Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, FATHER AND MOTHER: A MYSTERY, by WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FATHER AND MOTHER: A MYSTERY, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The father: 'now it is over.'
Last Line: "the father: ""help me to believe!"
Alternate Author Name(s): Howells, W. D.
Subject(s): Death - Children; Fathers & Daughters; Grief; Mothers & Daughters; Death - Babies; Sorrow; Sadness


The parlor of a village house, with open doors and windows; the Father and the
Mother sitting alone among the chairs in broken rows; a piano with a lifted lid;
dust tracked about the floor.

The Father: "Now it is over."
The Mother: '"It is over, now,
And we shall never see her any more."
The Father: "Have you put everything of hers away?
If I found anything that she had worn,
Or that had belonged to her, I think the sight
Would kill me."
The Mother: "Oh, you need not be afraid;
I have put everything away."
The Father: "Oh, me!
How shall we do without her! It is as if
One of my arms had been lopped off, and I
Must go through life a mutilated man.
This morning when I woke there was an instant,
A little instant, when she seemed alive,
Before the clouds closed over me again,
And death filled all the world. Then came that stress,
That horrible impatience to be done
With what had been our child. As if to hide
The cold white witness of her absence were
To have her back once more!"
The Mother: "I felt that, too.
I thought I could not rest till it was done;
And now I cannot rest, and we shall rest
Never again as long as we shall live.
Our grief will drug us, yes, and we shall sleep,
As we have slept already; but not rest."
The Father: "We must, I cannot help believing it,
See her again some time and somewhere else."
The Mother: "Oh, never, any time or anywhere!"
The Father: "You used to think we should."
The Mother: "I know I did.
But that is gone forever, that fond lie
With which we used to fool our happiness,
When we had no need of it. When we had
Each other safe we could not even imagine
Not having one another always."
The Father: "Yes,
It was a lie, a cruel, mocking lie!"
The Mother: "Why did you ask me, then? Do you suppose
That if the love we used to make believe
Would reunite is, really had the power,
It would not, here and now, be doing it,
Now, when we need her more than we shall need her
Even in all eternity, and she—
If she is still alive, which I deny—
Is aching for us both as we for her?
You know how much she loved her home, and how
She suffered if she left it for a week;
You know how lost and heart-sick she must be,
Wherever she is, if she is anywhere;
And if her longing and if ours could bring us
Together as we used to dream it could,
How soon she would be here!"
The Father: "I cannot bear it!"
The Mother: "I shall not care, when you and I are old,
Years hence, and we shall have begun to be
Forgetful, as old people are, about her,
And all her looks and ways—I shall not care
To see her then. I want to see her now,
Now while I still remember everything,
And she remembers, and has all her faults,
Just as we have our own, to be forgiven.
But if we have to wait till she is grown
Some frigid, perfect angel, in some world
Where she has other ties, I shall not care
To see her; I should be afraid of her."
The Father: "She would not then be she, nor we be we."
The Mother: "I want to tell her how I grieve for all
I ever did or said that was unkind
Since she was born. But if we met above,
In that impossible heaven, she would not care."
The Father: "If she knows anything she knows that now
Without your telling."
The Mother: "I want her to say
She knows it."
The Father: "Yet, somehow she seems alive.
The whole way home she seemed to be returning
Between us, as she used when we came home
From walking and she was a child."
The Mother: "Oh, that
Was nothing but the habit of her: just
As if you really had lost an arm
You would have felt it there."
The Father: "Oh, yes, I know.
[He lets his head hang in silence; then he looks up at the window
opening on the porch.
This honeysuckle's sweetness sickens me.
[He rises and shuts the window.
I never shall smell that sweetness while I live
And not die back into this day of death.
[He remains at the window staring out.
How still it is outside! The timothy
Stands like a solid wall beside the swath
The men have cut. The clover heads hang heavy
And motionless."
The Mother: "I wish that it would rain,
And lay the dust. The house is full of dust
From the road yonder. They have tracked it in
Through all the rooms, and I shall have enough
To do getting it out again."
The Father: "The sun
Pours down its heat as if it were raining fire.
But she that used to suffer so with cold,
She cannot feel it. Did you see that woman,
That horrible old woman, chewing dill
All through the services?"
The Mother: "Oh, yes, I saw her.
You know her: Mrs. Jayne, that always comes
To funerals."
The Father: "I remember. She should be
Prevented, somehow."
The Mother: "Why, she did no harm."
