Classic Poem

On the Tague farm there was a rugged hill that looked on the Kennebec.
Of the acclivities, all save one were bare of woods, and were barren, as were the toplands also——
converging sweeps of bouldery pasturage rolling upward, rolling high, from sweeps of littoral meadowland,
and useful only as grazing ground for the Tague sheep. One acclivity,
gutted deep by erosion, and glowering weirdly, malignantly, on the Tague house, was even more barren than the others——
a vast and desolate claybank, furrowy, sterile, on which there grew not even the mullen, but on which, at midday, during the summer, the atmosphere was likely to dance in terpischorean frenzy. Another acclivity,
rising abruptly, and facing toward the river, was wooded with big oaks, big beeches, big pines, big birches, amongst which there wound a sheep path, trodden firm, forever shady, with now a rustic gate, and with now a vista of meadow, of cornfield, of littoral boscage, or of the Kennebec itself, as discernible through the boscage.
The Tague house stood at the very brink of the river.
It was a large old gabled house, a Colonial farmhouse with ramshackle sheds, which, joining one to another, and ranging one after another, connected the house with a great barn black with age.
In the dooryard there was an old neglected garden——
a garden in which there flourished, uncared for, the poppy, the rose, the heliotrope, the hollyhock, the sunflower, together with many a vine, and in which there spread about, unchecked, an undergrowth of smartweed.
At the end of the house that faced toward the river,
there were maples and elms, with many a chokecherry tree, and a lone holly, together forming a spacious arbor in which there was fashioned a rustic settle, and in which one was ever tempted to linger, if only to listen to the wail of the catbird or the chatter of the squirrel, or to gaze on the swarthy Kennebec, at that point placid, and there curving about the hill, like the dusky arm of an erotic squaw.
The house stood a mile off from any other house.
In the parlor that faced toward the south and the sun, Rosalind stayed, by herself.

It was in that room that I almost always found the dying woman.
With autumn growing too chilly for her to sit in the arbor,
and with her now having grown too weak to walk much out of doors,
it was in that room that now I always found her, sitting alone.
During the summer I had often found her sitting in the arbor, or perchance in the old garden——
had found her watching the atmosphere dance on the desolate claybank.
We had often strolled together along the path in the woods on the hillside,
always to seek a certain opening in the woods, and to linger there.
It was a spacious opening in a virgin growth of white pine, of stately trees
that rose with a grand air, and muttered cynically, and leered thus——
a circle formed by a group of courtiers drawing back, reservedly, to make way for the dancers;——
for the ground was covered with a heavy rug of interlacing brakes,
a virid fabric figured with scarlet lilies, a luxurious brocade
on which there danced the immortal mime
of daring sunbeams and aggressive shadows.
The pines looked on, and often nodded down in the grand manner.
There we had often lingered together for hours.
with Rosalind watching the mime, and often smiling——
laughing even, as if to herself, whenever a sunbeam made escape. But autumn came upon us——
came with a masterful tread that we had heard in August, but had not heeded.
The entanglements of the meadows now broke down in rusty ruin.
The corn grew golden on the stalks, and the stalks grew tawny.
The apples reddened.
The pumpkins yellowed.
There appeared the scarlet of the woodbine.
There appeared the other hues of autumn, multiplying, flaring.
Now the leaves faded.
Now the leaves fell.
The atmosphere ceased to dance on the claybank.
The world grew quiet.
Once in a while there resounded the bleat of a sheep, or the call of a laggardly crow, but only once in a while.
The world grew lonely.
Often, but all the while less often, there appeared the departing waterfowl,
their silhouettes finally merging in the deepening gray of the hardening skies——
for the skies grew gray.
The world grew cold.
Rosalind grew too weak to walk much out of doors.
We strolled no more in the woods.
We sat no more in the arbor.
We sat always in the sunny parlor.
It was in the sunny parlor that I last saw Rosalind.

Who did not call her Rosalind?
No one ever called her by other than her maiden name,
and there were few who thought of her as married to Bill Tague.
She was a Bard, and people liked to call her by that name, Rosalind Bard.
Even her daughter Alice frequently called her Rosalind.

No one ever called her husband Bill. Men always called him Tague——
for no man liked him well enough to call him by his given name.
No man ever sought him out, except to buy hard cider from him,
or to give an order for cordwood, or to dicker with him for sheep.
He was evasive, undependable, unscrupulous.
He was humdrum, boorish, repellent.
He was unlettered, uninformed, unmannered.
He was corpulent, clumsy, unkempt.
I often wondered why Rosalind married the man.

I was but one of the many friends of Rosalind Bard——
for she was like a sister to every one who knew her.
Nevertheless I was one of her friends——
a younger brother, I might say, for I was many years younger than she.
I used to tell her my dreams, my troubles, my secrets, all;
and once I told her a loathesome secret, one unbearable as mine alone. I wept.
Rosalind clasped my bowed head in her hands. The last time that I ever saw her, she told me
a secret of her own, one as loathesome to her as mine had ever been to me.

