Tabithadressed for her wedding:—“Tabby, why look so sad?”“—O I feel a great gloominess spreading, spreading,Instead of supremely glad! . . .
“I called on Carry last night,And he came whilst I was there,Not knowing I’d called. So I kept out of sight,And I heard what he said to her:
“‘—Ah, I’d far liefer marryYou, Dear, to-morrow!’ he said,‘But that cannot be.’—O I’d give him to Carry,And willingly see them wed,
“But how can I do it whenHis baby will soon be born?After that I hope I may die. And thenShe can have him. I shall not mourn!”
Youwere here at his young beginning,You are not here at his agèd end;Off he coaxed you from Life’s mad spinning,Lest you should see his form extendShivering, sighing,Slowly dying,And a tear on him expend.
So it comes that we stand lonelyIn the star-lit avenue,Dropping broken lipwords only,For we hear no songs from you,Such as flew hereFor the new yearOnce, while six bells swung thereto.
“Awake! I’m off to cities far away,”I said; and rose, on peradventures bent.The chimes played “Life’s a Bumper!” on that dayTo the measure of my walking as I went:Their sweetness frisked and floated on the lea,As they played out “Life’s a Bumper!” there to me.
“Awake!” I said. “I go to take a bride!”—The sun arose behind me ruby-redAs I journeyed townwards from the countryside,The chiming bells saluting near ahead.Their sweetness swelled in tripping tings of gleeAs they played out “Life’s a Bumper!” there to me.
“Again arise.” I seek a turfy slope,And go forth slowly on an autumn noon,And there I lay her who has been my hope,And think, “O may I follow hither soon!”While on the wind the chimes come cheerily,Playing out “Life’s a Bumper!” there to me.
1913.
Iworkedno wile to meet you,My sight was set elsewhere,I sheered about to shun you,And lent your life no care.I was unprimed to greet youAt such a date and place,Constraint alone had won youVision of my strange face!
You did not seek to see meThen or at all, you said,—Meant passing when you neared me,But stumblingblocks forbade.You even had thought to flee me,By other mindings moved;No influent star endeared me,Unknown, unrecked, unproved!
What, then, was there to tell usThe flux of flustering hoursOf their own tide would bring usBy no device of oursTo where the daysprings well usHeart-hydromels that cheer,Till Time enearth and swing usRound with the turning sphere.
“Thereis not much that I can do,For I’ve no money that’s quite my own!”Spoke up the pitying child—A little boy with a violinAt the station before the train came in,—“But I can play my fiddle to you,And a nice one ’tis, and good in tone!”
The man in the handcuffs smiled;The constable looked, and he smiled, too,As the fiddle began to twang;And the man in the handcuffs suddenly sangUproariously:“This life so freeIs the thing for me!”And the constable smiled, and said no word,As if unconscious of what he heard;And so they went on till the train came in—The convict, and boy with the violin.
Sothere sat they,The estranged two,Thrust in one pewBy chance that day;Placed so, breath-nigh,Each comer unwittingWho was to be sittingIn touch close by.
Thus side by sideBlindly alighted,They seemed unitedAs groom and bride,Who’d not communedFor many years—Lives from twain spheresWith hearts distuned.
Her fringes brushedHis garment’s hemAs the harmonies rushedThrough each of them:Her lips could be heardIn the creed and psalms,And their fingers nearedAt the giving of alms.
And women and men,The matins ended,By looks commendedThem, joined again.Quickly said she,“Don’t undeceive them—Better thus leave them:”“Quite so,” said he.
Slight words!—the lastBetween them said,Those two, once wed,Who had not stood fast.Diverse their waysFrom the western door,To meet no moreIn their span of days.
’Tweresweet to have a comrade here,Who’d vow to love this garreteer,By city people’s snap and sneerTried oft and hard!
We’d rove a truant cock and henTo some snug solitary glen,And never be seen to haunt againThis teeming yard.
Within a cot of thatch and clayWe’d list the flitting pipers play,Our lives a twine of good and gayEnwreathed discreetly;
Our blithest deeds so neighbouring wiseThat doves should coo in soft surprise,“These must belong to ParadiseWho live so sweetly.”
Our clock should be the closing flowers,Our sprinkle-bath the passing showers,Our church the alleyed willow bowers,The truth our theme;
And infant shapes might soon abound:Their shining heads would dot us roundLike mushroom balls on grassy ground . . .—But all is dream!
O God, that creatures framed to feelA yearning nature’s strong appealShould writhe on this eternal wheelIn rayless grime;
And vainly note, with wan regret,Each star of early promise set;Till Death relieves, and they forgetTheir one Life’s time!