The Father: "I could not bear to have them stand and stare
So long at her dead face. I hate that custom."
The Mother: "I wonder that you cared. It was not her face,
Nor the form hers; only a waxen image
Of what she had been. Nothing now is she!
There is no place in the whole universe
For her whose going takes all from the earth
That ever made it home."
The Father: "Yes, she is gone,
And it is worse than if she had not been. ...
Hark!"
The Mother: "How you startle me! You are so nervous!"
The Father: "I thought I heard a kind of shuddering noise!"
The Mother: "It was a shutter shaking in the wind."
The Father: "There is no wind."
The Mother (after a moment): "Go and see what it was.
It seemed like something in the room where she—"
The Father: "It sounded like the beating of birds' wings.
There! It has stopped."
The Mother: "I must know what it was.
If you will not go, I will. I shall die
Unless you go at once."
The Father: "Oh, I will go."
[He goes out and mounts the stairs, which creak under his tread. His feet are
heard on the floor above. After a moment comes the sound of opening and closing
shutters.
The Mother (calling up): "What is it? Quick!"
The Father (calling down): "It was some kind of bird
Between the shutters and the sash. I cannot
Imagine how it got there."
[He descends the stairs slowly and comes into the room where the Mother sits
waiting.
The Mother: "What bird was it?"
The Father: "Some kind I did not know. I wish that I
Had let it in."
The Mother: "What do you mean by that?
Everything living tries to leave the house;
We stay because we are part of death,
And cannot go."
The Father: "It did not wish to go;
It was not trying to get out, but in.
I put it out once and it came again;
And now I wish that I had let it stay."
The Mother: "You are so superstitious; and you think. ..."
[She stops, and they both sit silent for a time.
The Father: "It may be our despair that keeps her from us."
The Mother: "You think, then, that our hope could bring her to us?"
The Father: "Not that, no."
The Mother: "Or, that we could make her live
Again by willing it sufficiently?"
The Father: "Oh no,
Not by our willing; by our loving, yes!
Not through our will, which is a part of us,
And filled full of ourselves, but through our love,
Which is a part of some life else, and filled
With something not ourselves, but better, purer."
The Mother: "Well, try."
The Father: "I cannot. Your doubt palsies me."
The Mother: "I cannot help it. If she cannot come
Unto my doubt, she cannot to my faith. ...
Oh! What was that?"
The Father: "The wind among the chords
Of the piano. They have left it open
After the singing."
The Mother: "But there is no wind!
You said yourself, just now, there was no wind."
The Father: "Perhaps it was our voices jarred the strings."
The Mother: "They could not do it; and it was not like
Anything that I ever heard before.
It was like something heard within my brain,
And there is something that I see within!
Hark! Look! Do you hear nothing? Do you see
Nothing? Or am I going wild?"
The Father: "No, no!
I hear and see it too. Are you afraid?"
The Mother: "No, not in the least. But, oh, how strange it is!
What is it like to you?"
The Father: "I dare not say,
For fear that it should cease to be at all."
The Mother: "Do you believe that we are dreaming it?
That we are sleeping and are dreaming it?"
The Father: "He could not be so cruel!"
The Mother: "He made death."
The Father: "There! You have hurt it, and it will not speak;
You have offended it. Speak to it!"
The Mother: "Child,
I did not mean to grieve you. Oh, forgive
Your poor old mother! Is she here yet, dearest?"
The Father: "Yes, she is here! Yes, I am sure of it—"
The Mother: "I seemed to have lost her—No, she is here again!
How natural she is! How strong and bright,
And all that sick look gone! It must be true
That it is she, but how shall we be sure
After it passes? Where is it you see her?
Where is it that you hear her speak?"
The Father: "Within.
Within my brain, my heart, my life, my love!"
The Mother: "Yes, that is where I see and hear her too.
And oh, I feel her! This is her dear hand
In mine! How warm and soft it is once more,
After that sickness! Yes, we have her back,
Dearest, we have out child again! But still
How strange it is that she is all within,
And nowhere outside of our minds! Can you
Make her nowhere but in yourself?"
The Father: "In you—"
The Mother: "And I in you! I see her in your mind;
I hear her speaking in your mind. That shows
How wholly we are one. Our love has done it,
And we must never quarrel any more.
It was your faith; I will say that for you!
But are you sure we are not dreaming it?"
The Father: "How could we both be dreaming the same thing?"
The Mother: "We could if we are both so wholly one."
The Father: "We must not doubt, or it will cease to be.
