THE BIRTH OF ELENOR MURRAY
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hat are the mortal factsWith which we deal? The man is thirty years,Most vital, in a richness physical,Of musical heart and feeling; and the womanIs twenty-eight, a cradle warm and richFor life to grow in. And the time is this:This Henry Murray has a mood of peace,A splendor as of June, has for the timeQuelled anarchy within him, come to law,Sees life a thing of beauty, happiness,And fortune glow before him. And the mother,Sunning her feathers in his genial light,Takes longing and has hope. For body's seasonThe blood of youth leaps in them like a fountain,And splashes musically in the crystal poolOf quiet days and hours. They rise refreshed,Feel all the sun's strength flow through muscles, nerves;Extract from food no poison, only health;Are sensitive to simple things, the turnOf leaves on trees, flowers springing, robins' songs. Now such a time must prosper love's desire,Fed gently, tended wisely, left to mountIn flame and light. A prospering fate occursTo send this Henry Murray from his wife,And keep him absent for a month--inspireA daily letter, written of the joys,And hopes they have together, and omit,Forgotten for the time, old aches, despairs,Forebodings for the future. What results?For thirty days her youth, and youthful bloodUnder the stimulus of absence, letters,And growing longing, laves and soothes and feeds,Like streams that nourish fields, her body's being.Enriches cells to plumpness, dim, asleep,Which stretch, expand and turn, the prototypeOf a baby newly born; which after the cryAt midnight, taking breath an hour before,--That cry which is of things most tragical,The tragedy most poignant--sleeps and rests,And flicks its little fingers, with closed eyesSenses with visions of unopened leavesThis monstrous and external sphere, the world,And what moves in it. So she thinks of him,And longs for his return, and as she longsThe rivers of her body run and ripple,Refresh and quicken her. The morning's lightFlutters upon the ceiling, and she liesAnd stretches drowsily in the breaking slumberOf fluctuant emotion, calls to himWith spirit and flesh, until his very nameSeems like to form in sound, while lips are closed,And tongue is motionless, beyond herself,And in the middle spaces of the roomCalls back to her. And Henry Murray caught,In letters, which she sent him, all she felt,Re-kindled it and sped it back to her.Then came a lover's fancy in his brain:He would return unlooked for--who, the god,Inspired the fancy?--find her in what moodShe might be in his absence, where no blurOf expectation of his coming changedHer color, flame of spirit. And he boughtSome chablis and a cake, slipped noiselesslyInto the chamber where she lay asleep,And had a light upon her face beforeShe woke and saw him. How she cried her joy!And put her arms around him, burned awayIn one great moment from a goblet of fire,Which over-flowed, whatever she had feltOf shrinking or distaste, or loveless handsAt any time before, and burned it thereTill even the ashes sparkled, blew awayIn incense and in light. She rose and slippedA robe on and her slippers; drew a standBetween them for the chablis and the cake.And drank and ate with him, and showed her teeth,While laughing, shaking curls, and flinging backHer head for rapture, and in little crows. And thus the wine caught up the resting cells,And flung them in the current, and their bloodFlows silently and swiftly, running deep;And their two hearts beat like the rhythmic chimesOf little bells of steel made blue by flame,Because their lives are ready now, and lifeCries out to life for life to be. The fire,Lit in the altar of their eyes, is blindFor mysteries that urge, the blood of themIn separate streams would mingle, hurried onBy energy from the heights of ancient mountains;The God himself, and Life, the Gift of God. And as result the hurrying microcosmsOut of their beings sweep, seek out, embrace,Dance for the rapture of freedom, being loosed;Unite, achieve their destiny, find the cradleOf sleep and growth, take up the cryptic taskOf maturation and of fashioning;Where no light is except the light of GodTo light the human spirit, which emergesFrom nothing that man knows; and where a face,To be a woman's or a man's takes form:Hands that shall gladden, lips that shall enthrallWith songs or kisses, hands and lips, perhaps,To hurt and poison. All is with the fates,And all beyond us. Now the seed is sown,The flower must grow and blossom. Something comes,Perhaps, to whisper something in the earThat will exert itself against the massThat grows, proliferates; but for the restThe task is done. One thing remains alone:It is a daughter, woman, that you bear,A whisper says to her--It is her wish--Her wish materializes in a voiceWhich says: the name of Elenor is sweet,Choose that for her--Elenor, which is light,The light of Helen, but a lesser lightIn this our larger world; a light to shine,And lure amid the tangled woodland waysOf this our life; a firefly beating wingsHere, there amid the thickets of hard days.And to go out at last, as all lights do,And leave a memory, perhaps, but leaveNo meaning to be known of any man....So Elenor Murray is conceived and born. * * * * * But now this Elenor Murray being born,We start not with her life, but with her death,The finding of her body by the river.And then as Coroner Merival takes proofHer life comes forth, until the CoronerTraces it to the moment of her death.And thus both life and death of her are known.This the beginning of the mystery:--
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