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Home  »  library  »  poem  »  The Daguerreotype

C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

The Daguerreotype

By William Vaughn Moody (1869–1910)

THIS, then, is she,

My mother as she looked at seventeen,

When she first met my father. Young incredibly,

Younger than spring, without the faintest trace

Of disappointment, weariness, or tean

Upon the childlike earnestness and grace

Of the waiting face.

These close-wound ropes of pearl

(Or common beads made precious by their use)

Seem heavy for so slight a throat to wear;

But the low bodice leaves the shoulders bare

And half the glad swell of the breast, for news

That now the woman stirs within the girl.

And yet,

Even so, the loops and globes

Of beaten gold

And jet

Hung, in the stately way of old,

From the ears’ drooping lobes

On festivals and Lord’s-day of the week,

Show all too matron-sober for the cheek,—

Which, now I look again, is perfect child,

Or no—or no—’Tis girlhood’s very self,

Molded by some deep, mischief-ridden elf

So meek, so maiden mild,

But startling the close gazer with the sense

Of passions forest-shy and forest-wild,

And delicate delirious merriments.

As a moth beats sidewise

And up and over, and tries

To skirt, the irresistible lure

Of the flame that has him sure,

My spirit, that is none too strong to-day,

Flutters and makes delay,—

Pausing to wonder on the perfect lips,

Lifting to muse upon the low-drawn hair

And each hid radiance there,

But powerless to stem the tide-race bright,

The vehement peace which drifts it toward the light

Where soon—ah, now, with cries

Of grief and giving-up unto its gain

It shrinks no longer nor denies,

But dips

Hurriedly home to the exquisite heart of pain,—

And all is well, for I have seen them plain,

The unforgettable, the unforgotten eyes!

Across the blinding gush of these good tears

They shine as in the sweet and heavy years

When by her bed and chair

We children gathered jealously to share

The sunlit aura breathing myrrh and thyme,

Where the sore-stricken body made a clime

Gentler than May and pleasanter than rhyme,

Holier and more mystical than prayer.

God, how thy ways are strange!

That this should be, even this,

The patient head

Which suffered years ago the dreary change!

That these so dewy lips should be the same

As those I stooped to kiss

And heard my harrowing half-spoken name,

A little ere the one who bowed above her,

Our father and her very constant lover,

Rose stoical, and we knew that she was dead.

Then I, who could not understand or share

His antique nobleness,

Being unapt to bear

The insults which time flings us for our proof,

Fled from the horrible roof

Into the alien sunshine merciless,

The shrill satiric fields ghastly with day,

Raging to front God in his pride of sway

And hurl across the lifted swords of fate

That ringed him where he sat

My puny gage of scorn and desolate hate

Which somehow should undo Him, after all!

That this girl face, expectant, virginal,

Which gazes out at me

Boon as a sweetheart, as if nothing loth

(Save for the eyes, with other presage stored)

To pledge me troth,

And in the kingdom where the heart is lord

Take sail on the terrible gladness of the deep

Whose winds the gray Norns keep,—

That this should be indeed

The flesh which caught my soul, a flying seed,

Out of the to and fro

Of scattering hands where the seedsman Mage,

Stooping from star to star and age to age

Sings as he sows!

That underneath this breast

Nine moons I fed

Deep of divine unrest,

While over and over in the dark she said,

“Blessèd! but not as happier children blessed”—

That this should be

Even she …

God, how with time and change

Thou makest thy footsteps strange!

Ah, now I know

They play upon me, and it is not so.

Why, ’tis a girl I never saw before,

A little thing to flatter and make weep,

To tease until her heart is sore,

Then kiss and clear the score;

A gypsy run-the-fields,

A little liberal daughter of the earth,

Good for what hour of truancy and mirth

The careless season yields

Hither-side the flood of the year and yonder of the neap;

Then thank you, thanks again, and twenty light good-byes.—

O shrined above the skies,

Frown not, clear brow,

Darken not, holy eyes!

Thou knowest well I know that it is thou!

Only to save me from such memories

As would unman me quite,

Here in this web of strangeness caught

And prey to troubled thought

Do I devise

These foolish shifts and slight;

Only to shield me from the afflicting sense

Of some waste influence

Which from this morning face and lustrous hair

Breathes on me sudden ruin and despair.

In any other guise,

With any but this girlish depth of gaze,

Your coming had not so unsealed and poured

The dusty amphoras where I had stored

The drippings of the winepress of my days.

I think these eyes foresee,

Now in their unawakened virgin time,

Their mother’s pride in me,

And dream even now, unconsciously,

Upon each soaring peak and sky-hung lea

You pictured I should climb.

Broken premonitions come,

Shakes, gestures visionary,

Not as once to maiden Mary

The manifest angel with fresh lilies came

Intelligibly calling her by name;

But vanishingly, dumb,

Thwarted and bright and wild,

As heralding a sin-defiled,

Earth-encumbered, blood-begotten, passionate man-child,

Who yet should be a trump of mighty call

Blown in the gates of evil kings

To make them fall;

Who yet should be a sword of flame before

The soul’s inviolate door

To beat away the clang of hellish wings;

Who yet should be a lyre

Of high unquenchable desire

In the day of little things.—

Look where the amphoras,

The yield of many days,

Trod by my hot soul from the pulp of self

And set upon the shelf

In sullen pride

The Vineyard-master’s tasting to abide—

O mother mine!

Are these the bringings-in, the doings fine,

Of him you used to praise?

Emptied and overthrown

The jars lie strown.

These, for their flavor duly nursed,

Drip from the stopples vinegar accursed;

These, I thought honeyed to the very seal,

Dry, dry,—a little acid meal,

A pinch of moldy dust,

Sole leavings of the amber-mantling must;

These, rude to look upon,

But flasking up the liquor dearest won,

Through sacred hours and hard,

With watching and with wrestlings and with grief,

Even of these, of these in chief,

The stale breath sickens, reeking from the shard.

Nothing is left. Ay, how much less than aught!

What shall be said or thought

Of the slack hours and waste imaginings,

The cynic rending of the wings,

Known to that froward, that unreckoning heart

Whereof this brewage was the precious part,

Treasured and set away with furtive boast?

O dear and cruel ghost,

Be merciful, be just!

See, I was yours and I am in the dust.

Then look not so, as if all things were well!

Take your eyes from me, leave me to my shame,

Or else, if gaze they must,

Steel them with judgment, darken them with blame;

But by the ways of light ineffable

You bade me go and I have faltered from,

By the low waters moaning out of hell

Whereto my feet have come

Lay not on me these intolerable

Looks of rejoicing love, of pride, of happy trust!

Nothing dismayed?

By all I say and all I hint not made

Afraid?

O then, stay by me! Let

These eyes afflict me, cleanse me, keep me yet

Brave eyes and true!

See how the shriveled heart, that long has lain

Dead to delight and pain,

Stirs, and begins again

To utter pleasant life, as if it knew

The wintry days were through;

As if in its awakening boughs it heard

The quick, sweet-spoken bird.

Strong eyes and brave,

Inexorable to save!