Westbourne Park Villas, 1866.
Idonot wish to win your vowTo take me soon or late as bride,And lift me from the nook where nowI tarry your farings to my side.I am blissful ever to abideIn this green labyrinth—let all be,If but, whatever may betide,You do not leave off loving me!
Your comet-comings I will waitWith patience time shall not wear through;The yellowing years will not abateMy largened love and truth to you,Nor drive me to complaint undueOf absence, much as I may pine,If never another ’twixt us twoShall come, and you stand wholly mine.
Yousay, O Sage, when weather-checked,“I have been favoured soWith cloudless skies, I must expectThis dash of rain or snow.”
“Since health has been my lot,” you say,“So many months of late,I must not chafe that one short dayOf sickness mars my state.”
You say, “Such bliss has been my shareFrom Love’s unbroken smile,It is but reason I should bearA cross therein awhile.”
And thus you do not count uponContinuance of joy;But, when at ease, expect anonA burden of annoy.
But, Sage—this Earth—why not a placeWhere no reprisals reign,Where never a spell of pleasantnessMakes reasonable a pain?
December21, 1908.
I
Hewas leaning by a face,He was looking into eyes,And he knew a trysting-place,And he heard seductive sighs;But the face,And the eyes,And the place,And the sighs,Were not, alas, the right ones—the ones meet for him—Though fine and sweet the features, and the feelings all abrim.
II
She was looking at a form,She was listening for a tread,She could feel a waft of charmWhen a certain name was said;But the form,And the tread,And the charmOf name said,Were the wrong ones for her, and ever would be so,While the heritor of the right it would have saved her soul to know!
Theretrudges one to a merry-makingWith a sturdy swing,On whom the rain comes down.
To fetch the saving medicamentIs another bent,On whom the rain comes down.
One slowly drives his herd to the stallEre ill befall,On whom the rain comes down.
This bears his missives of life and deathWith quickening breath,On whom the rain comes down.
One watches for signals of wreck or warFrom the hill afar,On whom the rain comes down.
No care if he gain a shelter or none,Unhired moves one,On whom the rain comes down.
And another knows nought of its chilling fallUpon him at all,On whom the rain comes down.
October1904.
’TisMay morning,All-adorning,No cloud warningOf rain to-day.Where shall I go to,Go to, go to?—Can I say No toLyonnesse-way?
Well—what reasonNow at this seasonIs there for treasonTo other shrines?Tristram is not there,Isolt forgot there,New eras blot thereSought-for signs!
Stratford-on-Avon—Poesy-paven—I’ll find a havenThere, somehow!—Nay—I’m but caught ofDreams long thought of,The Swan knows nought ofHis Avon now!
What shall it be, then,I go to see, then,Under the plea, then,Of votary?I’ll go to Lakeland,Lakeland, Lakeland,Certainly LakelandLet it be.
But—why to that place,That place, that place,Such a hard come-at placeNeed I fare?When its bard cheers no more,Loves no more, fears no more,Sees no more, hears no moreAnything there!
Ah, there is Scotland,Burns’s Scotland,And Waverley’s. To what landBetter can I hie?—Yet—if no whit nowFeel those of it now—Care not a bit nowFor it—why I?
I’ll seek a town street,Aye, a brick-brown street,Quite a tumbledown street,Drawing no eyes.For a Mary dwelt there,And a Percy felt thereHeart of him melt there,A Claire likewise.
Why incline tothatcity,Such a city,thatcity,Now a mud-bespat city!—Care the lovers whoNow live and walk there,Sit there and talk there,Buy there, or hawk there,Or wed, or woo?
Laughters in a volleyGreet so fond a follyAs nursing melancholyIn this and that spot,Which, with most endeavour,Those can visit never,But for ever and everWill now know not!
If, on lawns Elysian,With a broadened visionAnd a faint derisionConscious be they,How they might reprove meThat these fancies move me,Think they ill behoove me,Smile, and say:
“What!—our hoar old houses,Where the past dead-drowses,Nor a child nor spouse isOf our name at all?Such abodes to care for,Inquire about and bear for,And suffer wear and tear for—How weak of you and small!”
May1921.
Wit, weight, or wealth there was notIn anything that was said,In anything that was done;All was of scope to cause notA triumph, dazzle, or dreadTo even the subtlest one,My friend,To even the subtlest one.
But there was a new afflation—An aura zephyring round,That care infected not:It came as a salutation,And, in my sweet astound,I scarcely witted whatMight pend,I scarcely witted what.
