Howshe held up the horses’ heads,Firm-lipped, with steady rein,Down that grim steep the coastguard treads,Till all was safe again!
With form erect and keen contourShe passed against the sea,And, dipping into the chine’s obscure,Was seen no more by me.
To others she appeared anewAt times of dusky light,But always, so they told, withdrewFrom close and curious sight.
Some said her silent wheels would rollRutless on softest loam,And even that her steeds’ footfallSank not upon the foam.
Where drives she now? It may be whereNo mortal horses are,But in a chariot of the airTowards some radiant star.
Ifhe should live a thousand yearsHe’d find it not againThat scorn of him by menCould less disturb a woman’s trustIn him as a steadfast star which mustRise scathless from the nether spheres:If he should live a thousand yearsHe’d find it not again.
She waited like a little child,Unchilled by damps of doubt,While from her eyes looked outA confidence sublime as Spring’sWhen stressed by Winter’s loiterings.Thus, howsoever the wicked wiled,She waited like a little childUnchilled by damps of doubt.
Through cruel years and cruellerThus she believed in himAnd his aurore, so dim;That, after fenweeds, flowers would blow;And above all things did she showHer faith in his good faith with her;Through cruel years and cruellerThus she believed in him!
Wewent a day’s excursion to the stream,Basked by the bank, and bent to the ripple-gleam,And I did not knowThat life would show,However it might flower, no finer glow.
I walked in the Sunday sunshine by the roadThat wound towards the wicket of your abode,And I did not thinkThat life would shrinkTo nothing ere it shed a rosier pink.
Unlooked for I arrived on a rainy night,And you hailed me at the door by the swaying light,And I full forgotThat life might notAgain be touching that ecstatic height.
And that calm eve when you walked up the stair,After a gaiety prolonged and rare,No thought soeverThat you might neverWalk down again, struck me as I stood there.
Rewritten from an old draft.
Whilehe was here in breath and bone,To speak to and to see,Would I had known—more clearly known—What that man did for me
When the wind scraped a minor lay,And the spent west from whiteTo gray turned tiredly, and from grayTo broadest bands of night!
But I saw not, and he saw notWhat shining life-tides flowedTo me-ward from his casual jotOf service on that road.
He would have said: “’Twas nothing new;We all do what we can;’Twas only what one man would doFor any other man.”
Now that I gauge his goodlinessHe’s slipped from human eyes;And when he passed there’s none can guess,Or point out where he lies.
Whatcurious things we said,What curious things we didUp there in the world we walked till deadOur kith and kin amid!
How we played at love,And its wildness, weakness, woe;Yes, played thereat far more than enoughAs it turned out, I trow!
Played at believing in godsAnd observing the ordinances,I for your sake in impossible codesRight ready to acquiesce.
Thinking our lives unique,Quite quainter than usual kinds,We held that we could not abide a weekThe tether of typic minds.
—Yet people who day by dayPass by and look at usFrom over the wall in a casual wayAre of this unconscious.
And feel, if anything,That none can be buried hereRemoved from commonest fashioning,Or lending note to a bier:
No twain who in heart-heaves provedThemselves at all adept,Who more than many laughed and loved,Who more than many wept,
Or were as sprites or elvesInto blind matter hurled,Or ever could have been to themselvesThe centre of the world.
Whydoes she turn in that shy soft wayWhenever she stirs the fire,And kiss to the chimney-corner wall,As if entranced to admireIts whitewashed bareness more than the sightOf a rose in richest green?I have known her long, but this raptured riteI never before have seen.
—Well, once when her son cast his shadow there,A friend took a pencil and drew himUpon that flame-lit wall. And the linesHad a lifelike semblance to him.And there long stayed his familiar look;But one day, ere she knew,The whitener came to cleanse the nook,And covered the face from view.
