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Miss Blanche Says

by Bret Harte (Francis)

And you are the poet, and so you want

Something what is it? a theme, a fancy?

Something or other the Muse won't grant

To your old poetical necromancy;

Why, one half you poets you can't deny

Don't know the Muse when you chance to meet her,

But sit in your attics and mope and sigh

For a faineant goddess to drop from the sky,

When flesh and blood may be standing by

Quite at your service, should you but greet her.

What if I told you my own romance?

Women are poets, if you so take them,

One third poet, the rest what chance

Of man and marriage may choose to make them.

Give me ten minutes before you go,

Here at the window we'll sit together,

Watching the currents that ebb and flow;

Watching the world as it drifts below

Up the hot Avenue's dusty glow:

Isn't it pleasant, this bright June weather?

Well, it was after the war broke out,

And I was a schoolgirl fresh from Paris;

Papa had contracts, and roamed about,

And I did nothing for I was an heiress.

Picked some lint, now I think; perhaps

Knitted some stockings a dozen nearly:

Havelocks made for the soldiers' caps;

Stood at fair-tables and peddled traps

Quite at a profit. The 'shoulder-straps'

Thought I was pretty. Ah, thank you! really?

Still it was stupid. Rata-tat-tat!

Those were the sounds of that battle summer,

Till the earth seemed a parchment round and flat,

And every footfall the tap of a drummer;

And day by day down the Avenue went

Cavalry, infantry, all together,

Till my pitying angel one day sent

My fate in the shape of a regiment,

That halted, just as the day was spent,

Here at our door in the bright June weather.

None of your dandy warriors they,

Men from the West, but where I know not;

Haggard and travel-stained, worn and gray,

With never a ribbon or lace or bow-knot:

And I opened the window, and, leaning there,

I felt in their presence the free winds blowing.

My neck and shoulders and arms were bare,

I did not dream they might think me fair,

But I had some flowers that night in my hair,

And here, on my bosom, a red rose glowing.

And I looked from the window along the line,

Dusty and dirty and grim and solemn,

Till an eye like a bayonet flash met mine,

And a dark face shone from the darkening column,

And a quick flame leaped to my eyes and hair,

Till cheeks and shoulders burned all together,

And the next I found myself standing there

With my eyelids wet and my cheeks less fair,

And the rose from my bosom tossed high in air,

Like a blood-drop falling on plume and feather.

Then I drew back quickly: there came a cheer,

A rush of figures, a noise and tussle,

And then it was over, and high and clear

My red rose bloomed on his gun's black muzzle.

Then far in the darkness a sharp voice cried,

And slowly and steadily, all together,

Shoulder to shoulder and side to side,

Rising and falling and swaying wide,

But bearing above them the rose, my pride,

They marched away in the twilight weather.

And I leaned from my window and watched my rose

Tossed on the waves of the surging column,

Warmed from above in the sunset glows,

Borne from below by an impulse solemn.

Then I shut the window. I heard no more

Of my soldier friend, nor my flower neither,

But lived my life as I did before.

I did not go as a nurse to the war,

Sick folks to me are a dreadful bore,

So I didn't go to the hospital either.

You smile, O poet, and what do you?

You lean from your window, and watch life's column

Trampling and struggling through dust and dew,

Filled with its purposes grave and solemn;

And an act, a gesture, a face who knows?

Touches your fancy to thrill and haunt you,

And you pluck from your bosom the verse that grows

And down it flies like my red, red rose,

And you sit and dream as away it goes,

And think that your duty is done, now don't you?

I know your answer. I'm not yet through.

Look at this photograph, 'In the Trenches'!

That dead man in the coat of blue

Holds a withered rose in his hand. That clenches

Nothing! except that the sun paints true,

And a woman is sometimes prophetic-minded.

And that's my romance. And, poet, you

Take it and mould it to suit your view;

And who knows but you may find it too

Come to your heart once more, as mine did.