The hills in samewise to meSpoke, as they grayly gazed,—First hills to speak so yet!The thin-edged breezes blew meWhat I, though cobwebbed, crazed,Was never to forget,My friend,Was never to forget!
Odonot praise my beauty more,In such word-wild degree,And say I am one all eyes adore;For these things harass me!
But do for ever softly say:“From now unto the endCome weal, come wanzing, come what may,Dear, I will be your friend.”
I hate my beauty in the glass:My beauty is not I:I wear it: none cares whether, alas,Its wearer live or die!
The inner I O care for, then,Yea, me and what I am,And shall be at the gray hour whenMy cheek begins to clam.
Note.—“The Regent Street beauty, Miss Verrey, the Swiss confectioner’s daughter, whose personal attractions have been so mischievously exaggerated, died of fever on Monday evening, brought on by the annoyance she had been for some time subject to.”—London paper, October 1828.
Fili hominis, ecce ego tollo a te desiderabile oculorum tuorom in plaga.—Ezech. xxiv. 16.
Fili hominis, ecce ego tollo a te desiderabile oculorum tuorom in plaga.—Ezech. xxiv. 16.
HowI remember cleaning that strange picture!I had been deep in duty for my sick neighbour—His besides my own—over several Sundays,Often, too, in the week; so with parish pressures,Baptisms, burials, doctorings, conjugal counsel—All the whatnots asked of a rural parson—Faith, I was well-nigh broken, should have been fullySaving for one small secret relaxation,One that in mounting manhood had grown my hobby.
This was to delve at whiles for easel-lumber,Stowed in the backmost slums of a soon-reached city,Merely on chance to uncloak some worthy canvas,Panel, or plaque, blacked blind by uncouth adventure,Yet under all concealing a precious art-feat.Such I had found not yet. My latest captureCame from the rooms of a trader in ancient house-gearWho had no scent of beauty or soul for brushcraft.Only a tittle cost it—murked with grime-films,Gatherings of slow years, thick-varnished over,Never a feature manifest of man’s painting.
So, one Saturday, time ticking hard on midnightEre an hour subserved, I set me upon it.Long with coiled-up sleeves I cleaned and yet cleaned,Till a first fresh spot, a high light, looked forth,Then another, like fair flesh, and another;Then a curve, a nostril, and next a finger,Tapering, shapely, significantly pointing slantwise.“Flemish?” I said. “Nay, Spanish . . . But, nay, Italian!”—Then meseemed it the guise of the ranker Venus,Named of some Astarte, of some Cotytto.Down I knelt before it and kissed the panel,Drunk with the lure of love’s inhibited dreamings.
Till the dawn I rubbed, when there gazed up at meA hag, that had slowly emerged from under my hands there,Pointing the slanted finger towards a bosomEaten away of a rot from the lusts of a lifetime . . .—I could have ended myself in heart-shook horror.Stunned I sat till roused by a clear-voiced bell-chime,Fresh and sweet as the dew-fleece under my luthern.It was the matin service calling to meFrom the adjacent steeple.
“Thisis a brightsome blaze you’ve lit good friend, to-night!”“—Aye, it has been the bleakest spring I have felt for years,And nought compares with cloven logs to keep alight:I buy them bargain-cheap of the executioners,As I dwell near; and they wanted the crosses out of sightBy Passover, not to affront the eyes of visitors.
“Yes, they’re from the crucifixions last week-endingAt Kranion. We can sometimes use the poles again,But they get split by the nails, and ’tis quicker work than mendingTo knock together new; though the uprights now and thenServe twice when they’re let stand. But if a feast’s impending,As lately, you’ve to tidy up for the corners’ ken.
“Though only three were impaled, you may know it didn’t pass offSo quietly as was wont? That Galilee carpenter’s sonWho boasted he was king, incensed the rabble to scoff:I heard the noise from my garden. This piece is the one he was on . . .Yes, it blazes up well if lit with a few dry chips and shroff;And it’s worthless for much else, what with cuts and stains thereon.”
Weare always saying“Good-bye, good-bye!”In work, in playing,In gloom, in gaying:At many a stageOf pilgrimageFrom youth to ageWe say, “Good-bye,Good-bye!”
We are undiscerningWhich go to sigh,Which will be yearningFor soon returning;And which no moreWill dark our door,Or tread our shore,But go to die,To die.
Some come from roamingWith joy again;Some, who come homingBy stealth at gloaming,Had better have stoppedTill death, and droppedBy strange hands propped,Than come so fain,So fain.
So, with this saying,“Good-bye, good-bye,”We speed their wayingWithout betrayingOur grief, our fearNo more to hearFrom them, close, clear,Again: “Good-bye,Good-bye!”