“Yes,” he said: “My brush goes on with a rush,And the draught is buried under;When you have to whiten old cots and brighten,What else can you do, I wonder?”But she knows he’s there. And when she yearnsFor him, deep in the labouring night,She sees him as close at hand, and turnsTo him under his sheet of white.
Isat. It all was past;Hope never would hail again;Fair days had ceased at a blast,The world was a darkened den.
The beauty and dream were gone,And the halo in which I had hiedSo gaily gallantly onHad suffered blot and died!
I went forth, heedless whither,In a cloud too black for name:—People frisked hither and thither;The world was just the same.
Thekiss had been given and taken,And gathered to many past:It never could reawaken;But you heard none say: “It’s the last!”
The clock showed the hour and the minute,But you did not turn and look:You read no finis in it,As at closing of a book.
But you read it all too rightlyWhen, at a time anon,A figure lay stretched out whitely,And you stood looking thereon.
Thedark was thick. A boy he seemed at that timeWho trotted by me with uncertain air;“I’ll tell my tale,” he murmured, “for I fancyA friend goes there? . . . ”
Then thus he told. “I reached—’twas for the first time—A dwelling. Life was clogged in me with care;I thought not I should meet an eyesome maiden,But found one there.
“I entered on the precincts for the second time—’Twas an adventure fit and fresh and fair—I slackened in my footsteps at the porchway,And found her there.
“I rose and travelled thither for the third time,The hope-hues growing gayer and yet gayerAs I hastened round the boscage of the outskirts,And found her there.
“I journeyed to the place again the fourth time(The best and rarest visit of the rare,As it seemed to me, engrossed about these goings),And found her there.
“When I bent me to my pilgrimage the fifth time(Soft-thinking as I journeyed I would dareA certain word at token of good auspice),I found her there.
“That landscape did I traverse for the sixth time,And dreamed on what we purposed to prepare;I reached a tryst before my journey’s end came,And found her there.
“I went again—long after—aye, the seventh time;The look of things was sinister and bareAs I caught no customed signal, heard no voice call,Nor found her there.
“And now I gad the globe—day, night, and any time,To light upon her hiding unaware,And, maybe, I shall nigh me to some nymph-niche,And find her there!”
“But how,” said I, “has your so little lifetimeGiven roomage for such loving, loss, despair?A boy so young!” Forthwith I turned my lanternUpon him there.
His head was white. His small form, fine aforetime,Was shrunken with old age and battering wear,An eighty-years long plodder saw I pacingBeside me there.
Thesun threw down a radiant spotOn the face in the winding-sheet—The face it had lit when a babe’s in its cot;And the sun knew not, and the face knew notThat soon they would no more meet.
Now that the grave has shut its door,And lets not in one ray,Do they wonder that they meet no more—That face and its beaming visitor—That met so many a day?
December1915.
I
“Youlook like a widower,” she saidThrough the folding-doors with a laugh from the bed,As he sat by the fire in the outer room,Reading late on a night of gloom,And a cab-hack’s wheeze, and the clap of its feetIn its breathless pace on the smooth wet street,Were all that came to them now and then . . .“You really do!” she quizzed again.
II
And the Spirits behind the curtains heard,And also laughed, amused at her word,And at her light-hearted view of him.“Let’s get him made so—just for a whim!”Said the Phantom Ironic. “’Twould serve her rightIf we coaxed the Will to do it some night.”“O pray not!” pleaded the younger one,The Sprite of the Pities. “She said it in fun!”
III
But so it befell, whatever the cause,That what she had called him he next year was;And on such a night, when she lay elsewhere,He, watched by those Phantoms, again sat there,And gazed, as if gazing on far faint shores,At the empty bed through the folding-doorsAs he remembered her words; and weptThat she had forgotten them where she slept.
Ihearthe bell-rope sawing,And the oil-less axle grind,As I sit alone here drawingWhat some Gothic brain designed;And I catch the toll that followsFrom the lagging bell,Ere it spreads to hills and hollowsWhere the parish people dwell.
