Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, BY THE LOOKING-GLASS, by AUGUSTA DAVIES WEBSTER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

BY THE LOOKING-GLASS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Alone at last in my room
Last Line: Lost in the peace of the night.
Alternate Author Name(s): Home, Cecil; Webster, Mrs. Julia Augusta
Subject(s): Self


ALONE at last in my room--
How sick I grow of the glitter and din,
Of the lips that smile and the voices that prate
To a ballroom tune for the fashion's sake:
Light and laughters without, but what within?
Are these like me? Do the pleasure and state
Weary them under the seeming they make?--
But I see all through my gloom.

For why should a light young heart
Not leap to a merry moving air,
Not laugh with the joy of the flying hour
And feed upon pleasure just for a while?
But the right of a woman is being fair,
And her heart must starve if she miss that dower,
For how should she purchase the look and the smile?
And I have not had my part.

A girl, and so plain a face!
Once more, as I learn by heart every line
In the pitiless mirror, night by night,
Let me try to think it is not my own.
Come, stranger with features something like mine,
Let me place close by you the tell-tale light;
Can I find in you now some charm unknown,
Only one softening grace?

Alas! it is I, I, I,
Ungainly, common. The other night
I heard one say "Why, she is not so plain.
See, the mouth is shapely, the nose not ill."
If I could but believe his judgement right!
But I try to dupe my eyesight in vain,
For I, who have partly a painter's skill,
I cannot put knowledge by.

He had not fed, as I feed
On beauty, till beauty itself must seem
Me, my own, a part and essence of me,
My right and my being--Why! how am I plain?
I feel as if this were almost a dream
From which I should waken, as it might be,
And open my eyes on beauty again
And know it myself indeed.

Oh idle! oh folly! look,
There, looking back from the glass, is my fate,
A clumsy creature smelling of earth,
What fancy could lend her the angel's wings?
She looks like a boorish peasant's fit mate.
Why! what a mock at the pride of birth,
Fashioned by nature for menial things,
With her name in the red-bound book.

Oh! to forget me a while,
Feeling myself but as one in the throng,
Losing myself in the joy of my youth!
Then surely some pleasure might lie in my reach.
But the sense of myself is ever strong,
And I read in all eyes the bitter truth,
And fancy scorning in every speech
And mocking in every smile.

Ah! yes, it was so to-night,
And I moved so heavily through the dance,
And answered uncouthly like one ill taught,
And knew that ungentleness seemed on my brow,
While it was but pain at each meeting glance,
For I knew that all who looked at me thought
"How ugly she is! one sees it more now
With the other young faces so bright."

I might be more like the rest,
Like those that laugh with a girlish grace
And make bright nothings an eloquence;
I might seem gentler and softer souled;
But I needs must shape myself to my place,
Softness in me would seem clumsy pretence,
Would they not deem my laughters bold?
I hide in myself as is best.

Do I grow bitter sometimes?
They say it, ah me! and I fear it is true,
And I shrink from that curse of bitterness,
And I pray on my knees that it may not come;
But how should I envy--they say that I do--
All the love which others' young lives may bless?
Because my age will be lone in its home
Do I weep at the wedding chimes?

Ah no, for they judge me ill,
Judging me doubtless by that which I look,
Do I not joy for another's delight?
Do I not grieve for another's regret?
And I have been true where others forsook
And kind where others bore hatred and spite,
For there I could think myself welcome--and yet
My care is unpitied still.

Yes, who can think it such pain
Not to be fair "Such a trifling thing."
And "Goodness may be where beauty is not"
And "How weak to sorrow for outward show!"
Ah! if they knew what a poisonful sting
Has this sense of shame, how a woman's lot
Is darkened throughout!--Oh yes I know
How weak--but I know in vain,

I hoped in vain, for I thought,
When first I grew to a woman's days,
Woman enough to feel what it means
To be a woman and not be fair,
That I need not sigh for the voice of praise
And the beauty's triumph in courtly scenes
Where she queens with her maiden--royal air
Ah! and so worshipped and sought.

