Vera I

A silent world,--yet full of vital joyUttered in rhythmic movements manifold,And sunbeams flashing on the face of thingsLike sudden smilings of divine delight,--A world of many sorrows too, revealedIn fading flowers and withering leaves and darkTear-laden clouds, and tearless, clinging mistsThat hung above the earth too sad to weep,--A world of fluent change, and changeless flow,And infinite suggestion of new thought,Reflected in the crystal of the heart,--A world of many meanings but no words,A silent world was Vera's home.For herThe inner doors of sound were closely sealedThe outer portals, delicate as shellsSuffused with faintest rose of far-off morn,Like underglow of daybreak in the sea,--The ear-gates of the garden of her soul,Shaded by drooping tendrils of brown hair,--Waited in vain for messengers to pass,And thread the labyrinth with flying feet,And swiftly knock upon the inmost door,And enter in, and speak the mystic word.But through those gates no message ever came.Only with eyes did she behold and see,--With eyes as luminous and bright and brownAs waters of a woodland river,--eyesThat questioned so they almost seemed to speak,And answered so they almost seemed to hear,--Only with wondering eyes did she beholdThe silent splendour of a living world.

She saw the great wind ranging freely downInterminable archways of the wood,While tossing boughs and bending tree-tops hailedHis coming: but no sea-toned voice of pines,No roaring of the oaks, no silvery songOf poplars or of birches, followed him.He passed; they waved their arms and clapped their hands;There was no sound.The torrents from the hillsLeaped down their rocky pathways, like wild steedsBreaking the yoke and shaking manes of foam.The lowland brooks coiled smoothly through the fields,And softly spread themselves in glistening lakesWhose ripples merrily danced among the reeds.The standing waves that ever keep their placeIn the swift rapids, curled upon themselves,And seemed about to break and never broke;And all the wandering waves that fill the seaCame buffeting in along the stony shore,Or plunging in along the level sands,Or creeping in along the winding creeksAnd inlets. Yet from all the ceaseless flowAnd turmoil of the restless elementCame neither song of joy nor sob of grief;For there were many waters, but no voice.

Silent the actors all on Nature's stagePerformed their parts before her watchful eyes,Coming and going, making war and love,Working and playing, all without a sound.The oxen drew their load with swaying necks;The cows came sauntering home along the lane;The nodding sheep were led from field to foldIn mute obedience. Down the woodland trackThe hounds with panting sides and lolling tonguesPursued their flying prey in noiseless haste.The birds, the most alive of living things,Mated, and built their nests, and reared their young,And swam the flood of air like tiny shipsRising and falling over unseen waves,And, gathering in great navies, bore awayTo North or South, without a note of song.

All these were Vera's playmates; and she lovedTo watch them, wondering oftentimes how wellThey knew their parts, and how the drama movedSo swiftly, smoothly on from scene to sceneWithout confusion. But she sometimes dreamedThere must be something hidden in the playUnknown to her, an utterance of lifeMore clear than action and more deep than looks.And this she felt most deeply when she watchedHer human comrades and the throngs of men,Who met and parted oft with moving lipsThat had a meaning more than she could see.She saw a lover bend above a maid,With moving lips; and though he touched her notA sudden rose of joy bloomed in her face.She saw a hater stand before his foeAnd move his lips; whereat the other shrankAs if he had been smitten on the mouth.She saw the regiments of toiling menMarshalled in ranks and led by moving lips.And once she saw a sight more strange than all:A crowd of people sitting charmed and stillAround a little company of menWho touched their hands in measured, rhythmic timeTo curious instruments; a woman stoodAmong them, with bright eyes and heaving breast,And lifted up her face and moved her lips.Then Vera wondered at the idle play,But when she looked around, she saw the glowOf deep delight on every face, as ifSome visitor from a celestial worldHad brought glad tidings. But to her aloneNo angel entered, for the choir of soundWas vacant in the temple of her soul,And worship lacked her golden crown of song.

So when by vision baffled and perplexedShe saw that all the world could not be seen,And knew she could not know the whole of lifeUnless a hidden gate should be unsealed,She felt imprisoned. In her heart there grewThe bitter creeping plant of discontent,The plant that only grows in prison soil,Whose root is hunger and whose fruit is pain.The springs of still delight and tranquil joyWere drained as dry as desert dust to feedThat never-flowering vine, whose tendrils clungWith strangling touch around the bloom of lifeAnd made it wither. Vera could not restWithin the limits of her silent world;Along its dumb and desolate paths she roamedA captive, looking sadly for escape.

Now in those distant days, and in that landRemote, there lived a Master wonderful,Who knew the secret of all life, and could,With gentle touches and with potent words,Open all gates that ever had been sealed,And loose all prisoners whom Fate had bound.Obscure he dwelt, not in the wilderness,But in a hut among the throngs of men,Concealed by meekness and simplicity.And ever as he walked the city streets,Or sat in quietude beside the sea,Or trod the hillsides and the harvest fields,The multitude passed by and knew him not.But there were some who knew, and turned to himFor help; and unto all who asked, he gave.Thus Vera came, and found him in the field,And knew him by the pity in his face.She knelt to him and held him by one hand,And laid the other hand upon her lipsIn mute entreaty. Then she lifted upThe coils of hair that hung about her neck,And bared the beauty of the gates of sound,--Those virgin gates through which no voice had passed,--She made them bare before the Master's sight,And looked into the kindness of his faceWith eyes that spoke of all her prisoned pain,And told her great desire without a word.

The Master waited long in silent thought,As one reluctant to bestow a gift,Not for the sake of holding back the thingEntreated, but because he surely knewOf something better that he fain would giveIf only she would ask it. Then he stoopedTo Vera, smiling, touched her ears and spoke:"Open, fair gates, and you, reluctant doors,Within the ivory labyrinth of the ear,Let fall the bar of silence and unfold!Enter, you voices of all living things,Enter the garden sealed,--but softly, slowly,Not with a noise confused and broken tumult,--Come in an order sweet as I command you,And bring the double gift of speech and hearing."

Vera began to hear. At first the windBreathed a low prelude of the birth of sound,As if an organ far away were touchedBy unseen fingers; then the little streamThat hurried down the hillside, swept the harpOf music into merry, tinkling notes;And then the lark that poised above her headOn wings a-quiver, overflowed the airWith showers of song; and one by one the tonesOf all things living, in an order sweet,Without confusion and with deepening power,Entered the garden sealed. And last of allThe Master's voice, the human voice divine,Passed through the gates and called her by her name,And Vera heard.