Wenever sang togetherRavenscroft’s terse old tuneOn Sundays or on weekdays,In sharp or summer weather,At night-time or at noon.
Why did we never sing it,Why never so inclineOn Sundays or on weekdays,Even when soft wafts would wing itFrom your far floor to mine?
Shall we that tune, then, neverStand voicing side by sideOn Sundays or on weekdays? . . .Or shall we, when for everIn Sheol we abide,
Sing it in desolation,As we might long have doneOn Sundays or on weekdaysWith love and exultationBefore our sands had run?
Fortysprings back, I recall,We met at this phase of the Maytime:We might have clung close through all,But we parted when died that daytime.
We parted with smallest regret;Perhaps should have cared but slightly,Just then, if we never had met:Strange, strange that we lived so lightly!
Had we mused a little spaceAt that critical date in the Maytime,One life had been ours, one place,Perhaps, till our long cold daytime.
—This is a bitter thingFor thee, O man: what ails it?The tide of chance may bringIts offer; but nought avails it!
Icansee the towersIn mind quite clearNot many hours’Faring from here;But how up and go,And briskly bearThither, and knowThat are not there?
Though the birds sing small,And apple and pearOn your trees by the wallAre ripe and rare,Though none excel them,I have no careTo taste them or smell themAnd you not there.
Though the College stonesAre smit with the sun,And the graduates and DonsWho held you as oneOf brightest browStill think as they did,Why haunt with them nowYour candle is hid?
Towards the riverA pealing swells:They cost me a quiver—Those prayerful bells!How go to God,Who can reproveWith so heavy a rodAs your swift remove!
The chorded keysWait all in a row,And the bellows wheezeAs long ago.And the psalter lingers,And organist’s chair;But where are your fingersThat once wagged there?
Shall I then seekThat desert placeThis or next week,And those tracks traceThat fill me with carkAnd cloy; nowhereBeing movement or markOf you now there!
’Twasjust at gnat and cobweb-time,When yellow begins to show in the leaf,That your old gamut changed its chimeFrom those true tones—of span so brief!—That met my beats of joy, of grief,As rhyme meets rhyme.
So sank I from my high sublime!We faced but chancewise after that,And never I knew or guessed my crime. . .Yes; ’twas the date—or nigh thereat—Of the yellowing leaf; at moth and gnatAnd cobweb-time.
Theseflowers are I, poor Fanny Hurd,Sir or Madam,A little girl here sepultured.Once I flit-fluttered like a birdAbove the grass, as now I waveIn daisy shapes above my grave,All day cheerily,All night eerily!
—I am one Bachelor Bowring, “Gent,”Sir or Madam;In shingled oak my bones were pent;Hence more than a hundred years I spentIn my feat of change from a coffin-thrallTo a dancer in green as leaves on a wall.All day cheerily,All night eerily!
—I, these berries of juice and gloss,Sir or Madam,Am clean forgotten as Thomas Voss;Thin-urned, I have burrowed away from the mossThat covers my sod, and have entered this yew,And turned to clusters ruddy of view,All day cheerily,All night eerily!
—The Lady Gertrude, proud, high-bred,Sir or Madam,Am I—this laurel that shades your head;Into its veins I have stilly sped,And made them of me; and my leaves now shine,As did my satins superfine,All day cheerily,All night eerily!
—I, who as innocent withwind climb,Sir or Madam.Am one Eve Greensleeves, in olden timeKissed by men from many a clime,Beneath sun, stars, in blaze, in breeze,As now by glowworms and by bees,All day cheerily,All night eerily![128]
—I’m old Squire Audeley Grey, who grew,Sir or Madam,Aweary of life, and in scorn withdrew;Till anon I clambered up anewAs ivy-green, when my ache was stayed,And in that attire I have longtime gayedAll day cheerily,All night eerily!
—And so they breathe, these masks, to eachSir or MadamWho lingers there, and their lively speechAffords an interpreter much to teach,As their murmurous accents seem to comeThence hitheraround in a radiant hum,All day cheerily,All night eerily!
Thetrees fret fitfully and twist,Shutters rattle and carpets heave,Slime is the dust of yestereve,And in the streaming mistFishes might seem to fin a passage if they list.
But to his feet,Drawing nigh and nigherA hidden seat,The fog is sweetAnd the wind a lyre.
A vacant sameness grays the sky,A moisture gathers on each knopOf the bramble, rounding to a drop,That greets the goer-byWith the cold listless lustre of a dead man’s eye.
But to her sight,Drawing nigh and nigherIts deep delight,The fog is brightAnd the wind a lyre.