It was now the season of skating. Scores,
hundreds, went up the Kennebec, to the great glare, midriver,
just off shore from the Tague house.
I myself went up to skate for a while——
to skate and of course to see Rosalind. As I approached the house, I discerned
at a window of the suny parlor the countenance of Rosalind,
who had already seen me, and was already smiling.
I tore off a branch from the lone holly.
Laughing, I waved the branch as a greeting.
I took the holly into the house. I gave the holly to Rosalind.

That day there were many long silences. Rosalind coughed too frequently
for me to speak of anything demanding much response from her.
I gazed out at the skaters gliding on the glare——
gliding as we, Rosalind and I, had often glided together.
I thought that not one of the women swayed so gracefully
as Rosalind had swayed, with me, in what now seemed the long ago.
I gazed at them, nevertheless, and tried to gaze absorbedly.
I gazed at the claybank buried in erosive drifts.
I gazed at the bald and grizzly toplands of the glowering hill.
But I gazed thus only because I dared not gaze too long on Rosalind.

We sat there undisturbed, save by the mother, the simpering mother,
who entered the room but once, then to bring medicine to her daughter,
and who came and went in simpering silence——
no, for there was the disconcerting sight of Tague, who, outside,
seated high on a load of cordwood, and swearing at his horses,
passed by the windows of the sunny parlor, as he drove to town.
We heard the mother call out shrilly after Tague, to tell him
not to fail to bring her back some peppermint wafers.
Now I heard Rosalind saying——

“Alice is coming home.
She will arrive tomorrow.
She will pass the holidays with me.
Go to the station, to meet her.
Go, I want you to go.
All these years I have kept her at school in the convent——
have managed to keep her away from this accursed place——
but I wanted her to come home, this year.
Go to the station, to meet her.
It is you who must bring her to me.”

For a little while no more from Rosalind, except a murmur, a hoarse and ominous murmur——

“I knew that she must come to me, this Christmas.”

Later, playing with the holly, Rosalind remarked, wearily——

“In a few days the sun will turn back to the world,
and all our world will celebrate the turning back of the sun.
Yet what does all that matter to me?
I have never lived in the sunlight, never——
have only watched it dance in frenzy, and forever at a distance.”

After a pause, she continued, wearily——

“I never lived as my older sister lived——
Anne, who died when you were a boy, and even as I die. I loved her——
but I never wanted to live as Anne lived, never desired
to dance through life, as the atmosphere dances all summer on the sterile claybank.
I wanted to live in a quiet light like that on the other hillside.
I was denied it——”

Rosalind coughed.
Violent strangulation came upon her, distorting her face and making it livid.
I sprang to her side.
I supported her.
As soon as she became calm, I said, impulsively, imperatively——

“Tell me, Rosalind, why you married Tague.”

Rosalind glanced toward a door that led to the kitchen——
glanced uneasily, with fear in her glance;
now muttered uneasily, with fear in her voice——

“I know that you have often wondered why I married Tague.
I will tell you why I married him, now that I am dying.”

She paused.
She sighed.
She almost chanted——

“Anne, even as a girl, lived as she wanted to live——
danced, danced, danced, whether on fullness or desolation.
Precocious, contumacious, impervious, fearless, a true Bard, she did whatever she wanted to do.
She was born to do whatever she wanted to do, but I——
I was always repressed, restrained, restricted, by mother, who forever mentioned Anne as a bad example, a disgrace to the Bards.
I forever submitted to mother.
I think that I was born to submit.
I loved.
I loved John Farrar, but mother forbade my seeing him.
I was about to marry John,
but somehow, my spirit broken by repression, restraint, restriction, I gave him up.
Then came Tague.
Mother hired Tague as overseer to the farm, this farm;
and she and I came here to pass the summer.
Here we remained.
From the first I noticed that mother was pleased with Tague.
In her talk there was always Tague, Tague, Tague, and she was forever and everywhere at his heels.
She began to talk of my marrying some good man, and soon of my marrying a man like Tague.
I broke down.
I despaired.
I married Tague.”

Again she paused.
She closed her eyes,
and now resumed——

“No sooner did I marry him, than I became aware of an intimacy, ludicrous, repulsive, that existed between him and mother.
I began to understand why mother, even from the very first,
had wanted me to marry Tague.
One day I opened the door on them, the kitchen door——”

Rosalind shuddered.
Again she glanced toward the door that led to the kitchen.
She muttered, hoarsely——

“In silence I left the house. I went to Anne, who loved me.
I told Anne all.
She raged.
She cursed.
She sent for mother, reviled her, cursed her with frightful curses, and drove her from the house.
Anne made me live with her, in town.
I lived with her not long, however, for Tague, set on by mother, now threatened me with divorce.
The thought of court and all that I must tell there, with none to believe, was as bad as the thought of Tague.
My one good thought was that of my child unborn.
I returned to the farm, this place——
to watch the atmosphere dance on the hillside.
Once here, however, I lived by myself. Enlightened by Anne,
who told me what to say and do, I kept Tague at a distance.
Yet what does it all matter now, to me?
John Farrar was killed in the Spanish War——”

Thus much Rosalind told me.
There was no more from her for a while, except a whisper, a hoarse and ominous whisper——

“I hope that Alice will arrive tomorrow.”

Next day, when I brought Alice home,
I saw on the snow in the dooryard the branch of holly.
I felt that someone had cast it there.
I saw on the door a crepe.
With my heel I trod the holly into the snow.