A DREAM OF ITALY.

AN ALLEGORY INTRODUCING “MAE MADDEN.”

I. We two had been parted, God pity us, when The stars were unnamed and when heaven was dim; We two had been parted far back on the rim And the outermost border of heaven’s red bars: We two had been parted ere the meeting of men Or God had set compass on spaces as yet. We two had been parted ere God had set His finger to spinning the spaces with stars,— And now, at the last in the gold and set Of the sun of Venice, we two had met. II. Where the lion of Venice, with brows afrown, With tossed mane tumbled, and teeth in air, Looks out in his watch o’er the watery town, With a paw half lifted, with his claws half bare, By the blue Adriatic, in the edge of the sea, I saw her. I knew her, but she knew not me. I had found her at last! Why, I had sailed The antipodes through, had sought, had hailed All flags, had climbed where the storm clouds curled, And called from the awful arched dome of the world. III. I saw her one moment, then fell back abashed And filled full to the throat. . . . Then I turned me once more So glad to the sea, while the level sun flashed

On the far, snowy Alps. . . . Her breast! Why, her breast Was white as twin pillows that allure you to rest; Her sloping limbs moved like to melodies, told As she rose from the sea, and she threw back the gold Of her glory of hair, and set face to the shore. . . . I knew her! I knew her, though we had not met Since the far stars sang to the sun’s first set. IV. How long I had sought her! I had hungered, nor ate Of any sweet fruits. I had tasted not one Of all the fair glories grown under the sun. I had sought only her. Yea, I knew that she Had come upon earth and stood waiting for me Somewhere by my way. But the path ways of fate They had led otherwhere. The round world round, The far North seas and the near profound Had failed me for aye. Now I stood by that sea While a ship drove by, and all dreamily. V. I had turned from the lion a time, and when I looked tow’rd the tide and out on the lea Of the town where the warm sea tumbled and teemed With beauty, I saw her. I knew her then, The tallest, the fairest fair daughter of men. O, Venice stood full in her glory. She gleamed

In the splendor of sunset and sensuous sea; Yet I saw but my bride, my affinity, While the doves hurried home to the dome of Saint Mark And the brass horses plunged their high manes in the dark, VI. Was it well with my love? Was she true? Was she brave With virtue’s own valor? Was she waiting for me? O, how fared my love! Had she home? Had she bread? Had she known but the touch of the warm-tempered wave? Was she born upon earth with a crown on her head; Or born like myself, but a dreamer, instead? So long it had been! So long! Why the sea, That wrinkled and surly old time-tempered slave, Had been born, had his revels, grown wrinkled and hoar Since I last saw my love on that uttermost shore. VII. O, how fared my love? Once I lifted my face And I shook back my hair and looked out on the sea; I pressed my hot palms as I stood in my place And cried, “O, I come like a king to your side Though all hell intervene.” . . . “Hist! she may be a bride! A mother at peace, with sweet babes on her knee! A babe at her breast and a spouse at her side! . . .

Have I wandered too long, and has destiny Set mortal between us?” I buried my face In my hands, and I moaned as I stood in my place. VIII. ‘Twas her year to be young. She was tall, she was fair Was she pure as the snow on the Alps over there? ‘Twas her year to be young. She was fair, she was tall And I knew she was true as I lifted my face And saw her press down her rich robe to its place With a hand white and small as a babe’s with a doll, And her feet—why, her feet, in the white shining sand, Were so small they might nest in my one brawny hand. Then she pushed back her hair with a round hand that shone And flashed in the light with a white starry stone. IX. Then, my love she was rich. My love she was fair. Was she pure as the snow on the Alps over there? She was gorgeous with wealth, “Thank God, she has bread,” I said to myself. Then I humbled my head In gratitude. Then I questioned me where Was her palace? her parents? What name did she bear? What mortal on earth came nearest her heart? Who touched the small hand till it thrilled to a smart?