See! It is growing faint!"
The Mother: "Oh, no, my child!
I do believe that it is really you.
And, father, you must not keep saying It
As if she were not living. Now she smiles,
And now she is speaking! Can you understand
What she is saying?"
The Father: "It is not in words,
And yet I understand."
The Mother: "And so do I.
I wish that you could put it into words.
So that we might remember it hereafter."
The Father: "But what she says cannot be put in words.
It is enough that we can understand
Better than if it were in words."
The Mother: "No, no!
Unless it is in words I am not sure.
Unless she calls you Father and me Mother—
Hush! Did you hear her?"
The Father: "Yes, I thought I heard her."
The Mother: "I am sure I heard her call us both, and now
I know it is not a hallucination.
Oh, I believe, and I am satisfied!
But, child, I wish that you could tell me something
About it, where you are! Is it like this?
In everything that I have read about it,
It seemed so vague—"
The Father: "She answers hesitating,
As we used, when she was a little thing,
To answer her in something that we thought
She would be none the happier for knowing.
Now we are as the children with her, and she is
As father and mother to us, and we must not
Question her."
The Mother: "Yes, I must; I will, I will!"
The Father: "There, she is gone! No; she is here again!"
The Mother: "No; we are somewhere else. What place is this?
Is this where she was? Did she bring us here?
It seems as if we now were merged in her
As she was merged in us before we came.
But all our wills are one. Oh, mystery!
I am so lost in this strange unity;
Help me to find myself, if you are here!
You are here, are you not?"
The Father: "Yes, I am here,
But not as I was there. I seem a part
Of all that was and is and shall be. This is life,
And that was only living yonder! I can find you,
I can find her, but not myself in it,
Or only as a drop of water may
Find itself in the indiscriminate sea."
The Mother: "I cannot bear it; I was not prepared!
Oh, save me, dearest! Save me, oh my child!
Speak to me, father, in the words we know,
And not in these intolerable rays
That leave the thought no refuge from itself.
I have not yet the strength to yield my own
Up to this universal happiness.
I still must dwell apart in my own life,
A prison if it need be, or a pang.
Come back with me, both of you, for a while. ...
Why, I am here again, and you are here!
This is our house, with dust in it and death,
This is dear, dear earthly home! But where is she?
Call to her—tell her we are here again!"
The Father: "We could not make her come. I am bewildered;
I scarcely know if I am here myself."
The Mother: "Perhaps she never came at all, and we
Have only dreamed that we were somewhere else.
I feel as if I had awaked from sleep.
How long were we gone?"
The Father: "I cannot tell:
As long as life, or only for an instant."
The Mother: "It could not have been long, for there I see
The humming-bird poised at the honeysuckle
Still, that I noticed when we seemed to go.
Nothing has really happened! yet, some how. ...
I wonder what it was she said to us
That satisfied us so? Can you remember?"
The Father: "Not in words, no. It did not seem in words,
And if we tried to put it into words—"
The Mother: "They would be such as mediums use to cheat
Their dupes with, or to make them cheat themselves.
No, no! We ought not to be satisfied.
It is a trick our unstrung nerves have played us.
The selfsame trick has cheated both; or we
Have hypnotized each other. It is the same
As such things have been always from the first:
Our sorrow has made fools of us; we have seen
A phantom that our longing conjured up;
And heard a voice that had no sound; and thought
A meaning into mocking emptiness!"
The Father: "Then, how could it have satisfied us so?"
The Mother: "That was a part of the hallucination.
Nothing has happened, nothing has been proved!"
The Father: "Not to our reason, no, but to our love Everything."
The Mother: "Then, let her come back again!"
The Father: "Twice would prove nothing more if once proved nothing.
We have had our glimpse of life beyond the veil;
As every one who sorrows somehow has.
The world is not so hollow as it was.
There still is meaning in the universe;
But if it ever is as waste and senseless
As only now it seemed, and the time comes
When we shall need her as we needed her,
We shall be with her again, or she with us,
Whether the time is somewhere else or here.
Come, mother—mother for eternity!—
Come, let us go, each of us, to our work.
I have been to blame for breaking you with grief
Which I should have supported you against.
Forgive me for it!"
The Mother: "Oh, what are you saying?
There is no blame, and no forgiveness for it
Between us two, nothing but only love."
The Father: "The love in which she lives."
The Mother: "I will believe it.
If you believe it."
The Father: "Help me to believe!"





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