The Certain Hour (Dizain des Poëtes) Read online

  THE CERTAIN HOUR

  (_Dizain des Poetes_)

  By

  JAMES BRANCH CABELL

  "Criticism, whatever may be its pretensions, never does more than to define the impression which is made upon it at a certain moment by a work wherein the writer himself noted the impression of the world which he received at a certain hour."

  NEW YORK

  ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY

  1916

  Copyright, 1916, by Robert M. McBride & Co. Copyright, 1915, by McBride, Nast & Co. Copyright, 1914, by the Sewanee Review Quarterly Copyright, 1913, by John Adams Thayer Corporation Copyright, 1912, by Argonaut Publishing Company Copyright, 1911, by Red Book Corporation Copyright, 1909, by Harper and Brothers

  TO

  ROBERT GAMBLE CABELL II

  In Dedication of The Certain Hour

  Sad hours and glad hours, and all hours, pass over; One thing unshaken stays: Life, that hath Death for spouse, hath Chance for lover; Whereby decays

  Each thing save one thing:--mid this strife diurnal Of hourly change begot, Love that is God-born, bides as God eternal, And changes not;--

  Nor means a tinseled dream pursuing lovers Find altered by-and-bye, When, with possession, time anon discovers Trapped dreams must die,--

  For he that visions God, of mankind gathers One manlike trait alone, And reverently imputes to Him a father's Love for his son.

  CONTENTS

  "_Ballad of the Double-Soul_" AUCTORIAL INDUCTION BELHS CAVALIERS BALTHAZAR'S DAUGHTER JUDITH'S CREED CONCERNING CORINNA OLIVIA'S POTTAGE A BROWN WOMAN PRO HONORIA THE IRRESISTIBLE OGLE A PRINCESS OF GRUB STREET THE LADY OF ALL OUR DREAMS "_Ballad of Plagiary_"

  _BALLAD OF THE DOUBLE-SOUL_

  "_Les Dieux, qui trop aiment ses faceties cruelles_"--PAUL VERVILLE.

  In the beginning the Gods made man, and fashioned the sky and the sea, And the earth's fair face for man's dwelling-place, and this was the Gods' decree:--

  "Lo, We have given to man five wits: he discerneth folly and sin; He is swift to deride all the world outside, and blind to the world within:

  "So that man may make sport and amuse Us, in battling for phrases or pelf, Now that each may know what forebodeth woe to his neighbor, and not to himself."

  Yet some have the Gods forgotten,--or is it that subtler mirth The Gods extort of a certain sort of folk that cumber the earth?

  _For this is the song of the double-soul, distortedly two in one,--_ _Of the wearied eyes that still behold the fruit ere the seed be sown,_ _And derive affright for the nearing night from the light_ _of the noontide sun._

  For one that with hope in the morning set forth, and knew never a fear, They have linked with another whom omens bother; and he whispers in one's ear.

  And one is fain to be climbing where only angels have trod, But is fettered and tied to another's side who fears that it might look odd.

  And one would worship a woman whom all perfections dower, But the other smiles at transparent wiles; and he quotes from Schopenhauer.

  Thus two by two we wrangle and blunder about the earth, And that body we share we may not spare; but the Gods have need of mirth.

  _So this is the song of the double-soul, distortedly two in one.--_ _Of the wearied eyes that still behold the fruit ere the seed be sown,_ _And derive affright for the nearing night from the light_ _of the noontide sun._