I ask not whom it tolls for,Incurious who he be;So, some morrow, when those knolls forOne unguessed, sound out for me,A stranger, loitering underIn nave or choir,May think, too, “Whose, I wonder?”But care not to inquire.
Yes; since she knows not need,Nor walks in blindness,I may without unkindnessA true thing tell:
Which would be truth, indeed,Though worse in speaking,Were her poor footsteps seekingA pauper’s cell.
I judge, then, better farShe now have sorrow,Than gladness that to-morrowMight know its knell.—
It may be men there areCould make of unionA lifelong sweet communion—A passioned spell;
ButI, to save her nameAnd bring salvationBy altar-affirmationAnd bridal bell;
I, by whose rash unshameThese tears come to her:—My faith would more undo herThan my farewell!
Chained to me, year by yearMy moody madnessWould wither her old gladnessLike famine fell.
She’ll take the ill that’s near,And bear the blaming.’Twill pass. Full soon her shamingThey’ll cease to yell.
Our unborn, first her moan,Will grow her guerdon,Until from blot and burdenA joyance swell;
In that therein she’ll ownMy good part wholly,My evil staining solelyMy own vile vell.
Of the disgrace, may be“He shunned to share it,Being false,” they’ll say. I’ll bear it;Time will dispel
The calumny, and proveThis much about me,That she lives best without meWho would live well.
That, this once, not self-loveBut good intentionPleads that against conventionWe two rebel.
For, is one moonlight dance,One midnight passion,A rock whereon to fashionLife’s citadel?
Prove they their power to pranceLife’s miles togetherFrom upper slope to netherWho trip an ell?
—Years hence, or now apace,May tongues be callingNews of my further fallingSinward pell-mell:
Then this great good will graceOur lives’ division,She’s saved from more misprisionThough I plumb hell.
189–
(The following lines are partly made up,partly remembered from a Wessex folk-rhyme)
“Whatshall I bring you?Please will white doBest for your wearingThe long day through?”“—White is for weddings,Weddings, weddings,White is for weddings,And that won’t do.”
“What shall I bring you?Please will red doBest for your wearingThe long day through?”“ —Red is for soldiers,Soldiers, soldiers,Red is for soldiers,And that won’t do.”
“What shall I bring you?Please will blue doBest for your wearingThe long day through?”“—Blue is for sailors,Sailors, sailors,Blue is for sailors,And that won’t do.
“What shall I bring you?Please will green doBest for your wearingThe long day through?”“—Green is for mayings,Mayings, mayings,Green is for mayings,And that won’t do.”
“What shall I bring youThen? Will black doBest for your wearingThe long day through?”“—Black is for mourning,Mourning, mourning,Black is for mourning,And black will do.”
Iwayfaredat the nadir of the sunWhere populations meet, though seen of none;And millions seemed to sigh aroundAs though their haunts were nigh around,And unknown throngs to cry aroundOf things late done.
“O Seers, who well might high ensample show”(Came throbbing past in plainsong small and slow),“Leaders who lead us aimlessly,Teachers who train us shamelessly,Why let ye smoulder flamelesslyThe truths ye trow?
“Ye scribes, that urge the old medicament,Whose fusty vials have long dried impotent,Why prop ye meretricious things,Denounce the sane as vicious things,And call outworn factitious thingsExpedient?
“O Dynasties that sway and shake us so,Why rank your magnanimities so lowThat grace can smooth no waters yet,But breathing threats and slaughters yetYe grieve Earth’s sons and daughters yetAs long ago?
“Live there no heedful ones of searching sight,Whose accents might be oracles that smiteTo hinder those who frowardlyConduct us, and untowardly;To lead the nations vawardlyFrom gloom to light?”
September22, 1899.
