The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mae Madden, by Mary Murdoch Mason

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Title: Mae Madden

Author: Mary Murdoch Mason

Release Date: May 12, 2006 [EBook #1829]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAE MADDEN ***

Produced by Donald Lainson

MAE MADDEN

By Mary Murdoch Mason

With an introductory poem, by Joaquin Miller.

The wheel of fortune guide you,
The boy with the bow beside you
Run aye in the way, till the dawn of day
And a luckier lot betide you.

Ben Jonson.

A DREAM OF ITALY.

AN ALLEGORY INTRODUCING "MAE MADDEN."

I.

We two had been parted, God pity us, when
The stars were unnamed and when heaven was dim;
We two had been parted far back on the rim
And the outermost border of heaven's red bars:
We two had been parted ere the meeting of men
Or God had set compass on spaces as yet.
We two had been parted ere God had set
His finger to spinning the spaces with stars,--
And now, at the last in the gold and set
Of the sun of Venice, we two had met.

II.

Where the lion of Venice, with brows afrown,
With tossed mane tumbled, and teeth in air,
Looks out in his watch o'er the watery town,
With a paw half lifted, with his claws half bare,
By the blue Adriatic, in the edge of the sea,
I saw her. I knew her, but she knew not me.
I had found her at last! Why, I had sailed
The antipodes through, had sought, had hailed
All flags, had climbed where the storm clouds curled,
And called from the awful arched dome of the world.

III.

I saw her one moment, then fell back abashed
And filled full to the throat. . . . Then I turned me once more
So glad to the sea, while the level sun flashed
On the far, snowy Alps. . . . Her breast! Why, her breast
Was white as twin pillows that allure you to rest;
Her sloping limbs moved like to melodies, told
As she rose from the sea, and she threw back the gold
Of her glory of hair, and set face to the shore. . . .
I knew her! I knew her, though we had no