And then had gone together up the hill
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here we were sitting now, and had walked on Into the great red light ; '' and so," she said, " I have come up here too ; and when this evening They step out of the light as they stepped in, I shall be here to kiss them." And she laughed. Then I bethought me suddenly of the famine ;And how the church-steps throughout all the town.When last I had been there a month ago.Swarmed with starved folk; and how the bread was weighedBy Austrians armed ; and women that I knewFor wives and mothers walked the public street,Saying aloud that if their husbands fearedTo snatch the children's food, themselves would stayTill they had earned it there. So then this childWas piteous to me ; for all told me thenHer parents must have left her to God's chance,To man's or to the Church's charity.Because of the great famine, rather thanTo watch her growing thin between their knees.With that, God took my mother's voice and spoke.And sights and sounds came back and things long sinc^And all my childhood found me on the hills ;And so I took her with me. I was young.Scarce man then, Father : but the cause which gaveThe wounds I die of now had brought me thenSome wounds already ; and I lived alone, A LAST CONFESSION. ti As any hiding hunted man must live.It was no easy thing to keep a childIn safety ; for herself it was not safe,And doubled my own danger : but I knewThat God would help me. Yet a little whilePardon me, Father, if I pause. I thinkI have been speaking to you of some mattersThere was no need to speak of, have I not ?You do not know how clearly those things stoodWithin my mind, which I have spoken of,Nor how they strove for utterance. Life all pastIs like the sky when the sun sets in it,Clearest where furthest off. I told you howShe scorned my parting gift and laughed. And yetA woman's laugh's another thing sometimes :I think they laugh in Heaven. I know last nightI dreamed I saw into the garden of God,Where women walked whose painted imagesI have seen with candles round them in the church.They bent this way and that, one to another,Playing : and over the long golden hairOf each there floated like a ring of fireWhich when she stooped stooped with her, and when she roseRose with her. Then a breeze flew in among them.As if a window had been opened in heavenFor God to give His blessing from, beforeThis world of ours should set ; (for in my dreamI thought our world was setting, and the sunFlared, a spent taper ;) and beneath that gustThe rings of light quivered like forest-leaves.Then all the blessed maidens who were thereStood up together, as it were a voiceThat called them ; and they threw their tresses back.And smote their palms, and all laughed up at once.For the strong heavenly joy they had in them a A LAST CONFESSION. To hear God bless the world. Wherewith I woke •And looking round, I saw as usualThat she was standing there with her long locksPressed to her side ; and her laugh ended theirs. For always when I see her now, she laughs.And yet her childish laughter haunts me too,The life of this dead terror ; as in daysWhen she, a child, dwelt with me. I must tellSomething of those days yet before the end. I brought her from the dty— one such dayWhen she was still a merry loving child, —The earliest gift I mind my giving her ;A little image of a flying LoveMade of our coloured glass-ware, in his handsA dart of gilded metal and a torch.And him she kissed and me, and fain would knowWhy were his poor eyes blindfold, why the wingsAnd why the arrow. What I knew I toldOf Venus and of Cupid,— strange old tales.And when she heard that he could rule the lovesOf men and women, still she shook her headAnd wondered ; and, " Nay, nay," she murmured still,'' So strong, and he a younger child than I f "And then she'd have me fix him on the wallFronting her little bed ; and then againShe needs must fix him there herself, becauseI gave him to her and she loved him so.And he should make her love me better yet,If women loved the more, the more they grew.But the fit place upon the wall was highFor her, and so I held her in my arms :And each time that the heavy pruning-hookI gave her for a hammer slipped awayAs it would often, still she laughed and laughedAnd kissed and kissed me. But amid her mirth,fust as she hung the image on the nail, A LAST CONFESSION. i It slipped and all its fragments strewed the ground :And as it fell she screamed, for in her handThe dart had entered deeply and drawn blood.And so her laughter turned to tears : and " Oh PI said, the while I bandaged the small hand, —" That I should be the first to make you bleed,Who love and love and love you I " — kissing stillThe fingers till I got her safe to bed.And still she sobbed, — " not for the pain at all,**She said, " but for the Love, the poor good LoveYou gave me." So she cried herself to sleep. Another later thing comes back to me.Twas in those hardest foulest days of all,When still from his shut palace^ sitting cleanAbove the splash of blood, old Mettemich(May his soul die, and never-dying wormsFeast on its pain for ever I) used to thinHis year's doomed hundreds daintily, each monthThirties and fifties. This time, as I think,Was when his thrift forbad the poor to takeThat evil brackish salt which the dry rocksKeep all through winter when the sea draws in«The first I heard of it was a chance shotIn the street here and there, and on the stonesA stumbling clatter as of horse hemmed round.Then, when she saw me hurry out of doors,My gun slung at my shoulder and my knifeStuck in my girdle, she smoothed down my hair And laughed to see me look so brave, and leaped .
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