Shedid not turn,But passed foot-faint with averted headIn her gown of green, by the bobbing fern,Though I leaned over the gate that ledFrom where we waited with table spread;But she did not turn:Why was she near there if love had fled?
She did not turn,Though the gate was whence I had often spedIn the mists of morning to meet her, and learnHer heart, when its moving moods I readAs a book—she mine, as she sometimes said;But she did not turn,And passed foot-faint with averted head.
Ientera daisy-and-buttercup land,And thence thread a jungle of grass:Hurdles and stiles scarce visible standAbove the lush stems as I pass.
Hedges peer over, and try to be seen,And seem to reveal a dim senseThat amid such ambitious and elbow-high greenThey make a mean show as a fence.
Elsewhere the mead is possessed of the neats,That range not greatly aboveThe rich rank thicket which brushes their teats,Andhergown, as she waits for her Love.
Near Chard.
Sir Nameless, once of Athelhall, declared:“These wretched children romping in my parkTrample the herbage till the soil is bared,And yap and yell from early morn till dark!Go keep them harnessed to their set routines:Thank God I’ve none to hasten my decay;For green remembrance there are better meansThan offspring, who but wish their sires away.”
Sir Nameless of that mansion said anon:“To be perpetuate for my mightinessSculpture must image me when I am gone.”—He forthwith summoned carvers there expressTo shape a figure stretching seven-odd feet(For he was tall) in alabaster stone,With shield, and crest, and casque, and word complete:When done a statelier work was never known.
Three hundred years hied; Church-restorers came,And, no one of his lineage being traced,They thought an effigy so large in frameBest fitted for the floor. There it was placed,Under the seats for schoolchildren. And theyKicked out his name, and hobnailed off his nose;And, as they yawn through sermon-time, they say,“Who was this old stone man beneath our toes?”
Thesesummer landscapes—clump, and copse, and croft—Woodland and meadowland—here hung aloft,Gay with limp grass and leafery new and soft,
Seem caught from the immediate season’s yieldI saw last noonday shining over the field,By rapid snatch, while still are uncongealed
The saps that in their live originals climb;Yester’s quick greenage here set forth in mimeJust as it stands, now, at our breathing-time.
But these young foils so fresh upon each tree,Soft verdures spread in sprouting novelty,Are not this summer’s, though they feign to be.
Last year their May to Michaelmas term was run,Last autumn browned and buried every one,And no more know they sight of any sun.
Dear, think not that they will forget you:—If craftsmanly art should be mineI will build up a temple, and set youTherein as its shrine.
They may say: “Why a woman such honour?”—Be told, “O, so sweet was her fame,That a man heaped this splendour upon her;None now knows his name.”
Yes; such it was;Just those two seasons unsought,Sweeping like summertide wind on our ways;Moving, as straws,Hearts quick as ours in those days;Going like wind, too, and rated as noughtSave as the prelude to playsSoon to come—larger, life-fraught:Yes; such it was.
“Nought” it was called,Even by ourselves—that which springsOut of the years for all flesh, first or last,Commonplace, scrawledDully on days that go past.Yet, all the while, it upbore us like wingsEven in hours overcast:Aye, though this best thing of things,“Nought” it was called!
What seems it now?Lost: such beginning was all;Nothing came after: romance straight forsookQuickly somehowLife when we sped from our nook,Primed for new scenes with designs smart and tall . . .—A preface without any book,A trumpet uplipped, but no call;That seems it now.
(From this centuries-old cross-road the highway leads east to London, north to Bristol and Bath, west to Exeter and the Land’s End, and south to the Channel coast.)
Whygo the east road now? . . .That way a youth went on a morrowAfter mirth, and he brought back sorrowPainted upon his browWhy go the east road now?
Why go the north road now?Torn, leaf-strewn, as if scoured by foemen,Once edging fiefs of my forefolk yeomen,Fallows fat to the plough:Why go the north road now?
Why go the west road now?Thence to us came she, bosom-burning,Welcome with joyousness returning . . .—She sleeps under the bough:Why go the west road now?
Why go the south road now?That way marched they some are forgetting,Stark to the moon left, past regrettingLoves who have falsed their vow . . .Why go the south road now?
Why go any road now?White stands the handpost for brisk on-bearers,“Halt!” is the word for wan-cheeked farersMusing on Whither, and How . . .Why go any road now?
“Yea: we want new feet now”Answer the stones. “Want chit-chat, laughter:Plenty of such to go hereafterBy our tracks, we trow!We are for new feet now.”
During the War.
