Her Death and After

’TWAS a death-bed summons, and forth I wentBy the way of the Western Wall, so drearOn that winter night, and sought a gate—The home, by Fate,Of one I had long held dear.

And there, as I paused by her tenement,And the trees shed on me their rime and hoar,I thought of the man who had left her lone—Him who made her his ownWhen I loved her, long before.

The rooms within had the piteous shineThat home-things wear when there’s aught amiss;From the stairway floated the rise and fallOf an infant’s call,Whose birth had brought her to this.

Her life was the price she would pay for that whine—For a child by the man she did not love.“But let that rest for ever,” I said,And bent my treadTo the chamber up above.

She took my hand in her thin white own,And smiled her thanks—though nigh too weak—And made them a sign to leave us thereThen faltered, ereShe could bring herself to speak.

“’Twas to see you before I go—he’ll condoneSuch a natural thing now my time’s not much—When Death is so near it hustles henceAll passioned senseBetween woman and man as such!

“My husband is absent. As heretoforeThe City detains him. But, in truth,He has not been kind . . . I will speak no blame,But—the child is lame;O, I pray she may reach his ruth!

“Forgive past days—I can say no more—Maybe if we’d wedded you’d now repine! . . .But I treated you ill. I was punished. Farewell!—Truth shall I tell?Would the child were yours and mine!

“As a wife I was true. But, such my uneaseThat, could I insert a deed back in Time,I’d make her yours, to secure your care;And the scandal bear,And the penalty for the crime!”

—When I had left, and the swinging treesRang above me, as lauding her candid say,Another was I. Her words were enough:Came smooth, came rough,I felt I could live my day.

Next night she died; and her obsequiesIn the Field of Tombs, by the Via renowned,Had her husband’s heed. His tendance spent,I often wentAnd pondered by her mound.

All that year and the next year whiled,And I still went thitherward in the gloam;But the Town forgot her and her nook,And her husband tookAnother Love to his home.

And the rumour flew that the lame lone childWhom she wished for its safety child of mine,Was treated ill when offspring cameOf the new-made dame,And marked a more vigorous line.

A smarter grief within me wroughtThan even at loss of her so dear;Dead the being whose soul my soul suffused,Her child ill-used,I helpless to interfere!

One eve as I stood at my spot of thoughtIn the white-stoned Garth, brooding thus her wrong,Her husband neared; and to shun his viewBy her hallowed mewI went from the tombs among

To the Cirque of the Gladiators which faced—That haggard mark of Imperial Rome,Whose Pagan echoes mock the chimeOf our Christian time:It was void, and I inward clomb.

Scarce night the sun’s gold touch displacedFrom the vast Rotund and the neighbouring deadWhen her husband followed; bowed; half-passed,With lip upcast;Then, halting, sullenly said:

“It is noised that you visit my first wife’s tomb.Now, I gave her an honoured name to bearWhile living, when dead. So I’ve claim to askBy what right you taskMy patience by vigiling there?

“There’s decency even in death, I assume;Preserve it, sir, and keep away;For the mother of my first-born youShow mind undue!—Sir, I’ve nothing more to say.”

A desperate stroke discerned I then—God pardon—or pardon not—the lie;She had sighed that she wished (lest the child should pineOf slights) ’twere mine,So I said: “But the father I.

“That you thought it yours is the way of men;But I won her troth long ere your day:You learnt how, in dying, she summoned me?’Twas in fealty.—Sir, I’ve nothing more to say,

“Save that, if you’ll hand me my little maid,I’ll take her, and rear her, and spare you toil.Think it more than a friendly act none can;I’m a lonely man,While you’ve a large pot to boil.

“If not, and you’ll put it to ball or blade—To-night, to-morrow night, anywhen—I’ll meet you here . . . But think of it,And in season fitLet me hear from you again.”

—Well, I went away, hoping; but nought I heardOf my stroke for the child, till there greeted meA little voice that one day cameTo my window-frameAnd babbled innocently:

“My father who’s not my own, sends wordI’m to stay here, sir, where I belong!”Next a writing came: “Since the child was the fruitOf your lawless suit,Pray take her, to right a wrong.”

And I did. And I gave the child my love,And the child loved me, and estranged us none.But compunctions loomed; for I’d harmed the deadBy what I’d saidFor the good of the living one.

—Yet though, God wot, I am sinner enough,And unworthy the woman who drew me so,Perhaps this wrong for her darling’s goodShe forgives, or would,If only she could know!