Inevercared for Life: Life cared for me,And hence I owed it some fidelity.It now says, “Cease; at length thou hast learnt to grindSufficient toll for an unwilling mind,And I dismiss thee—not without regardThat thou didst ask no ill-advised reward,Nor sought in me much more than thou couldst find.”
Whereonce we danced, where once sang,Gentlemen,The floors are sunken, cobwebs hang,And cracks creep; worms have fed uponThe doors. Yea, sprightlier times were thenThan now, with harps and tabrets gone,Gentlemen!
Where once we rowed, where once we sailed,Gentlemen,And damsels took the tiller, veiledAgainst too strong a stare (God wotTheir fancy, then or anywhen!)Upon that shore we are clean forgot,Gentlemen!
We have lost somewhat, afar and near,Gentlemen,The thinning of our ranks each yearAffords a hint we are nigh undone,That we shall not be ever againThe marked of many, loved of one,Gentlemen.
In dance the polka hit our wish,Gentlemen,The paced quadrille, the spry schottische,“Sir Roger.”—And in opera spheresThe “Girl” (the famed “Bohemian”),And “Trovatore,” held the ears,Gentlemen.
This season’s paintings do not please,Gentlemen,Like Etty, Mulready, Maclise;Throbbing romance has waned and wanned;No wizard wields the witching penOf Bulwer, Scott, Dumas, and Sand,Gentlemen.
The bower we shrined to Tennyson,Gentlemen,Is roof-wrecked; damps there drip uponSagged seats, the creeper-nails are rust,The spider is sole denizen;Even she who read those rhymes is dust,Gentlemen!
We who met sunrise sanguine-souled,Gentlemen,Are wearing weary. We are old;These younger press; we feel our routIs imminent to Aïdes’ den,—That evening’s shades are stretching out,Gentlemen!
And yet, though ours be failing frames,Gentlemen,So were some others’ history names,Who trode their track light-limbed and fastAs these youth, and not alienFrom enterprise, to their long last,Gentlemen.
Sophocles, Plato, Socrates,Gentlemen,Pythagoras, Thucydides,Herodotus, and Homer,—yea,Clement, Augustin, Origen,Burnt brightlier towards their setting-day,Gentlemen.
And ye, red-lipped and smooth-browed; list,Gentlemen;Much is there waits you we have missed;Much lore we leave you worth the knowing,Much, much has lain outside our ken:Nay, rush not: time serves: we are going,Gentlemen.
Simplewas I and was young;Kept no gallant tryst, I;Even from good words held my tongue,Quoniam Tu fecisti!
Through my youth I stirred me not,High adventure missed I,Left the shining shrines unsought;Yet—me deduxisti!
At my start by HeliconLove-lore little wist I,Worldly less; but footed on;Why?Me suscepisti!
When I failed at fervid rhymes,“Shall,” I said, “persist I?”“Dies” (I would add at times)“Meos posuisti!”
So I have fared through many suns;Sadly little grist IBring my mill, or any one’s,Domine,Tu scisti!
And at dead of night I call:“Though to prophets list I,Which hath understood at all?Yea:Quem elegisti?”
187–
Acryfrom the green-grained sticks of the fireMade me gaze where it seemed to be:’Twas my own voice talking therefrom to meOn how I had walked when my sun was higher—My heart in its arrogancy.
“You held not to whatsoever was true,”Said my own voice talking to me:“Whatsoever was just you were slack to see;Kept not things lovely and pure in view,”Said my own voice talking to me.
“You slighted her that endureth all,”Said my own voice talking to me;“Vaunteth not,trusteth hopefully;That suffereth long and is kind withal,”Said my own voice talking to me.
“You taught not that which you set about,”Said my own voice talking to me;“That the greatest of things is Charity. . . ”—And the sticks burnt low, and the fire went out,And my voice ceased talking to me.
[46]Quadrilles danced early in the nineteenth century.
[128]It was said her real name was Eve Trevillian or Trevelyan; and that she was the handsome mother of two or three illegitimate children,circa1784–95.