“Whydo you sit, O pale thin man,At the end of the roomBy that harpsichord, built on the quaint old plan?—It is cold as a tomb,And there’s not a spark within the grate;And the jingling wiresAre as vain desiresThat have lagged too late.”
“Why do I? Alas, far times agoA woman lyred hereIn the evenfall; one who fain did soFrom year to year;And, in loneliness bending wistfully,Would wake each noteIn sick sad rote,None to listen or see!
“I would not join. I would not stay,But drew away,Though the winter fire beamed brightly . . . Aye!I do to-dayWhat I would not then; and the chill old keys,Like a skull’s brown teethLoose in their sheath,Freeze my touch; yes, freeze.”
Ilookin her face and say,“Sing as you used to singAbout Love’s blossoming”;But she hints not Yea or Nay.
“Sing, then, that Love’s a pain,If, Dear, you think it so,Whether it be or no;”But dumb her lips remain.
I go to a far-off room,A faint song ghosts my ear;Whichsong I cannot hear,But it seems to come from a tomb.
LastPost soundedAcross the meadTo where he loiteredWith absent heed.Five years beforeIn the evening thereHad flown that callTo him and his Dear.“You’ll never come back;Good-bye!” she had said;“Here I’ll be living,And my Love dead!”
Those closing minimsHad been as shafts dartingThrough him and her pressedIn that last parting;They thrilled him not now,In the selfsame placeWith the selfsame sunOn his war-seamed face.“Lurks a god’s laughterIn this?” he said,“That I am the livingAnd she the dead!”
Ifyou had knownWhen listening with her to the far-down moanOf the white-selvaged and empurpled sea,And rain came on that did not hinder talk,Or damp your flashing facile gaietyIn turning home, despite the slow wet walkBy crooked ways, and over stiles of stone;If you had known
You would lay roses,Fifty years thence, on her monument, that disclosesIts graying shape upon the luxuriant green;Fifty years thence to an hour, by chance led there,What might have moved you?—yea, had you foreseenThat on the tomb of the selfsame one, gone whereThe dawn of every day is as the close is,You would lay roses!
1920.
I’vebeen thinking it through, as I play here to-night, to play never again,By the light of that lowering sun peering in at the window-pane,And over the back-street roofs, throwing shades from the boys of the choreIn the gallery, right upon me, sitting up to these keys once more . . .
How I used to hear tongues ask, as I sat here when I was new:“Who is she playing the organ? She touches it mightily true!”“She travels from Havenpool Town,” the deacon would softly speak,“The stipend can hardly cover her fare hither twice in the week.”(It fell far short of doing, indeed; but I never told,For I have craved minstrelsy more than lovers, or beauty, or gold.)
’Twas so he answered at first, but the story grew different later:“It cannot go on much longer, from what we hear of her now!”At the meaning wheeze in the words the inquirer would shift his placeTill he could see round the curtain that screened me from people below.“A handsome girl,” he would murmur, upstaring, (and so I am).“But—too much sex in her build; fine eyes, but eyelids too heavy;A bosom too full for her age; in her lips too voluptuous a look.”(It may be. But who put it there? Assuredly it was not I.)
I went on playing and singing when this I had heard, and more,Though tears half-blinded me; yes, I remained going on and on,Just as I used me to chord and to sing at the selfsame time! . . .For it’s a contralto—my voice is; they’ll hear it again here to-nightIn the psalmody notes that I love more than world or than flesh or than life.
Well, the deacon, in fact, that day had learnt new tidings about me;They troubled his mind not a little, for he was a worthy man.(He trades as a chemist in High Street, and during the week he had soughtHis fellow-deacon, who throve as a book-binder over the way.)“These are strange rumours,” he said. “We must guard the good name of the chapel.If, sooth, she’s of evil report, what else can we do but dismiss her?”“—But get such another to play here we cannot for double the price!”It settled the point for the time, and I triumphed awhile in their strait,And my much-beloved grand semibreves went living on under my fingers.
At length in the congregation more head-shakes and murmurs were rife,And my dismissal was ruled, though I was not warned of it then.But a day came when they declared it. The news entered me as a sword;I was broken; so pallid of face that they thought I should faint, they said.I rallied. “O, rather than go, I will play you for nothing!” said I.’Twas in much desperation I spoke it, for bring me to forfeit I could notThose melodies chorded so richly for which I had laboured and lived.They paused. And for nothing I played at the chapel through Sundays anon,Upheld by that art which I loved more than blandishments lavished of men.