But I, oh my dreaming! deemed
With a woman's yearning and faith in love,
With a woman's faith in her lovingness,
That that joy might brighten on me, even me,
For which all the force of my nature strove,
Joy of daily smiles and voices that bless,
And one deeper other love it might be--
Hush, that was wrong to have dreamed.

I thank God, I have not loved,
Loved as one says it whose life has gone out
Into another's for evermore,
Loved as I know what love might be
Writhing but living through poison of doubt,
Drinking the gall of the sweetness before,
Drinking strange deep strength from the bitter lee--
Love, love in a falsehood proved!

Loving him on to the end,
Through the weary weeping hours of the night,
Through the wearier laughing hours of the day;
Knowing him less than the love I gave,
But this one fond dream left my life for its light
To do him some service and pass away;
Not daring, for sin, to think of the grave
Lest it seemed the only friend.

Thank God that it was not so,
And I have my scatheless maidenly pride,
But it might have been--for did he not speak
With that slow sweet cadence that seemed made deep
By a meaning--Hush! he has chosen his bride.
Oh! happy smile on her lips and her cheek,
My darling! And I have no cause to weep,
I have not bowed me so low.

But would he have wooed in vain?
Would not my heart have leaped to his will,
If he had not changed?--How, changed do I say?
Was I not mocked with an idle thought,
Dreaming and dreaming so foolishly still?
By the sweet glad smile and the winning way
And the grace of beauty alone is love bought.
He woo me! Am I not plain?

But yet I was not alone
To fancy I might be something to him.
They thought it, I know, though it seems so wild
Now, in this bitterer Now's hard light.
Vain that I was! could his sight grow dim?
How could he love me? But she, when she smiled
Once, the first once, by her beauty's right
Had made all his soul her own.

It is well that no busy tongue
Has vexed her heart with those bygone tales.
But I think he fears he did me some wrong,
I see him watch me at times, and his cheek
Crimsons a little, a little pales,
If his eye meets mine for a moment long.
But he need not fear, I am not so weak
Though I am a woman and young.

I had not grown to my love,
Though it might have been. And I give no blame:
Nothing was spoken to bind him to me,
Nothing had been that could make him think
My heart beat stronger and fast when he came,
And if he had loved me, was he not free,
When the fancy passed, to loose that vague link
That only such fancy wove?

No he has done no such ill
But that I can bear it, nor shame in my heart
To call him my brother and see her his,
The one little pearl that gleams through our gloom:
He has no dishonour to bar them apart.
I loving her so, am rested in this;
Else I would speak though I spoke her doom,
Though grief had the power to kill.

When she came a while ago,
My young fair sister bright with her bloom,
Back to a home which is little glad,
I thought "Here is one who should know no care,
A little wild bird flown into a room
From its far free woods; will she droop and grow sad?
But, here even, love smiles upon one so fair.
And I too might feel that glow."

But now she will fly away!
Ah me! and I love her so deep in my heart
And worship her beauty as he might do.
If I could but have kept her a little time!
Ah she will go! So the sunbeams depart
That brightened the winter's sky into blue,
And the dews of the chill dusk freeze into rime,
And cold cold mists hang grey.

I think she loved me till now--
Nay doubtless she loves me quietly yet,
But his lightest fancy is more, far more,
To her than all the love that I live.
But I cannot blame (as if love were a debt)
That, though I love, he is held far before;
And is it not well that a bride should give
All, all her heart with her vow?

But ah, if I smiled more sweet
And spoke more soft as one fairer could,
Had not love indeed been more surely mine?
Folly to say that a woman's grace
Is only strong o'er a man's light mood!
Even the hearts of the nearest incline
With a gentler thought to the lovely face,
And the winning eyes that entreat.

But I--yes flicker pale light,
Fade into darkness and hide it away,
The poor dull face that looks out from the glass,
Oh wearily wearily back to me!
Yes, I will sleep, for my wild thoughts stray
Weakly, selfishly--yes let them pass,
Let self and this sadness of self leave me free,
Lost in the peace of the night.





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