‘Twas her day to be young. She was proud, she was fair. Was she pure as the snow on the Alps over there? X. Now she turned, reached a hand; then a tall gondolier That had leaned on his oar, like a long lifted spear, Shot sudden and swift and all silently And drew to her side as she turned from the tide. . . It was odd, such a thing, and I counted it queer That a princess like this, whether virgin or bride, Should abide thus apart, and should bathe in that sea; And I shook back my hair, and so unsatisfied. Then I fluttered the doves that were perched close about, As I strode up and down in dismay and in doubt. XI. Then she stood in the boat on the borders of night As a goddess might stand on that far wonder land Of eternal sweet life, which men have named Death. I turned to the sea and I caught at my breath, As she drew from the boat through her white baby hand Her vestment of purple imperial, and white. Then the gondola shot! swift, sharp from the shore. There was never the sound of a song or of oar But the doves hurried home in white clouds to Saint Mark,

And the lion loomed high o’er the sea in the dark. XII. Then I cried, “Quick! Follow her. Follow her. Fast! Come! Thrice double fare if you follow her true To her own palace door.” There was plashing of oar And rattle of rowlock. . . . I sat leaning low Looking far in the dark, looking out as we sped With my soul all alert, bending down, leaning low. But only the oaths of the men as we passed When we jostled them sharp as we sudden shot thro’ The watery town. Then a deep, distant roar— The rattle of rowlock, the rush of the oar. XIII. Then an oath. Then a prayer! Then a gust that made rents Through the yellow sailed fishers. Then suddenly Came sharp forked fire! Then far thunder fell Like the great first gun! Ah, then there was route Of ships like the breaking of regiments And shouts as if hurled from an upper hell. Then tempest! It lifted, it spun us about, Then shot us ahead through the hills of the sea As if a great arrow shot shoreward in wars— Then heaven split open till we saw the blown stars. XIV. On! On! Through the foam, through the storm, through the town,

She was gone. She was lost in the wilderness Of palaces lifting their marbles of snow. I stood in my gondola. Up and all down I pushed through the surge of the salt-flood street Above me, below. . . Twas only the beat Of the sea’s sad heart. . . Then I heard below The water-rat building, but nothing but that; Not even the sea bird screaming distress, As she lost her way in that wilderness. XV. I listened all night. I caught at each sound; I clutched and I caught as a man that drown’d. . . . Only the sullen low growl of the sea Far out the flood street at the edge of the ships. Only the billow slow licking his lips, Like a dog that lay crouching there watching for me; Growling and showing white teeth all the night, Reaching his neck and as ready to bite— Only the waves with their salt flood tears Fawning white stones of a thousand years. XVI. Only the birds in the wilderness Of column and dome and of glittering spire That thrust to heaven and held the fire Of the thunder still: The bird’s distress As he struck his wings in that wilderness,

On marbles that speak and thrill and inspire. . . The night below and the night above; The water-rat building, the startled white dove, The wide-winged, dolorous sea bird’s call The water-rat building, but that was all. XVII. Lo! pushing the darkness from pillar to post, The morning came silent and gray like a ghost Slow up the canal. I leaned from the prow And listened. Not even the bird in distress Screaming above through the wilderness; Not even the stealthy old water-rat now. Only the bell in the fisherman’s tower Slow tolling a-sea and telling the hour To kneel to their sweet Santa Barbara For tawny fishers a-sea and pray. * * * * * * XVIII. My dream it is ended, the curtain withdrawn. The night that lay hard on the breast of earth, Deep and heavy as a horrid nightmare, Moves by, and I look to the rosy dawn. . . . . I shall leave you here, with a leader fair; One gentle, with faith and fear of her worth. She shall lead you on through that Italy That the gods have loved; and may it be A light-hearted hour that, hand in hand, You wander the warm and the careless love-land.

XIX. By the windy waters of the Michigan She invokes the gods. . . . Be it bright or dim, Who does his endeavor as best he can Does bravely, indeed. The rest is with Him. Let a new star dance in the Occident Till it shakes through the gossamer floors of God And shines, o’er Chicago. . . The Orient Is hoar with glories. Let Illini sod Bear glory as well as the gleaming grain, And engines smoking along her plain.

JOAQUIN MILLER. CHICAGO, NOV., 1875.

CHAPTER I.

SCENE. Deck of an ocean steamer. Characters: Mrs. Jerrold, matron and chaperon in general. Edith Jerrold, her daughter. Albert Madden, a young man on study intent. Eric, his brother, on pleasure bent. Norman Mann, cousin of the Jerrolds, old classmate of the Maddens. Mae Madden, sister of the brothers and leading lady.

“It’s something like dying, I do declare,” said Mae, and as she spoke a suspicious-looking drop slid softly across her cheek, down over the deck-railing, to join its original briny fellows in the deep below.

“What is like dying?” asked Eric.

“Why, leaving the only world you know. There, you see, papa and mamma are fast fading away, and here we are traveling off at the rate of ever so many miles an hour.”

“Knots, Mae; do be nautical at sea.”

“Away from everything and everybody we know. I do really think it is like dying,—don’t you, Mr. Mann?” Mae turned abruptly and faced the young man by her side.

“People aren’t apt to die in batches or by the half-dozen,” he replied, coolly. “If you were all by yourself, it would be more like it, I suppose, but you are taking quite a slice of your own world along with you, and really—”

“And really pity is the very last article I have any use for. You are right. I was only sorry for the moment. ‘Eastward Ho’ is a very happy cry. How differently we shall all take Europe,” she continued, in a moment. “There is Albert, I honestly believe he will live in his Baedeker just because he can see no further than the covers of a book. You need not laugh, for it is a fact that people confined for years to a room can’t see beyond its limits when they are taken out into broader space, and I don’t see why it shouldn’t be the same with a man who lives in his books as Albert does.”

“He sees the world in his books,” said Mr. Mann, with a little spirit.

“He gets a microscopic view of it, yes,” replied Mae, grandiloquently, “and Edith—”

“Always sees just what he does,” suggested Eric maliciously.

“Now, boys,” said Miss Mae, assuming suddenly a mighty patronage, “I will not have you hit at Albert and Edith in this way. It will be very annoying to them. They have a right to act just as absurdly as they choose. We none of us know how people who are falling in love would act.”

No, the boys agreed this was quite true.

“And I really do suppose they are falling in love, don’t you?” queried Mae.

Yes, they did both believe it.

Just here, up came the two subjects of conversation, looking, it must be confessed, as much like one subject as any man and wife.

“What are you talking of?” asked Edith, “Madame Tussaud or a French salad? No matter how trivial the topic, I am sure it has a foreign flavor.”

“There you are mistaken,” replied the frank Eric, “we were discussing you two people, in the most homelike kind of a way.”

At this Edith blushed, Albert frowned, Mae scowled at Eric, who opened his eyes amazedly, Norman Mann looked over the deck railing and laughed, the wind blew, the sailors heave-ho-ed near by, and there was a grand tableau vivant for a few seconds.

“O, come,” cried Mae, “suppose we stop looking like a set of illustrations for a phrenological journal, expressive of the various emotions. I was only speculating on the different sights we should see in the same places. Confess, now, Albert. Won’t your eyes be forever hunting out old musty, dusty volumes? Will not books be your first pleasures in the sight-seeing line?”

“O, no, pictures,” cried Edith.

“That is as you say,” Mae demurely agreed. “Pictures and books for you two at any rate.”

“And churches.”

“For your mother, yes, and beer-gardens for Eric, and amphitheatres and battle fields for Mr. Mann.”

“And for yourself?”

“The blue, blue bay of Naples, a grove of oranges, moonlight and a boat if it please you.”

“By the way,” suggested Albert, “about our plans; we really should begin to agitate the matter at once.”

“Yes, to do our fighting on shipboard. Let us agree to hoist the white flag the day we sight land, else we shall settle down into a regular War of the Roses and never decide,” laughed Norman.

“As there are six minds,” continued Albert, “there will have to be some giving up.”

“Why do you look at me?” enquired Mae. “I am the very most unselfish person in the world. I’ll settle down anywhere for the winter, provided only that it is not in Rome.”

“But that is the very place,” cried Edith, and Albert, and Mrs. Jerrold from her camp-chair.

“O, how dreadful! The only way to prevent it will be for us to stand firm, boys, and make it a tie.”

“But Norman is especially eager to go to Rome,” said Edith, “and that makes us four strong at once in favor of that city.”

“But is not Rome a fearful mixture of dead Caesar’s bones and dirty beggars? And mustn’t one carry hundreds of dates at one’s finger-tips to appreciate this, and that, and the other? Is it not all tremendously and overwhelmingly historical, and don’t you have to keep exerting your mind and thinking and remembering? I would rather go down to Southern Italy and look at lazzaroni lie on stone walls, in red cloaks, as they do in pictures, and not be obliged to topple off the common Italian to pile the gray stone with old memories of some great dead man. Everything is ghostly in Rome. Now, there must be some excitement in Southern Italy. There’s Vesuvius, and she isn’t dead—like Nero—but a living demon, that may erupt any night, and give you a little red grave by the sea for your share.”

