May Between Darkness and Rays

... Bells... bells from the domes of the churches go forth in the fullness of the day... and pain wraps her in its black braids... so she moves slowly to a window... to see the virgin rays of the sun, peering out faintly for all their strength... tremors of melody come over her, and the tears roll in beads from her wide dark eyes... And when the sun blazes out from the hills... it sends its scorching rays... to dry her tears, and her tender heart hardens... and she sends up her sighs as glowering clouds to veil the shining sun from her...

And she weaves about herself darkness upon darkness, in flight from people... in fear of their evil... She is sorrow and joy... she delights and she suffers... swaying between doubt and certainty... Oh, the waves of her changeful soul! Upon their crest a thousand questions...

fading feebly, wave upon wave... And suddenly she stops... stops at the little window of life, not knowing what has stopped her... Shall she join the people?... Shall she walk the people's walk...? Let them pass... let her drink the bitterness of misery down to the dregs of the jars... Sitting in her niche she turns over memory: the memory of the beauty of the forests and of the rivers pouring down through the valleys... the throbbing... the memory of her hour [...] between one second and another the [...] meets; one second and another, hope dies [...]

... Why does she stop? Why does she not [...]

between the lids and the lashes [...] and she thinks... and reproaches... [...] the cannons and the shrieking of the people... [...] they moan in pain and weep [...] two things contend for the heart: sorrow [...]

Words by May:
"Woman must be a rose ringed round with thorns. And the thorns of the womanly rose are nothing but reticence, modesty, and purity."
"A Girl's Musings"

And in her eyes a thousand wonderments and a question... and in her ear a thousand perplexities and an answer... As for her nerves, they are strung taut, quivering like an echo... and the visions add to her misery... So she writhed, feeling with man... how he suffers and gives pain... how he hungers and is filled... how he doubts and believes... She kept pace with existence... and in every step there was hope and gladness... and in every step disappointment and grief... Weary she is... her depths cried out, and she took refuge at a turning, and there appeared before her the passing away of the past and the frozen stillness of the present... The phantoms burst out cackling... her steps faltered and she dragged sickness behind her — "I have preferred to die the swift, delivering death of suicide rather than die a death filled with the rattle of despair"... So she rose up to seek some far-off bend... and after she awoke she said:

"... and my heart wept within me at what I had witnessed of empty pretension and vexing prattle, of false acting and sickly sentiment."

more affecting than joy... and joy is quicker to vanish than sorrow!!"

... She walked with bowed head, and the yellow leaves of the trees scattered, and the winds of death blew, strewing the grains of dust... It is the month of graves... in autumn the leaves die... but the months of man are all autumn... The poor and the rich... the children and the aged... the learned and the ignorant: they have died... and they go on dying... How do they live and die..? From where...? And to where...? One answer only: "He lived, and loved, and suffered, and struggled... then he passed away."

***

... May walked on, and the current flung her into the very midst of the ocean of life...