!
MISTRESS FELL
'Whom seek you here, sweet Mistress Fell?' 'One who loved me passing well.
Dark his eye, wild his face— Stranger, if in this lonely place Bide such an one, then, prythee, say I am come here to-day.'
'Many his like, Mistress Fell?' 'I did not look, so cannot tell. Only this I surely know, When his voice called me, I must go; Touched me his fingers, and my heart Leapt at the sweet pain's smart.'
'Why did he leave you, Mistress Fell?' 'Magic laid its dreary spell.— Stranger, he was fast asleep; Into his dream I tried to creep; Called his name, soft was my cry: He answered—not one sigh.
'The flower and the thorn are here; Falleth the night-dew, cold and clear; Out of her bower the bird replies, Mocking the dark with ecstasies, See how the earth's green grass doth grow, Praising what sleeps below!
'Thus have they told me. And I come, As flies the wounded wild-bird home. Not tears I give; but all that he Clasped in his arms, sweet charity; All that he loved—to him I bring For a close whispering.'
THE GHOST
'Who knocks?' 'I, who was beautiful, Beyond all dreams to restore, I, from the roots of the dark thorn am hither, And knock on the door.'
'Who speaks?' 'I—once was my speech Sweet as the bird's on the air. When echo lurks by the waters to heed; 'Tis I speak thee fair.'
'Dark is the hour!' 'Ay, and cold.'
'Lone is my house.' 'Ah, but mine?'
'Sight, touch, lips, eyes yearned in vain.' 'Long dead these to thine...
Silence. Still faint on the porch Brake the flames of the stars. In gloom groped a hope-wearied hand Over keys, bolts, and bars.
A face peered. All the grey night In chaos of vacancy shone; Nought but vast Sorrow was there— The sweet cheat gone.
THE STRANGER
In the woods as I did walk, Dappled with the moon's beam, I did with a Stranger talk, And his name was Dream.
Spurred his heel, dark his cloak, Shady-wide his bonnet's brim; His horse beneath a silvery oak Grazed as I talked with him.
Softly his breast-brooch burned and shone; Hill and deep were in his eyes; One of his hands held mine, and one The fruit that makes men wise.
Wonderly strange was earth to see, Flowers white as milk did gleam; Spread to Heaven the Assyrian Tree, Over my head with Dream.
Dews were still betwixt us twain; Stars a trembling beauty shed; Yet—not a whisper comes again Of the words he said.
BETRAYAL
She will not die, they say, She will but put her beauty by And hie away.
Oh, but her beauty gone, how lonely Then will seem all reverie, How black to me!
All things will sad be made And every hope a memory, All gladness dead.
