A Dead Letter

I DREW it from its china tomb;—  
 It came out feebly scented  
With some thin ghost of past perfume  
 That dust and days had lent it.  
 
An old, letter,—folded still!
 To read with due composure,  
I sought the sun-lit window-sill,  
 Above the gray enclosure,  
 
That glimmering in the sultry haze,  
 Faint flowered, dimly shaded,
Slumbered like Goldsmith’s Madam Blaize,  
 Bedizened and brocaded.  
 
A queer old place! You ’d surely say  
 Some tea-board garden-maker  
Had planned it in Dutch William’s day
 To please some florist Quaker,  
 
So trim it was. The yew-trees still,  
 With pious care perverted,  
Grew in the same grim shapes; and still  
 The lipless dolphin spurted;
 
Still in his wonted state abode  
 The broken-nosed Apollo;  
And still the cypress-arbor showed  
 The same umbrageous hollow.  
 
Only,—as fresh young Beauty gleams
 From coffee-colored laces,—  
So peeped from its old-fashioned dreams  
 The fresher modern traces;  
 
For idle mallet, hoop, and ball  
 Upon the lawn were lying;
A magazine, a tumbled shawl,  
 Round which the swifts were flying;  
 
And, tossed beside the Guelder rose,  
 A heap of rainbow knitting,  
Where, blinking in her pleased repose,
 A Persian cat was sitting.  
 
“A place to love in,—live,—for aye,  
 If we too, like Tithonus,  
Could find some God to stretch the gray  
 Scant life the Fates have thrown us;
 
“But now by steam we run our race,  
 With buttoned heart and pocket;  
Our Love’s a gilded, surplus grace,—  
 Just like an empty locket!  
 
“‘The time is out of joint.’ Who will,
 May strive to make it better;  
For me, this warm old window-sill,  
 And this old dusty letter.”  
 
 II
“Dear John (the letter ran), it can’t, can’t be,  
 For Father’s gone to Chorley Fair with Sam,
And Mother’s storing Apples,—Prue and Me  
 Up to our Elbows making Damson Jam:  
But we shall meet before a Week is gone,—  
 ‘’T is a long Lane that has no turning,’ John!  
 
“Only till Sunday next, and then you ’ll wait
 Behind the White-Thorn, by the broken Stile—  
We can go round and catch them at the Gate,  
 All to Ourselves, for nearly one long Mile;  
Dear Prue won’t look, and Father he’ll go on,  
And Sam’s two Eyes are all for Cissy, John!
 
“John, she ’s so smart,—with every ribbon new,  
 Flame-colored Sack, and Crimson Padesoy;  
As proud as proud; and has the Vapours too,  
 Just like My Lady;—calls poor Sam a Boy,  
And vows no Sweet-heart’s worth the Thinking-on
Till he ’s past Thirty … I know better, John!  
 
“My Dear, I don’t think that I thought of much  
 Before we knew each other, I and you;  
And now, why, John, your least, least Finger-touch,  
 Gives me enough to think a Summer through.
See, for I send you Something! There, ’t is gone!  
Look in this corner,—mind you find it, John!”  
 
 III
This was the matter of the note,—  
 A long-forgot deposit,  
Dropped in an Indian dragon’s throat,
 Deep in a fragrant closet,  
 
Piled with a dapper Dresden world,—  
 Beaux, beauties, prayers, and poses,—  
Bonzes with squat legs undercurled,  
 And great jars filled with roses.
 
Ah, heart that wrote! Ah, lips that kissed!  
 You had no thought or presage  
Into what keeping you dismissed  
 Your simple old-world message!  
 
A reverent one. Though we to-day
 Distrust beliefs and powers,  
The artless, ageless things you say  
 Are fresh as May’s own flowers,  
 
Starring some pure primeval spring,  
 Ere Gold had grown despotic,—
Ere Life was yet a selfish thing,  
 Or Love a mere exotic!  
 
I need not search too much to find  
 Whose lot it was to send it,  
That feel upon me yet the kind,
 Soft hand of her who penned it;  
 
And see, through twoscore years of smoke,  
 In by-gone, quaint apparel,  
Shine from yon time-black Norway oak  
 The face of Patience Caryl,—
 
The pale, smooth forehead, silver-tressed;  
 The gray gown, primly flowered;  
The spotless, stately coif whose crest  
 Like Hector’s horse-plume towered;  
 
And still the sweet half-solemn look
 Where some past thought was clinging,  
As when one shuts a serious book  
 To hear the thrushes singing.  
 
I kneel to you! Of those you were,  
 Whose kind old hearts grow mellow,—
Whose fair old faces grow more fair  
 As Point and Flanders yellow;  
 
Whom some old store of garnered grief,  
 Their placid temples shading,  
Crowns like a wreath of autumn leaf
 With tender tints of fading.  
 
Peace to your soul! You died unwed—  
 Despite this loving letter.  
And what of John? The less that ’s said  
 Of John, I think, the better.