Ione III

To-day my skies are bare and ashen,And bend on me without a beam.Since love is held the master-passion,Its loss must be the pain supreme--And grinning Fate has wrecked my dream.But pardon, dear departed Guest,I will not rant, I will not rail;For good the grain must feel the flail;There are whom love has never blessed.

I had and have a younger brother,One whom I loved and love to-dayAs never fond and doting motherAdored the babe who found its wayFrom heavenly scenes into her day.Oh, he was full of youth's new wine,--A man on life's ascending slope,Flushed with ambition, full of hope;And every wish of his was mine.

A kingly youth; the way before himWas thronged with victories to be won;So joyous, too, the heavens o'er himWere bright with an unchanging sun,--His days with rhyme were overrun.Toil had not taught him Nature's prose,Tears had not dimmed his brilliant eyes,And sorrow had not made him wise;His life was in the budding rose.

I know not how I came to waken,Some instinct pricked my soul to sight;My heart by some vague thrill was shaken,--A thrill so true and yet so slight,I hardly deemed I read aright.As when a sleeper, ign'rant why,Not knowing what mysterious handHas called him out of slumberland,Starts up to find some danger nigh.

Love is a guest that comes, unbidden,But, having come, asserts his right;He will not be repressed nor hidden.And so my brother's dawning plightBecame uncovered to my sight.Some sound-mote in his passing toneCaught in the meshes of my ear;Some little glance, a shade too dear,Betrayed the love he bore Ione.

What could I do? He was my brother,And young, and full of hope and trust;I could not, dared not try to smotherHis flame, and turn his heart to dust.I knew how oft life gives a crustTo starving men who cry for bread;But he was young, so few his days,He had not learned the great world's ways,Nor Disappointment's volumes read.

However fair and rich the booty,I could not make his loss my gain.For love is dear, but dearer duty,And here my way was clear and plain.I saw how I could save him pain.And so, with all my day grown dim,That this loved brother's sun might shine,I joined his suit, gave over mine,And sought Ione, to plead for him.

I found her in an eastern bower,Where all day long the am'rous sunLay by to woo a timid flower.This day his course was well-nigh run,But still with lingering art he spunGold fancies on the shadowed wall.The vines waved soft and green above,And there where one might tell his love,I told my griefs--I told her all!

I told her all, and as she hearkened,A tear-drop fell upon her dress.With grief her flushing brow was darkened;One sob that she could not repressBetrayed the depths of her distress.Upon her grief my sorrow fed,And I was bowed with unlived years,My heart swelled with a sea of tears,The tears my manhood could not shed.

The world is Rome, and Fate is Nero,Disporting in the hour of doom.God made us men; times make the hero--But in that awful space of gloomI gave no thought but sorrow's room.All--all was dim within that bower,What time the sun divorced the day;And all the shadows, glooming gray,Proclaimed the sadness of the hour.

She could not speak--no word was needed;Her look, half strength and half despair,Told me I had not vainly pleaded,That she would not ignore my prayer.And so she turned and left me there,And as she went, so passed my bliss;She loved me, I could not mistake--But for her own and my love's sake,Her womanhood could rise to this!

My wounded heart fled swift to cover,And life at times seemed very drear.My brother proved an ardent lover--What had so young a man to fear?He wed Ione within the year.No shadow clouds her tranquil brow,Men speak her husband's name with pride,While she sits honored at his side--She is--she must be happy now!

I doubt the course I took no longer,Since those I love seem satisfied.The bond between them will grow strongerAs they go forward side by side;Then will my pains be jusfied.Their joy is mine, and that is best--I am not totally bereft;For I have still the mem'ry left--Love stopped with me--a Royal Guest!