



Produced by Al Haines










[Frontispiece: Ella Wheeler Wilcox]






THREE WOMEN


BY

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX



  Author of "Poems of Passion," "Maurine," "Poems of
    Pleasure," "How Salvator Won," "Custer and Other
      Poems," "Men, Women and Emotions,"
        "The Beautiful Land of Nod," Etc.




CHICAGO--NEW YORK

W. B. CONKEY COMPANY

PUBLISHERS




Entered according to act of Congress, In the year 1897, by

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX,

In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

Entered at Stationers' Hall, London.


All Rights Reserved.

Made in the United States.




  THREE WOMEN



  _My love is young, so young;
    Young is her cheek, and her throat,
  And life is a song to be sung
    With love the word for each note._

  _Young is her cheek and her throat;
    Her eyes have the smile o' May.
  And love is the word for each note
    In the song of my life to-day._

  _Her eyes have the smile o' May;
    Her heart is the heart of a dove,
  And the song of my life to-day
    Is love, beautiful love._

  _Her heart is the heart of a dove,
    Ah, would it but fly to my breast
  Where lone, beautiful love,
    Has made it a downy nest._

  _Ah, would she but fly to my breast,
    My love who is young, so young;
  I have made her a downy nest
    And life is a song to be sung._




  THREE WOMEN.


  I.

  A dull little station, a man with the eye
  Of a dreamer; a bevy of girls moving by;
  A swift moving train and a hot Summer sun,
  The curtain goes up, and our play is begun.
  The drama of passion, of sorrow, of strife,
  Which always is billed for the theatre Life.
  It runs on forever, from year unto year,
  With scarcely a change when new actors appear.
  It is old as the world is--far older in truth,
  For the world is a crude little planet of youth.
  And back in the eras before it was formed,
  The passions of hearts through the Universe stormed.

  Maurice Somerville passed the cluster of girls
  Who twisted their ribbons and fluttered their curls
  In vain to attract him; his mind it was plain
  Was wholly intent on the incoming train.
  That great one eyed monster puffed out its black breath,
  Shrieked, snorted and hissed, like a thing bent on death,
  Paused scarcely a moment, and then sped away,
  And two actors more now enliven our play.

  A graceful young woman with eyes like the morn,
  With hair like the tassels which hang from the corn,
  And a face that might serve as a model for Peace,
  Moved lightly along, smiled and bowed to Maurice,
  Then was lost in the circle of friends waiting near.
  A discord of shrill nasal tones smote the ear,
  As they greeted their comrade and bore her from sight.
  (The ear oft is pained while the eye feels delight
  In the presence of women throughout our fair land:
  God gave them the graces which win and command,
  But the devil, who always in mischief rejoices,
  Slipped into their teachers and ruined their voices.)

  There had stepped from the train just behind Mabel Lee
  A man whose deportment bespoke him to be
  A child of good fortune.  His mien and his air
  Were those of one all unaccustomed to care.
  His brow was not vexed with the gold seeker's worry,
  His manner was free from the national hurry.
  Repose marked his movements.  Yet gaze in his eye,
  And you saw that this calm outer man was a lie;
  And you knew that deep down in the depths of his breast
  There dwelt the unmerciful imp of unrest.

  He held out his hand; it was clasped with a will
  In both the firm palms of Maurice Somerville.
  "Well, Reese, my old Comrade;" "Ha, Roger, my boy,"
  They cried in a breath, and their eyes gemmed with joy
  (Which but for their sex had been set in a tear),
  As they walked arm in arm to the trap waiting near,
  And drove down the shining shell roadway which wound
  Through forest and meadow, in search of the Sound.

  _Roger:_

  I smell the salt water--that perfume which starts
  The blood from hot brains back to world withered hearts;
  You may talk of the fragrance of flower filled fields,
  You may sing of the odors the Orient yields,
  You may tell of the health laden scent of the pine,
  But give me the subtle salt breath of the brine.
  Already I feel lost emotions of youth
  Steal back to my soul in their sweetness and truth;
  Small wonder the years leave no marks on your face,
  Time's scythe gathers rust in this idyllic place.
  You must feel like a child on the Great Mother's breast,
  With the Sound like a nurse watching over your rest?

  _Maurice:_

  There is beauty and truth in your quaint simile,
  I love the Sound more than the broad open sea.
  The ocean seems always stern, masculine, bold,
  The Sound is a woman, now warm, and now cold.
  It rises in fury and threatens to smite,
  Then falls at your feet with a coo of delight;
  Capricious, seductive, first frowning, then smiling,
  And always, whatever its mood is, beguiling.
  Look, now you can see it, bright beautiful blue,
  And far in the distance there loom into view
  The banks of Long Island, full thirty miles off;
  A sign of wet weather to-morrow.  Don't scoff!
  We people who chum with the waves and the wind
  Know more than all wise signal bureaus combined.

  But come, let us talk of yourself--for of me
  There is little to tell which your eyes may not see.
  Since we finished at College (eight years, is it not?)
  I simply have dreamed away life in this spot.
  With my dogs and my horses, a book and a pen,
  And a week spent in town as a change now and then.
  Fatigue for the body, disease for the mind,
  Are all that the city can give me, I find.
  Yet once in a while there is wisdom I hold
  In leaving the things that are dearer than gold,--
  Loved people and places--if only to learn
  The exquisite rapture it is to return.
  But you, I remember, craved motion and change;
  You hated the usual, worshiped the strange.
  Adventure and travel I know were your theme:
  Well, how did the real compare with the dream?
  You have compassed the earth since we parted at Yale,
  Has life grown the richer, or only grown stale?

  _Roger:_

  Stale, stale, my dear boy! that's the story in short,
  I am weary of travel, adventure and sport;
  At home and abroad, in all climates and lands,
  I have had what life gives when a full purse commands,
  I have chased after Pleasure, that phantom faced elf,
  And lost the best part of my youth and myself.
  And now, barely thirty, I'm heart sick and blue;
  Life seems like a farce scarcely worth sitting through.
  I dread its long stretch of dissatisfied years;
  Ah! wealth is not always the boon it appears.
  And poverty lights not such ruinous fires
  As gratified appetites, tastes and desires.
  Fate curses, when letting us do as we please--
  It stunts a man's soul to be cradled in ease.

  _Maurice:_

  You are right in a measure; the devil I hold
  Is oftener found in full coffers of gold
  Than in bare, empty larders.  The soul, it is plain,
  Needs the conflicts of earth, needs the stress and the strain
  Of misfortune, to bring out its strength in this life--
  The Soul's calisthenics are sorrow and strife.
  But, Roger, what folly to stand in youth's prime
  And talk like a man who could father old Time.
  You have life all before you; the past,--let it sleep;
  Its lessons alone are the things you should keep.
  There is virtue sometimes in our follies and sinnings;
  Right lives very often have faulty beginnings.
  Results, and not causes, are what we should measure.
  You have learned precious truths in your search after pleasure.

  You have learned that a glow worm is never a star,
  You have learned that Peace builds not her temples afar.
  And now, dispossessed of the spirit to roam,
  You are finely equipped to establish a home.
  That's the one thing you need to lend savor to life,
  A home, and the love of a sweet hearted wife,
  And children to gladden the path to old age.

  _Roger:_

  Alas! from life's book I have torn out that page;
  I have loved many times and in many a fashion,
  Which means I know nothing at all of the passion.
  I have scattered my heart, here and there, bit by bit,
  'Til now there is nothing worth while left of it;
  And, worse than all else, I have ceased to believe
  In the virtue and truth of the daughters of Eve.
  There