III EMILY BROSSEAU: IN CHURCH

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Domine, Jesu Christe, Rex gloriae, libera animas omnium fidelium defunctorum de poenis inferni, et de profundo lacu.

Leave me now and I will watch here through the night,
And I’ll put in new candles, if these fail.
I’ll sit here as I am, where I can see
His brow, his nose’s tip and thin white hair,
And just beyond his brow, above the altar,
The red gash in the side of Jesus like
A candle’s flame when burning to the socket.
Go all of you, and leave me. I don’t care
How cold the church grows. Michael Angelo
Went to a garret, which was cold, and stripped
His feet, and painted till the chill of death
Took hold of him, a man just eighty-seven,
And I am ninety, what’s the odds?—go now ...
Now Jean we are alone! Your very stillness
Is like intenser life, as in your brow
Your soul was crystallized and made more strong,
And nearer to me. You are here, I feel you.
I close my eyes and feel you, you are here.
Therefore a little talk before the dawn,
Which will come soon. Dawn always comes too soon
In times like this. It waits too long in times
Of absence, and you will be absent soon....
I want to talk about my happiness,
My happy life, the part you played in it.
There never was a day you did not kiss me
Through nearly seventy years of married life.
I had two hours of heaven in my life.
The first one was the dance where first we met.
The other when last fall they brought me roses,
Those ninety roses for my birth-day, when
They had me tell them of the first Chicago
I saw when just a child, about the Fort;
The cabins where the traders lived, who worked,
And made the fortune of John Jacob Astor.
Poor Jean! It’s scarce a week since you were struck.
You sat down in your chair, ’twas after dinner,
Then suddenly I saw your head fall forward.
You could not speak when I went over to you.
But afterwards when you were on the bed
I leaned above you and you took the ribbon,
That hung down from my cap and pressed it trembling
Against your lips. What triumph in your death!
Your death was like a mass, mysterious, rich
Like Latin which the priests sing and the choir—
May angels take you and with Lazarus,
Once poor, receive you to eternal rest....
Two hours of heaven in my life that’s true!
And years between that made life more than good.
My first sight of Chicago stands for all
My life became for you and all I’ve lived.
The year is 1829, you know of course.
I’ve told you of the trip in Prairie schooners
From Ft. Detroit round the lake, we camped
Along the way, the last time near the place
Where Gary and the steel mills are to-day.
And the next morning what a sky! as blue
As a jay’s wing, with little rifts of snow
Along the hollows of the yellow dunes,
And some ice in the lake, which lapped a little,
And purplish colors far off in the north.
So round these more than twenty miles we drove
That April day. And when we came as far
As thirty-ninth or thirty-first perhaps—
Just sand hills then—I never can forget it—
What should I see? Fort Dearborn dazzling bright,
All newly white-washed right against that sky,
And the log cabins round it, far away
The rims of forests, and between a prairie
With wild flowers in the grasses red and blue—
Such wild flowers and such grasses, such a sky,
Such oceans of sweet air, in which were rising
Straight up from Indian wigwams spires of smoke,
About where now the Public Library stands
On Randolph Street. And as we neared the place
There was the flag, a streaming red and white
Upon a pole within the Fort’s inclosure.
I cried for happiness though just a child,
And cry now thinking....
I must set this candle
To see your pale brow better! What’s the hour?
The night is passing, and I have so much
To say to you before the dawn....
Well, then
The first hour that I call an hour of heaven:
Who was that man that built the first hotel?—
It stood across the river from the Fort—
No matter. But before that I had heard
Nothing beside a fiddle, living here
Amid the traders eleven years or so.
And this man for his hotel’s opening
Had brought an orchestra from somewhere. Think
Bass viols, violins, and horns and flutes.
I’m dressed up like a princess for those days.
I’m sixteen years of age and pass the door,
Enter the ball-room where such candle-light
As I had never seen shone on me, they
Bored sockets in suspended wheels of wood
And hung them from the ceiling, chandeliers!
And at that moment all the orchestra
Broke into music, yes, it was a waltz!
And in that moment—what a moment-full!
This hotel man presented you and said
You were my partner for the evening. Jean
I call this heaven, for its youth and love!
I’m sixteen and you’re twenty and I love you.
I slip my arm through yours for you to lead me,
You are so strong, so ruddy, kind and brave.
I want you for a husband, for a friend,
A guide, a solace, father to the child
That I can bear. Oh Jean how can I talk so
In this lone church at mid-night of such things,
With all these candles burning round your face.
I who have rounded ninety-years, and look
On what was sweet, long seventy years ago?
Feeling this city even at mid-night move
In restlessness, desire, around this church,
Where once I saw the prairie grass and flowers;
And saw the Indians in their colored trappings
Pour from a bottle of whisky on the fire
A tribute to the Spirit of the world,
And dance and sing for madness of that Spirit?
Well, Jean, my other hour. I’ve spoken before
Of our long life together glad and sad,
But mostly good. I’m happy for it all.
This other hour is marked, I call it heaven
Just as I told you, not because they stood
Around me as a mystery from the past,
And looked at me admiringly for my age,
My strength in age, my life that spanned the growth
Of my Chicago from a place of huts,
Just four or five, a fort, and all around it
A wilderness, to what it is this hour
Where most three million souls are living, nor
Because I saw this rude life, and beheld
The World’s Fair where such richnesses of time
Were spread before me—not because of these,
Nor for the ninety roses, nor the tribute
They paid me in them, nor their gentle words—
These did not make that hour a heaven, no—
Jean, it was this:
First I was just as happy
As I was on that night we danced together.
And that I could repeat that hour’s great bliss
At ninety years, though in a different way,
And for a different cause, that was the thing
That made me happy. For you see it proves,
Just give the soul a chance it’s happiness
Is endless, let the body house it well,
Or house it ill, but give it but a chance
To speak itself, not stifle it, or hush it
With hands of flesh against the quivering strings,
Made sick or weak by time, the soul will find
Delights as good as youth has to the end.
And even if the flesh be sick there’s Heine:
Few men had raptures keen as his, though lying
With death beside him through a stretch of years.
It must be something in the soul as well,
Which makes me think a third hour shall be mine
In spite of death, yes Jean it must be so!
I want that third hour, I shall pray for it
Unceasingly, I want it for my soul’s sake:
Which will have happiness in its very power
And dignity that time nor change can hurt.
For if I have it you shall have it too.
And in that third hour we shall give each other
Something that’s kindred to the souls we gave
That night we danced together—but much more!...
It’s dawn! Good bye till then, my Jean, good bye!
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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