Tita's Tears

A fantasy. A certain man of Ischia—it is thus
The story runs—one Lydus Claudius,
After a life of threescore years and ten,
Passed suddenly from out the world of men
Into the world of shadows.
In a vale
Where shoals of spirits against the moonlight pale
Surged ever upward, in a wan-lit place
Near heaven, he met a Presence face to face—
A figure like a carving on a spire,
Shrouded in wings and with a fillet of fire
About the brows —who stayed him there, and said:
"This the gods grant to thee, O newly dead!
Whatever thing on earth thou holdest dear
Shall, at thy bidding, be transported here,
Save wife or child, or any living thing."
Then straightway Claudius fell to wondering
What he should wish for. Having heaven at hand,
His wants were few, as you can understand,
Riches and titles, matters dear to us,
To him, of course, were now superfluous:
But Tita, small brown Tita, his young wife,
A two weeks' bride when he took leave of life,
What would become of her without his care?
Tita, so rich, so thoughtless, and so fair!
At present crushed with sorrow, to be sure—
But by and by? What earthly griefs endure?
They pass like joys. A year, three years at most,
And would she mourn her lord, so quickly lost?
With fine, prophetic ear, he heard afar
The tinkling of some horrible guitar
Under her balcony. "Such thing could be,"
Sighed Claudius; "I would she were with me,
Safe from all harm." But as that wish was vain,
He let it drift from out his troubled brain
(His highly trained austerity was such
That self-denial never cost him much),
And strove to think what object he might name
Most closely linked with the bereavéd dame.
Her wedding ring?—'t would be too small to wear;
Perhaps a ringlet of her raven hair?
If not, her portrait, done in cameo,
Or on a background of pale gold? But no,
Such trifles jarred with his severity.
At length he thought: "The thing most meet for me
Would be that antique flask wherein my bride
Let fall her heavy tears the night I died."
(It was a custom of that simple day
To have one's tears sealed up and laid away,
As everlasting tokens of regret—
They find the bottles in Greek ruins yet.)
For this he wished, then.
Swifter than a thought
The Presence vanished, and the flask was brought—
Slender, bell-mouthed, and painted all around
With jet-black tulips on a saffron ground;
A tiny jar, of porcelain if you will,
Which twenty tears would rather more than fill.
With careful fingers Claudius broke the seal
When, suddenly, a well-known merry peal
Of laughter leapt from out the vial's throat,
And died, as dies the wood-bird's distant note.
Claudius stared; then, struck with strangest fears,
Reversed the flask—
Alas, for Tita's tears!