The Maker of Rainbows Part 6

Jews with great money-bags came to buy from him--the beautiful face.

Sometimes he had to climb up into trees to look at it in the sunrise, the woods were so filled with the voices of his pursuers.

But neither hunger, nor poverty, nor small ferocious enemies were able to take from him the beautiful face. It never left his heart. All night long and all the watching day it was pressed close to his side.

Meanwhile the princess was in despair. More and more the fancy possessed her that with the lost mirror her beauty too was lost. In her unhappiness, like all sad people, she took strange ways of escape. She consulted the stars, and empirics from the four winds settled down upon her castle. Each, of course, had his own invaluable nostrum; and all went their way. For not one of these understood the heart of a poet.

However, at last there came to the aid of the princess a reverend old man of ninety years, a famous seer, deeply and gently and pitifully learned in the hearts of men. His was that wisdom which comes of great goodness. He understood the princess, and he understood the minstrel; for, having lived so long alone with the Infinite, he understood the Finite.

To him the princess was as a little child, and his old wise heart went out to her.

And, as I have said, his heart understood the minstrel too.

Therefore he said to the princess: "I know the hearts of poets. In seven days I will bring you back your mirror."

And the old man went, and at length found the poet eating wild berries in the middle of the wood.

"That is a beautiful mirror you have by your side," said the old man.

"This mirror," answered the poet, "holds in its deeps the most beautiful face in the world."

"It is true," said the wise old man. "I have seen the beautiful face ...

but I too possess a mirror. Will you look into it?"

And the poet took the mirror from the old man and looked; and, as he looked, the mirror of the princess fell neglected in the gra.s.s....

"Why," said the wise old man, "do you let fall the princess's mirror?"

But the poet made no answer--for his eyes were lost in the strange mirror which the wise old man had brought him.

"What do you see in the mirror," said the old man, "that you gaze so earnestly in it?"

"I see," answered the minstrel, "the infinite miracle of the universe, I see the august and lonely elements, I see the solitary stars and the untiring sea, I see the everlasting hills--and, as a crocus raises its rainbow head from the black earth in springtime, I see the young moon growing like a slender flower out of the mountains...."

"Yet, look again," said the old man, "into this other mirror, the mirror of the princess. Look again."

And the poet looked--taking the two mirrors in his hands, and looking from one to the other.

"At last," he said, gazing into the face he had fought so long to keep--"at last I understand that this is but a fleeting phantom of beauty, a fluttering flower of a face--just one beautiful flower in the innumerable meadows of the Infinite--but here...."

And he turned to the other mirror--

"Here is the Eternal Beauty, the Divine Harmony, the Sacred Unfathomable All.... Would a man be content with one rose, when all the roses of all the rose-gardens of the world were his?..."

"You mean," said the wise old man, smiling to himself, "that I may take the mirror back to the princess.... Are you really willing to exchange her face for the face of the sky?"

"I am," answered the minstrel.

"I knew you were a poet," said the sage.

"And I know that you are very wise," answered the minstrel.

Yet, after all, the princess was not so happy to have her mirror back again as she had expected to be; for had not a wandering poet found something more beautiful than her face!

THE PINE LADY

O have you seen the Pine Lady, Or heard her how she sings?

Have you heard her play Your soul away On a harp with moonbeam strings?

In a palace all of the night-black pine She hides like a queen all day, Till a moonbeam knocks On her secret tree, And she opens her door With a silver key, While the village clocks Are striking bed Nine times sleepily.

O come and hear the Pine Lady Up in the haunted wood!

The stars are rising, the moths are flitting, The owls are calling, The dew is falling; And, high in the boughs Of her haunted house, The moon and she are sitting.

Out on the moor the night-jar drones Rough-throated love, The beetle comes With his sudden drums, And many a silent unseen thing Frightens your cheek with its ghostly wing; While there above, In a palace builded of needles and cones, The pine is telling the moon her love, Telling her love on the moonbeam strings-- O have you seen the Pine Lady, Or heard her how she sings?

[Ill.u.s.tration]

THE KING ON HIS WAY TO BE CROWNED

In a green outlying corner of the kingdom of Bohemia, one summer afternoon, the Grand Duke Stanislaus was busy in his garden, swarming a hive of bees. He was a tall, middle-aged man of a scholarly, almost priest-like, type, a gentle-mannered recluse, living only in his books and his garden, and much loved by the country-folk for the simple kindness of his heart. He had the most winning of smiles, and a playful wisdom radiated from his wise, rather weary eyes. No man had ever heard him utter a harsh word; and, indeed, life pa.s.sed so tranquilly in that green corner of Bohemia that even less peaceful natures found it hard to be angry. There was so little to be angry about.

Therefore, it was all the stranger to see the good duke suddenly lose his temper this summer afternoon.

"Preposterous!" he exclaimed; "was there ever anything quite so preposterous! To think of interrupting me, at such a moment, with such news!"

He spoke from inside a veil of gauze twisted about his head, after the manner of beekeepers; and was, indeed, just at that moment, engaged in the delicate operation of transferring a new swarm to another hive.

The necessity of keeping his mind on his task somewhat restored his calm.

"Give the messenger refreshment," he said, "and send for Father Scholasticus."

Father Scholasticus was the priest of the village, and the duke's very dear friend.

The reason for this explosion was the news, brought by swiftest courier, that Duke Stanislaus' brother was dead, and that he himself was thus become King of Bohemia.

By the time Father Scholasticus arrived, the bees were housed in their new home, and the duke was seated in his library, among the books that he loved no less than his bees, with various important-looking parchments spread out before him: despatches of state brought to him by the courier, which he had been scanning with great impatience.

"I warn you, my friend," he said, looking up as the good father entered, "that you will find me in a very bad temper. Ferdinand is dead--can you imagine anything more unreasonable of him? He was always the most inconsiderate of mortals; and now, without the least warning, he shuffles his responsibilities upon my shoulders."

The priest knew his friend and the way of his thought, and he could not help smiling at his quaint petulance.