But it fell that murmurs again from the flock broke the pastor’s peace.Some member had seen me at Havenpool, comrading close a sea-captain.(Yes; I was thereto constrained, lacking means for the fare to and fro.)Yet God knows, if aught He knows ever, I loved the Old-Hundredth, Saint Stephen’s,Mount Zion, New Sabbath, Miles-Lane, Holy Rest, and Arabia, and Eaton,Above all embraces of body by wooers who sought me and won! . . .Next week ’twas declared I was seen coming home with a lover at dawn.The deacons insisted then, strong; and forgiveness I did not implore.I saw all was lost for me, quite, but I made a last bid in my throbs.High love had been beaten by lust; and the senses had conquered the soul,But the soul should die game, if I knew it! I turned to my masters and said:“I yield, Gentlemen, without parlance. But—let me just hymn youoncemore!It’s a little thing, Sirs, that I ask; and a passion is music with me!”They saw that consent would cost nothing, and show as good grace, as knew I,Though tremble I did, and feel sick, as I paused thereat, dumb for their words.They gloomily nodded assent, saying, “Yes, if you care to. Once more,And only once more, understand.” To that with a bend I agreed.—“You’ve a fixed and a far-reaching look,” spoke one who had eyed me awhile.“I’ve a fixed and a far-reaching plan, and my look only showed it,” said I.
This evening of Sunday is come—the last of my functioning here.“She plays as if she were possessed!” they exclaim, glancing upward and round.“Such harmonies I never dreamt the old instrument capable of!”Meantime the sun lowers and goes; shades deepen; the lights are turned up,And the people voice out the last singing: tune Tallis: the Evening Hymn.(I wonder Dissenters sing Ken: it shows them more liberal in spiritAt this little chapel down here than at certain new others I know.)I sing as I play. Murmurs some one: “No woman’s throat richer than hers!”“True: in these parts, at least,” ponder I. “But, my man, you will hear it no more.”And I sing with them onward: “The grave dread as little do I as my bed.”
I lift up my feet from the pedals; and then, while my eyes are still wetFrom the symphonies born of my fingers, I do that whereon I am set,And draw from my “full round bosom,” (their words; how canIhelp its heave?)A bottle blue-coloured and fluted—a vinaigrette, they may conceive—And before the choir measures my meaning, reads aught in my moves to and fro,I drink from the phial at a draught, and they think it a pick-me-up; so.Then I gather my books as to leave, bend over the keys as to pray.When they come to me motionless, stooping, quick death will have whisked me away.
“Sure, nobody meant her to poison herself in her haste, after all!”The deacons will say as they carry me down and the night shadows fall,“Though the charges were true,” they will add. “It’s a case red as scarlet withal!”I have never once minced it. Lived chaste I have not. Heaven knows it above! . . .But past all the heavings of passion—it’s music has been my life-love! . . .That tune did go well—this last playing! . . . I reckon they’ll bury me here . . .Not a soul from the seaport my birthplace—will come, or bestow me . . . a tear.
Anhour before the dawn,My friend,You lit your waiting bedside-lamp,Your breakfast-fire anon,And outing into the dark and dampYou saddled, and set on.
Thuswise, before the day,My friend,You sought her on her surfy shore,To fetch her thence awayUnto your own new-builded doorFor a staunch lifelong stay.
You said: “It seems to be,My friend,That I were bringing to my placeThe pure brine breeze, the sea,The mews—all her old sky and space,In bringing her with me!”
—But time is prompt to expugn,My friend,Such magic-minted conjurings:The brought breeze fainted soon,And then the sense of seamews’ wings,And the shore’s sibilant tune.
So, it had been more due,My friend,Perhaps, had you not pulled this flowerFrom the craggy nook it knew,And set it in an alien bower;But left it where it grew!
CouldI but will,Will to my bent,I’d have afar ones near me still,And music of rare ravishment,In strains that move the toes and heels!And when the sweethearts sat for restThe unbetrothed should foot with zestEcstatic reels.
Could I be head,Head-god, “Come, now,Dear girl,” I’d say, “whose flame is fled,Who liest with linen-banded brow,Stirred but by shakes from Earth’s deep core—”I’d say to her: “Unshroud and meetThat Love who kissed and called thee Sweet!—Yea, come once more!”
Even half-god powerIn spinning doomsHad I, this frozen scene should flower,And sand-swept plains and Arctic gloomsShould green them gay with waving leaves,Mid which old friends and I would walkWith weightless feet and magic talkUncounted eves.
Ihavecome to the church and chancel,Where all’s the same!—Brighter and larger in my dreamsTruly it shaped than now, meseems,Is its substantial frame.But, anyhow, I made my vow,Whether for praise or blame,Here in this church and chancelWhere all’s the same.
