第49章

He professed himself utterly unable to account for this, and asked me what I thought was the cause of it.He furthermore suddenly decided that he would ask Gwen to propose his name for membership at the next meeting of the Young People's Club.I hastily indorsed this resolution, for I had a vague sort of feeling that it would please Gwen.

The "Antony and Cleopatra" night at length arrived.We all attended the meeting and listened to a very able paper upon the play.One of the most marked traits of Gwen's character is that whatever she does she does thoroughly, and this was fully exemplified on the night in question.

Maitland was very much impressed by some verse Gwen had written for the occasion, and a copy of which he succeeded in procuring from her.I think, from certain remarks he made, that it was the broad and somewhat unfeminine charity expressed in the verse which most astonished and attracted him, but of this, after what I have said, you will, when you have perused it, be as good a judge as I:

CLEOPATRA

In Egypt, where the lotus sips the watersOf ever-fruitful Nile, and the huge SphinxIn awful silence, - mystic converse withThe stars, - doth see the pale moon hang her crescent onThe pyramid's sharp peak, - e'en there, well inThe straits of Time's perspective,Went out, by Caesarean gusts from Rome,The low-burned candle of the Ptolemies:Went out without a flicker in full glareOf noon-day glory.When her flame lacked oilToo proud was Egypt's queen to beThe snuff of Roman spirits; so she said,"Good-night," and closed the book of life half readAnd little understood; perchance misreadThe greater part, - yet, who shall say? Are weAn ermined bench to call her culprit failings upAnd make them plead for mercy? Or can we,Upon whom soon shall fall the awful shadow ofThe Judgment Seat, stand in her light and throwOurselves that shadow? Rather let fall uponHer memory the softening gauze of Time,As mantle of a charity which elseWe might not serve.She was a woman,And as a woman loved! What though the fierceSimoom blew ever hot within the sailOf her desire? What if it shifted withDirection of her breath? Or if the rudder ofHer will did lean as many ways as trampled straws,And own as little worth? She was a woman still,And queen.They do best understand themselvesWho trust themselves the least; as they are wisestWho, for their safety, thank more the open seaThan pilot will.Oh, Egypt's self-born Isis!Ought we to fasten in thy memory the fangsOf unalloyed distrust? We know how littleBetter is History's page than leaf whereat the inkIs thrown.Nor yet should we forget how muchThe nearer thou than we didst come toThe rough-hewn corner-stone of Time.We knowThy practised love enfolded Antony;And that around the heart of Hercules'Descendant, threading through and through,Like the red rivers of its life, in tangled meshNo circumstance could e'er unravel, thouDidst coil,- the dreamy, dazzling "Serpent ofThe Nile!" Thy sins stick jagged outFrom history's page, and bleeding tearFair Judgment from thy merits.We perchanceDo wrong thee, Isis; for that coward, History,Who binds in death his object's jaw and thenBesmuts her name, hath crossed his focus inAnother age, and paled his spreading figment fromOur sight.Thou art so far back towardThe primal autocrat whose wish, hyena-like,Was his religion, that, appearing as thou dostOn an horizon new flushed in the firstUncertain ray of Altruism, thou seem'stMore ghost than human.Yet thou lovest, loving ghost,And thy fierce parent flame thyself snuffed outScarce later than the dark'ning of the fireThou gav'st to be eternal vestal ofThine Antony's spirit.Thou didst love and dieOf love; let, therefore, no light tongue, brazenIn censure, say that nothing in thy lifeBecame thee like the leaving it.The clothFrom which humanity is cut is woven ofThe warp and woof of circumstance, and allAre much alike.We spring from out the mantle, Earth,And hide at last beneath it; in the interimOur acts are less of us than it.We areNo judge, then, of thy sins, thou ending linkOf Ptolemy's chain.Forsooth, we are too muchO'erfilled with wondering how like to theeWe all had been, inclipt and dressed in thineOwn age and circumstance.

The exercises of the evening concluded with the reading of the familiar poem, beginning: