THE WOMAN is a picture now. | |
| The Spanish suns have touched her face; | |
| The coil of gold upon her brow | |
| Shines back on an imperial race | |
| With most forlorn and bitter grace. | 5 |
| |
| Old palace-lamps behind her burn, | |
| The ermine moulders on her train. | |
| Her ever-constant eyes still yearn | |
| For one who came not back to Spain; | |
| And dim and hollow is her brain. | 10 |
| |
| One only thing she knew in life, | |
| Four hundred ghostly years ago,— | |
| That she was Flemish Philip’s wife. | |
| Nor much beyond she cared to know; | |
| Without a voice she tells me so. | 15 |
| |
| Philip the Beautiful,—whose eyes | |
| Might win a woman’s heart, I fear, | |
| Even from his grave! “He will arise,” | |
| The monks had murmured by his bier, | |
| “And reign once more among us here.” | 20 |
| |
| She heard their whisper, and forgot | |
| Castile and Aragon, and all | |
| Save Philip, who had loved her not; | |
| The cruel darkness of his pall | |
| Seemed on an empty world to fall. | 25 |
| |
| She took the dead man,—to her sight | |
| A prince in death’s disguise, as fair | |
| As when his wayward smile could light | |
| The throne he wedded her to share,— | |
| And followed, hardly knowing where. | 30 |
| |
| Almost as dumb as he, she fled, | |
| Pallid and wasted, toward the place | |
| Where he, the priestly promise said, | |
| Must wait the hour when God’s sweet grace | |
| Should breathe into his breathless face. | 35 |
| |
| Once, when the night was weird with rain, | |
| She sought a convent’s shelter. When | |
| The tapers showed a veiléd train | |
| Of nuns, instead of cowléd men, | |
| She stole into the night again: | 40 |
| |
| “These women, sainted though they be,” | |
| She moaned through all her jealous mind, | |
| “Are women still, and shall not see | |
| Philip the Fair,—though he is blind! | |
| Favor with him I yet shall find.” | 45 |
| |
| Then, with her piteous yearning wild: | |
| “Unclose his coffin quick, I pray.” | |
| Fiercely the sudden lightning smiled,— | |
| When they had laid the lid away,— | |
| Like scorn, upon the regal clay. | 50 |
| |
| She kissed the dead of many days, | |
| As though he were an hour asleep. | |
| Dark men with swords to guard her ways | |
| Wept for her,—but she did not weep; | |
| She had her vigil still to keep. | 55 |
| |
| They readied the appointed cloister. While | |
| The heart of Philip withering lay, | |
| She, without moan or tear or smile, | |
| Watched from her window, legends say,— | |
| Watched seven-and-forty years away! | 60 |
| |
| Winds blew the blossoms to and fro, | |
| Into the world and out again: | |
| “He will come back to me, I know,”— | |
| Poor whisper of a wandering brain | |
| To peerless patience, peerless pain. | 65 |
| |
| Ah, longest, loneliest, saddest tryst | |
| Was ever kept on earth! And yet | |
| Had he arisen would he have kissed | |
| The gray wan woman he had met, | |
| Or—taught her how the dead forget? | 70 |
| |
| Could she have won, discrowned and old, | |
| The love she could not win, in sooth, | |
| When queenly purple, fold on fold, | |
| And all the subtle grace of youth, | |
| Helped her to hide a hapless truth? | 75 |
| |
| Did she not fancy,—should she see | |
| That coffin, watched so long, unclose,— | |
| The royal tenant there would be | |
| Still young, still fair, when he arose, | |
| Beside her withered leaves and snows? | 80 |
| |
| He would have laughed to breathe the tale | |
| Of this crazed stranger’s love, I fear, | |
| To moon and rose and nightingale, | |
| With courtly jewels glimmering near, | |
| Into some lovely lady’s ear. | 85 |
| |