“She’s not nearly through yet,” laughed Edith, as Mae paused for breath.

“I’m only afraid,” said Mae, “that after I had been down there a week, I should forget English, buy a contadina costume, marry a child of the sun, and run away from this big world with its puzzles and lessons, and rights and wrongs. Imagine me in my doorway as you passed in your travelling carriage, hot and tired on your way—say to Sorrento. I would dress my beautiful Italian all up in scarlet flowers and wreathe his big hat and kiss his brown eyes and take his brown hand, and then we would run along by the bay and laugh at you stiff, grand world’s folks as we skipped past you.”

“We shall know where to look for you, if ever you do disappear,” said Norman Mann.

“But, my dear Mae,” added Albert, “though this is amusing, it is utterly useless.”

“Amusing things always are,” said Mae.

“The question is, shall we or shall we not go to Rome for the winter?”

“Certainly, by all means, and if I don’t like it, I’ll run away to Sorrento,” and Mae shook her sunny head and twinkled her eyes in a fascinating sort of way, that made Eric feel a proud brotherly pleasure in this saucy young woman, and that gave Norman Mann a sort of feeling he had had a good deal of late, a feeling hard to define, though we have all known it, a delicious concoction of pleasure and pain. His eyes were fixed on Mae, now. “What is it?” she asked. “You will like Rome, I am sure.” “No, I never like what I think I shall not.”

“It might save some trouble, then, if I ask you now if you expect to like me,” said he, in a lower tone. “Why certainly, I do like you very much,” she replied, honestly. “What a stupid question,” he thinks, vexedly. “Why did I tell him I liked him?” she thinks, blushingly. So the waves of anxiety and doubt begin to swell in these two hearts as the outside waves beat with a truer sea-motion momently against the steamer’s side.

Between days of sea-sickness come delightful intervals of calm sea and fresh breezes, when the party fly to the hurricane deck to get the very quintessence of life on the ocean wave. One morning Mrs. Jerrold and Edith were sitting there alone, with rugs and all sorts of head devices in soft wools and flannels, and books and a basket of fruit. The matron of the party was a tall, fine-looking woman, a good type of genuine New England stock softened by city breeding. New Englanders are so many propositions from Euclid, full of right angles and straight lines, but easy living and the dressmaker’s art combine to turn the corners gently. Edith was like her mother, but softened by a touch of warm Dutch blood. She was tall, almost stately, with a good deal of American style, which at that time happened to be straight and slender. She was naturally reserved, but four years of boarding-school life had enriched her store of adjectives and her amount of endearing gush-power, and she had at least six girl friends to whom she sent weekly epistles of some half-dozen sheets in length,

beginning, each one of them, with “My dearest ——” and ending “Your devoted Edith.”

As Edith and her mother quietly read, and ate grapes, and lolled in a delightfully feminine way, voices were heard,—Mae’s and Norman’s. They were in the middle of a conversation. “Yes,” Mae was saying, “you do away with individuality altogether nowadays, with your dreadful classifications. It is all the same from daffodils up to women.”

“How do we classify women, pray?”

“In the mind of man,” began Mae, as if she were reading, “there are three classes of women; the giddy butterflies, the busy bees, and the woman’s righters. The first are pretty and silly; the second, plain and useful; the third, mannish and odious. The first wear long trailing dresses and smile at you while waltzing, the second wear aprons and give you apple-dumplings, and the third want your manly prerogatives, your dress-coat, your money, and your vote. Flirt with the giddy butterflies, your first love was one. First loves always are. Marry the busy bee. Your mother was a busy bee. Mothers always are. And keep on the other side of the street from the woman’s righter as long as you can. Alas! your daughter will be one.”

“Well, isn’t there any classifying on the other side? Aren’t there horsemen and sporting men and booky men, in the feminine mind?”

“Perhaps so. There certainly are the fops, and nowadays this terrible army of reformers and radicals, of whom my brother Albert here is the best known example.”

“What is it?” asked Albert, looking up abstractedly from his book, for he and Eric had sauntered up the stairs too, by this time.

“They are the creatures,” continued Mae, “who scorn joys and idle pleasures. They deal with the good of the many and the problems of the universe, and step solemnly along to that dirge known as the March of Progress. And what do they get for it all? Something like this. Put down your book, I’m going to prophesy,” and Mae backed resolutely up against the railing and held her floating scarfs and veils in a bunch at her throat, while she prophesied in this way: