Part 14

’Tis mine, this gift, ah, mine alone, To paint the leaden sky to lilac-rose, Or coax the sullen sun to flash, Or carve from granite gray a flaming knight, Or weave the twilight hours with garlands gay, Or wake the morning with my soul’s glad song, Or at my bitterest drink a sweetness cast, Or gather from my loneliness the flower— A dream amid a mist of tears. Ah, treasure mine, this do I pledge to thee, That none may peer within thy land; and only When the moon shines white shall I disclose thee; Lest, straying, thou should’st fade; and in the blackness Of the midnight shall I fondle thee, Afraid to show thee to the day. When I shall give to Him, the giver, All my treasure’s stores, and darkness creeps upon me, Then will I for this return a thank, And show thee to the world. Blind are they to thee, but ah, the darkness Is illumined; and lo! thy name is burned Like flaming torch to light me on my way. Then from thy wrapping of love I pluck My dearest gift, the memory of my dearest love. Ah, memory, thou painter, Who from cloud canst fashion her dear form, Or from a stone canst turn her smile, Or fill my loneliness with her dear voice, Or weave a loving garland for her hair— Thou art my gift of God, to be my comrade here.

Next to such love as this comes friendship, and she has put an estimate of the value of a friend in these words:

Of Earth there be this store of joys and woes. Yea, and they do make the days o’ me. I sit me here adream that did I hold From out the whole, but one, my dearest gift, What then would it to be? Doth days and nights Of bright and dark make this my store? Nay. Do happy hours and woes-tide, then, Beset this day of me and make the thing I’d keep? Nay. Doth metal store and jewelled string Then be aworth to me? Nay. I set me here, And dreaming, fall to reasoning for this, That I would keep, if but one gift wert mine Must hold the store o’ all. Yea, must hold The dark for light, yea, and hold the light for dark, Aye, and hold the sweet for sours, aye, and hold The love for Hate. Yea, then, where may I to turn?

And lo, as I adreaming sat A voice spaked out to me: What ho! What ho! And lo, the voice of one, a friend!

This, then, shall be my treasure, And the Earth part I shall hold From out all gifts of Him.

Love of God, and God’s love for us, and the certainty of life after death as a consequence of that love, are the themes of Patience’s finest poetry, consideration of which is reserved for succeeding chapters. Yet a taste of this devotional poetry will not be amiss at this point in the presentation of her works, as an indication of the character of that which is to come.

Lo, ’pon a day there bloomed a bud, And swayed it at adance ’pon sweeted airs. And gardens oped their greenéd breast To shew to Earth o’ such an one. And soft the morn did woo its bloom; And nights wept ’pon its cheek, And mosses crept them ’bout the stem, That sun not scoarch where it had sprung. And lo, the garden sprite, a maid, Who came aseek at every day, And kissed the bud, and cast o’ drops To cool the warm sun’s rays. And bud did hang it swaying there, And love lept from the maiden’s breast.

And days wore on; and nights did wrap The bud to wait the morn; And maid aseeked the spot. When, lo, there came a Stranger To the garden’s wall, Who knocked Him there And bid the maiden come.

And up unto her heart she pressed her hand, And reached it forth to stay the bud’s soft sway, And lo, the sun hung dark, And Stranger knocked Him there. And ’twere the maid did step most regal to the place. And harked, and lo, His voice aspoke. And she looked upon His face, And lo, ’twere sorry sore, and sad! And soft there came His word Of pleading unto her: “O’ thy garden’s store do offer unto me.” And lo, the maid did turn and seek her out the bud, And pluck it that she bear it unto Him. And at the garden’s ope He stood and waited her. And forth her hand she held, therein the bud, And lo, He took therefrom the bloom And left the garden bare, And maid did stand astripped Of heart’s sun ’mid her garden’s bloom. When lo, athin the wound there sunk A warmpth that filled it up with love. Yea, ’twere the smile o’ Him, the price.

But she has given another form of poem which should be presented before this brief review of her more material verse is concluded, and it is a form one would hardly expect from such a source. I refer to the “poem of occasion.” A few days before Christmas, Mrs. Curran remarked as she sat at the board: “I wonder if Patience wouldn’t give us a Christmas poem.” And without a moment’s hesitation she did. Here it is:

I hied me to the glen and dell, And o’er the heights, afar and near, To find the Yule sprite’s haunt. I dreamt me it did bide Where mistletoe doth bead; And found an oak whose boughs Hung clustered with its borrowed loveliness. Ah, could such a one as she Abide her in this chill? For bleakness wraps the oak about And crackles o’er her dancing branch. Nay, her very warmth Would surely thaw away the icy shroud, And mistletoe would die Adreaming it was spring. I hied me to the holly tree And made me sure to find her there. But nay, The thorny spines would prick her tenderness. Ah, where then doth she bide?