Where touched the check-floored chancelMy knees and his?The step looks shyly at the sun,And says, “’Twas here the thing was done,For bale or else for bliss!”Of all those there I least was wareWould it be that or thisWhen touched the check-floored chancelMy knees and his!
Here in this fateful chancelWhere all’s the same,I thought the culminant crest of lifeWas reached when I went forth the wifeI was not when I came.Each commonplace one of my race,Some say, has such an aim—To go from a fateful chancelAs not the same.
Here, through this hoary chancelWhere all’s the same,A thrill, a gaiety even, rangedThat morning when it seemed I changedMy nature with my name.Though now not fair, though gray my hair,He loved me, past proclaim,Here in this hoary chancel,Where all’s the same.
Oursongs went up and out the chimney,And roused the home-gone husbandmen;Our allemands, our heys, poussettings,Our hands-across and back again,Sent rhythmic throbbings through the casementsOn to the white highway,Where nighted farers paused and muttered,“Keep it up well, do they!”
The contrabasso’s measured boomingSped at each bar to the parish bounds,To shepherds at their midnight lambings,To stealthy poachers on their rounds;And everybody caught full dulyThe notes of our delight,As Time unrobed the Youth of PromiseHailed by our sanguine sight.
Westand in the dusk of a pine-tree limb,As if to give ear to the muffled peal,Brought or withheld at the breeze’s whim;But our truest heed is to words that stealFrom the mantled ghost that looms in the gray,And seems, so far as our sense can see,To feature bereaved Humanity,As it sighs to the imminent year its say:—
“O stay without, O stay without,Calm comely Youth, untasked, untired;Though stars irradiate thee aboutThy entrance here is undesired.Open the gate not, mystic one;Must we avow what we would close confine?With thee,good friend,we would have converse none,Albeit the fault may not be thine.”
December31.During the War.
Itravelledto where in her lifetimeShe’d knelt at morning prayer,To call her up as if there;But she paid no heed to my suing,As though her old haunt could win notA thought from her spirit, or care.
I went where my friend had lectionedThe prophets in high declaim,That my soul’s ear the sameFull tones should catch as aforetime;But silenced by gear of the PresentWas the voice that once there came!
Where the ocean had sprayed our banquetI stood, to recall it as then:The same eluding again!No vision. Shows contingentAffrighted it further from meEven than from my home-den.
When I found them no responders,But fugitives prone to fleeFrom where they had used to be,It vouched I had been led hitherAs by night wisps in bogland,And bruised the heart of me!
Therailway bore him throughAn earthen cutting out from a city:There was no scope for view,Though the frail light shed by a slim young moonFell like a friendly tune.
Fell like a liquid ditty,And the blank lack of any charmOf landscape did no harm.The bald steep cutting, rigid, rough,And moon-lit, was enoughFor poetry of place: its weathered faceFormed a convenient sheet whereonThe visions of his mind were drawn.
Iwaitedat home all the while they were boating together—My wife and my near neighbour’s wife:Till there entered a woman I loved more than life,And we sat and sat on, and beheld the uprising dark weather,With a sense that some mischief was rife.
Tidings came that the boat had capsized, and that one of the ladiesWas drowned—which of them was unknown:And I marvelled—my friend’s wife?—or was it my ownWho had gone in such wise to the land where the sun as the shade is?—We learnt it washishad so gone.
Then I cried in unrest: “He is free! But no good is releasingTo him as it would be to me!”“—But it is,” said the woman I loved, quietly.“How?” I asked her. “—Because he has long loved me too without ceasing,And it’s just the same thing, don’t you see.”
Iknewa lady when the daysGrew long, and evenings goldened;But I was not emboldenedBy her prompt eyes and winning ways.
And when old Winter nipt the haws,“Another’s wife I’ll be,And then you’ll care for me,”She said, “and think how sweet I was!”
And soon she shone as another’s wife:As such I often met her,And sighed, “How I regret her!My folly cuts me like a knife!”
And then, to-day, her husband came,And moaned, “Why did you flout her?Well could I do without her!For both our burdens you are to blame!”
Thereis a house in a city streetSome past ones made their own;Its floors were criss-crossed by their feet,And their babblings beatFrom ceiling to white hearth-stone.
And who are peopling its parlours now?Who talk across its floor?Mere freshlings are they, blank of brow,Who read not howIts prime had passed before
Their raw equipments, scenes, and saysAfflicted its memoried face,That had seen every larger phaseOf human waysBefore these filled the place.
To them that house’s tale is theirs,No former voices callAloud therein. Its aspect bearsTheir joys and caresAlone, from wall to wall.