I scorn the man, a fool at most,And ignorant and blind,Who loves to go about and boast"He understands mankind."I thought I had that knowledge too,And boasted it with pride,But since, I've learned that human heartsCannot be classified.
In days when I was young and wildI had no vanity,I always thought when women smiledThat they were fooling me.I was content to let them fool,And let them deem I cared;For, tutored in a narrow school,I held myself prepared.
But Lily had a pretty face,And great blue Irish eyes,And she was fair as any raceBeneath the Northern skies,The sweetest voice I ever heard,Although it was unschooled.So for a season I preferredBy Lily to be fooled.
A friend embittered all my lifeWith careless words of his;He said I'd "never win a wifeWith such an ugly phiz."I laughed the loudest at the wit.Though loud the laughter rung,So be it to his credit writ,He never knew it stung.
As far as human nature goes,The cynic I would teachThat fruit's not always sour to thoseFor whom none hangs in reach.I only gazed as captives mightGaze through their prison bars,Fair women seemed to me as brightThough far away, as stars.
And Lily was to me a starAs fair as those above,As beautiful but just as farFrom my revengeful love.The love I bore was not exemptFrom hate, if this might be;I hated her for that contemptI thought she had for me.
The "sour grapes" are often sweetTo lips that cannot touch,And it is soothing to repeat:"It does not matter much."But O to think that fruit so dearTo me in manhood's prime,Though seeming far, was clustered nearAnd red-ripe all the time.
My fault, perhaps, in Heav'n aboveMay not be deemed a sin.I never thought that she would loveOr I'd the power to win.And even now it puzzles me,The butt of station chaff,For I was plain as man could beAnd awkward as a calf.
I would have liked to break the bowThat Lily never bent,I thought she'd only laugh to knowHow well her shafts were sent.If my contempt had power to gallOr careless sneers to touchThe heart that loved me after all,She must have suffered much.
Ah! I was blind, and could not seeThe plain things in my way.When Lily's mistress twitted meAbout the "wedding day",I answered with a careless wordAnd half-unconscious sneer,I never thought that Lily heard,Nor dreamed that she was near.
We talked of other things and joked,Till tongues began to tire,Then I and Lily's master smokedOur pipes beside the fire.The day wore on, and then she broughtThe kettle to the hob,And as she turned to go I thoughtI heard a stifled sob.
I spoke; she never answered me.I sneered, "I'll not forget;Above all things I hate to seeA woman in a pet!",Those cruel words, that were the lastThat Lily ever heard,I've heard them shrieking in the blastAnd twittered by the bird.
Deep in the creek that wandered nearThere lay a grassy pool,'Neath oaks that sighed through all the yearAnd kept the water cool.The stars that pierced the reedy bowerMade water lilies bright,And underneath her sister flowerOur Lily slept that night.
She'd brought a pole the pool to sound(It must have tried her strength).We found it lying on the groundAnd wet for half its length.We found it there upon the grass,But ah! it was not all!An open prayer book lay, alas!Beside poor Lily's shawl.
We drew her out and laid her downUpon a granite ledge,The water from her dripping gownWent trickling o'er the edge.Like drops into a pool of fearsI saw the crystals dart,Or one by one like scalding tearsThat plash upon the heart.
The circles died upon the shore,The frogs began to croak.The wind that passed to list once moreWent sighing through the oak,The oak that seemed to say to me(I think I hear it yet),"Above all things I hate to seeA woman in a pet!"
The blackest thoughts are swift to fillThe evil minds of men,I knew the meaning of the looksThey bent upon me then;And then I did as cowards do:I vanished like a cur;For many years I never knewWhere they had buried her.
But, drawn by that same power that bringsThe slayer to the slain,Or driven like the bird that wingsAgainst the storm in vain,I journeyed from another shoreAcross the weary waveAnd wandered by the creek once more,And sought for Lily's grave.
I rode across the ridges brownAnd through a rocky pass,And took the track that led me downTo great white flats of grass.I passed the homestead's skeletonThat rotted in the sun,And by the broken stockyards onThe long-deserted run.
Whole beds of reeds were covered o'erWith coats of yellow mud,And all along the creek I sawThe traces of a flood.I reached the place where Lily died.The banks were washed away;Before me on the other sideThere rose a wall of clay.
I saw a thing that seemed a weedOutgrowing from the "face";I stood and marvelled that a seedHad grown in such a place.I climbed the bank, and with a rodI pushed the weed about,And from the dry and crumbling sodI saw a skull roll out!
I started back from where I stood,For she was buried there!I'd seen the coffin's rotting wood.The weed was Lily's hair!They'd laid her in the rushes dankUpon a sandy bend;The floods had washed away the bankAnd reached the coffin's end.
Ah, coward heart and conscience, too!Did I reclaim the dead?Ah, no, I did as cowards do,A second time I fled!And still I see the flying form,I see myself again,A madman riding through the stormWith terror in his brain.
That night the rain in torrents dashed,The sky seemed flushed with blood,And here and there the she-oaks crashedBeneath the yellow flood.And still I see the murderous skyThat never seems to change,And hear the flood go growling byThat thundered from the range.
My inner sight as years went o'erGrew sharp instead of dull,And nearly every night I sawThe coffin and the skull.Three ghastly things, unaltered still,I knew would haunt my night,I knew would fill my dreams untilI buried them from sight.
I journeyed to the creek once moreWhen five long years had flown,And buried in the sand I sawA piece of fashioned stone:And bit by bit and bone by boneIn those long years of rain,The cruel creek had claimed its ownAnd buried it again!
I clambered down the bank and kneltAnd scraped away the sand,And graven on the stone, I feltHer name beneath my hand;And in the she-oak over meThe wind was sneering yet:"Above all things I hate to seeA woman in a pet."