THE NEW EVELYN HOPE

                                      I



                  BEAUTIFUL Evelyn Hope is dead!

                     Sit and watch by her side an hour

                  This is her bookshelf by her bed;

                     Nietzsche, Weininger, Schopenhauer.

                  Small wonder then that her soul should pass!

                     Much remains to be changed, I think:

                  She died of the swollen head, alas!

                     That maidens catch from Maeterlinck.



                                    II



                  Sixteen years old when she died!

                     A Vestal, tending Minerva's flame;

                  It was not her time to read; beside,

                     Her life had hardly a hope or aim,

                  Nor duties enough, nor little cares;

                     She was never quiet; her mind was astir,

                  To Henrik Ibsen she said her prayers,

                     And she worshipped Edward Carpenter.



                                     III



                  Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope?

                     We know that your soul was pure and true

                  From Alan Leo's Test Horoscope,

                     And Cheiro's words confirmed it too ---

                  And just because I was thrice as old,

                     And because you thought me cynical, I'd

                  No place in the Higher Life, I was told;

                     I was Agnostic, naught beside.    {250}



                                      IV



                  No, indeed!  For God above

                     Is great to grant, is mighty to make,

                  But how about Tolstoy's "Thoughts on Love"?

                     And Havelock Ellis for culture's sake?

                  Delayed we may be for more lives yet,

                     Through worlds I shall traverse not a few;

                  E'en H. P. Blavatsky I shall forget

                     Ere again I read Annie Besant with you.



                                       V



                  But the time will come, at last it will,

                     When, Evelyn Hope, what's meant I shall say

                  By the novels of Evelyn Underhill,

                     And Tchekhof's and Wedekind's dramas gray.

                  Why you loved Bergson I shall divine;

                     The Lords of Karma may then have said

                  Why you never dipped into books of mine,

                     But read G. K. Chesterton's works instead.



                                       VI



                  I have read, I shall say, so much since then;

                     Have ransacked Mudie's so many times;

                  Gained me the gains of various men,

                     From Machen's miasma to Lupin's crimes;

                  Yet one thing in my own Test Horoscope

                     Either I missed, or itself missed me:

                  I was not warned, Oh, Evelyn Hope,

                     'Gainst lending the dramas of Strindberg to thee. {251}



                                      VII



                  I loved you, Evelyn, all the while!

                     My heart was full as it could hold

                  Of Ella Wheeler Wilcox' style ---

                     Think what it cost me, I that was old.

                  So hush!  I give you this leaf to keep ---

                     See!  I shut it inside the sweet cold hand;

                  'Tis a tract on The Simple Life and Sleep;

                     You will wake, and remember, and understand.

                                           VICTOR B. NEUBURG.



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