I asked the frost who stood Upon the fringéd grasses ’neath the oak. “I know her not, but I Am ever bidden to her feast. Ask thou the sparrow of the field. He searcheth everywhere; perchance He knoweth where she bides.”

“Nay, I know her not, But at her birthday’s tide I find full many a crumb Cast wide upon the snow.”

I found a chubby babe, Who toddled o’er the ice, and whispered, Did she know the Yule sprite’s haunt? And she but turneth solemn eyes to me And wags her golden head.

I flitted me from house to shack, And ever missed the rogue; But surely she had left her sign To bid me on to search. And I did weary of my task And put my hopes to rest, And slept me on the eve afore her birth, Full sure to search anew at morn.

And then the morning broke; And e’er mine eyes did ope, I fancied me a scarlet sprite, With wings of green and scepter of a mistletoe, Did bid me wake, and whispered me To look me to my heart. Soft-nestled, warm, I found her resting there. Guard me lest I tell; But, heart o’erfull of loving, Thee’lt surely spill good cheer!

The following week, without request, she gave this New Year’s poem, remarkable for the novelty of its treatment of a much worn theme:

The year hath sickened; And dawning day doth show his withering; And Death hath crept him closer on each hour. The crying hemlock shaketh in its grief. The smiling spring hath hollowed it to age, And golden grain-stalks fallen O’er the naked breast of earth. The year’s own golden locks Have fallen, too, or whitened, Where they still do hold.

And do I sorrow me? Nay, I do speed him on, For precious pack he beareth To the land of passing dreams.

I’ve bundled pain and wishing ’Round with deeds undone, And packed the loving o’ my heart With softness of thine own; And plied his pack anew With loss and gain, to add The cup of bitter tears I shed O’er nothings as I passed.

Old year and older years— My friends, my comrades on the road below— I fain would greet ye now, And bid ye Godspeed on your ways.

I watch ye pass, and read The aged visages of each. I love ye well, and count ye o’er In fearing lest I lose e’en one of you. And here the brother of you, every one, Lies smitten!

But as dear I’ll love him When the winter’s moon doth sink; And like the watery eye of age Doth close at ending of his day. And I shall flit me through his dreams And cheer him with my loving; And last within the pack shall put A Hope and speed him thence.

And bow me to the New. A friend mayhap, but still untried. And true, ye say? But ne’er hath proven so!

Old year, I love thee well, And bid thee farewell with a sigh.

One who reads these poems with thoughtfulness must be impressed by a number of attributes which make them notable, and, in some respects, wholly unique. First of all is the absence of conventionality, coupled with skill in construction, in phrasing, in the compounding of words, in the application to old words of new or unusual but always logical meanings, in the maintenance of rhythm without monotony. Next is the absolute purity, with the sometimes archaic quality, of the English. It is the language of Shakespeare, of Marlowe, of Fletcher, of Jonson and Drayton, except that it presents Saxon words or Saxon prefixes which had already passed out of literary use in their time, while on the other hand it avoids nearly all the words derived directly from other languages that were habitually used by those great writers. There is rarely a word that is not of Anglo-Saxon or Norman birth. Nor are there any long words. All of these compositions are in words of one, two and three syllables, very seldom one of four—no “multitudinous seas incarnadine.” Among the hundreds of words of Patience Worth’s in this chapter there are only two of four syllables and less than fifty of three syllables. Fully 95 per cent of her works are in words of one and two syllables. In what other writing, ancient or modern, the Bible excepted, can this simplicity be found?

But the most impressive attribute of these poems is the weirdness of them, an intangible quality that defies definition or location, but which envelops and permeates all of them. One may look in vain through the works of the poets for anything with which to compare them. They are alike in the essential features of all poetry, and yet they are unalike. There is something in them that is not in other poetry. In the profusion of their metaphor there is an etherealness that more closely resembles Shelley, perhaps, than any other poet; but the beauty of Shelley’s poems is almost wholly in their diction: there is in him no profundity of thought. In these poems there is both beauty and depth—and something else.

THE PROSE