Thebars are thick with drops that showAs they gather themselves from the fogLike silver buttons ranged in a row,And as evenly spaced as if measured, althoughThey fall at the feeblest jog.
They load the leafless hedge hard by,And the blades of last year’s grass,While the fallow ploughland turned up nighIn raw rolls, clammy and clogging lie—Too clogging for feet to pass.
How dry it was on a far-back dayWhen straws hung the hedge and around,When amid the sheaves in amorous playIn curtained bonnets and light arrayBloomed a bevy now underground!
Bockhampton Lane.
Isawhim pass as the new day dawned,Murmuring some musical phrase;Horses were drinking and floundering in the pond,And the tired stars thinned their gaze;Yet these were not the spectacles at all that he conned,But an inner one, giving out rays.
Such was the thing in his eye, walking there,The very and visible thing,A close light, displacing the gray of the morning air,And the tokens that the dark was taking wing;And was it not the radiance of a purpose rareThat might ripe to its accomplishing?
What became of that light? I wonder still its fate!Was it quenched ere its full apogee?Did it struggle frail and frailer to a beam emaciate?Did it thrive till matured in verity?Or did it travel on, to be a new young dreamer’s freight,And thence on infinitely?
1915.
Somethingdo I seeAbove the fog that sheets the mead,A figure like to life indeed,Moving along with spectre-speed,Seen by none but me.
O the vision keen!—Tripping along to me for loveAs in the flesh it used to move,Only its hat and plume aboveThe evening fog-fleece seen.
In the day-fall wan,When nighted birds break off their song,Mere ghostly head it skims along,Just as it did when warm and strong,Body seeming gone.
Such it is I seeAbove the fog that sheets the mead—Yea, that which once could breathe and plead!—Skimming along with spectre-speedTo a last tryst with me.
Theswallows flew in the curves of an eightAbove the river-gleamIn the wet June’s last beam:Like little crossbows animateThe swallows flew in the curves of an eightAbove the river-gleam.
Planing up shavings of crystal sprayA moor-hen darted outFrom the bank thereabout,And through the stream-shine ripped his way;Planing up shavings of crystal sprayA moor-hen darted out.
Closed were the kingcups; and the meadDripped in monotonous green,Though the day’s morning sheenHad shown it golden and honeybee’d;Closed were the kingcups; and the meadDripped in monotonous green.
And never I turned my head, alack,While these things met my gazeThrough the pane’s drop-drenched glaze,To see the more behind my back . . .O never I turned, but let, alack,These less things hold my gaze!
Lifelongto beSeemed the fair colour of the time;That there was standing shadowed nearA spirit who sang to the gentle chimeOf the self-struck notes, I did not hear,I did not see.
Thus did it singTo the mindless lyre that played indoorsAs she came to listen for me without:“O value what the nonce outpours—This best of life—that shines aboutYour welcoming!”
I had slowed alongAfter the torrid hours were done,Though still the posts and walls and roadFlung back their sense of the hot-faced sun,And had walked by Stourside Mill, where broadStream-lilies throng.
And I descriedThe dusky house that stood apart,And her, white-muslined, waiting thereIn the porch with high-expectant heart,While still the thin mechanic airWent on inside.
At whiles would flitSwart bats, whose wings, be-webbed and tanned,Whirred like the wheels of ancient clocks:She laughed a hailing as she scannedMe in the gloom, the tuneful boxIntoning it.
Lifelong to beI thought it. That there watched hard byA spirit who sang to the indoor tune,“O make the most of what is nigh!”I did not hear in my dull soul-swoon—I did not see.
Reticulationscreep upon the slack stream’s faceWhen the wind skims irritably past,The current clucks smartly into each hollow placeThat years of flood have scrabbled in the pier’s sodden base;The floating-lily leaves rot fast.
On a roof stand the swallows ranged in wistful waiting rows,Till they arrow off and drop like stonesAmong the eyot-withies at whose foot the river flows;And beneath the roof is she who in the dark world showsAs a lattice-gleam when midnight moans.
“Theking and the queen will stand to the child;’Twill be handed down in song;And it’s no more than their deserving,With my lord so faithful at Court so long,And so staunch and strong.
“O never before was known such a thing!’Twill be a grand time for all;And the beef will be a whole-roast bullock,And the servants will have a feast in the hall,And the ladies a ball.
“While from Jordan’s stream by a traveller,In a flagon of silver wrought,And by caravan, stage-coach, wain, and waggonA precious trickle has been brought,Clear as when caught.”
The morning came. To the park of the peerThe royal couple bore;And the font was filled with the Jordan water,And the household awaited their guests beforeThe carpeted door.
But when they went to the silk-lined cotThe child was found to have died.“What’s now to be done? We can disappoint notThe king and queen!” the family criedWith eyes spread wide.
“Even now they approach the chestnut-drive!The service must be read.”“Well, since we can’t christen the child alive,By God we shall have to christen him dead!”The marquis said.
Thus, breath-forsaken, a corpse was takenTo the private chapel—yea—And the king knew not, nor the queen, God wot,That they answered for one returned to clayAt the font that day.
Iknownot how it may be with othersWho sit amid relics of householdryThat date from the days of their mothers’ mothers,But well I know how it is with meContinually.
I see the hands of the generationsThat owned each shiny familiar thingIn play on its knobs and indentations,And with its ancient fashioningStill dallying:
Hands behind hands, growing paler and paler,As in a mirror a candle-flameShows images of itself, each frailerAs it recedes, though the eye may frameIts shape the same.
On the clock’s dull dial a foggy finger,Moving to set the minutes rightWith tentative touches that lift and lingerIn the wont of a moth on a summer night,Creeps to my sight.
On this old viol, too, fingers are dancing—As whilom—just over the strings by the nut,The tip of a bow receding, advancingIn airy quivers, as if it would cutThe plaintive gut.
And I see a face by that box for tinder,Glowing forth in fits from the dark,And fading again, as the linten cinderKindles to red at the flinty spark,Or goes out stark.
Well, well. It is best to be up and doing,The world has no use for one to-dayWho eyes things thus—no aim pursuing!He should not continue in this stay,But sink away.
Isawit—pink and white—revealedUpon the white and green;The white and green was a daisied field,The pink and white Ethleen.
And as I looked it seemed in kindThat difference they had none;The two fair bodiments combinedAs varied miens of one.
A sense that, in some mouldering year,As one they both would lie,Made me move quickly on to herTo pass the pale thought by.
She laughed and said: “Out there, to me,You looked so weather-browned,And brown in clothes, you seemed to beMade of the dusty ground!”
“Iamplaying my oldest tunes,” declared she,“All the old tunes I know,—Those I learnt ever so long ago.”—Why she should think just then she’d play themSilence cloaks like snow.
When I returned from the town at nightfallNotes continued to pourAs when I had left two hours before:“It’s the very last time,” she said in closing;“From now I play no more.”
A few morns onward found her fading,And, as her life outflew,I thought of her playing her tunes right through;And I felt she had known of what was coming,And wondered how she knew.
1912.
I
“Youon the tower of my factory—What do you see up there?Do you see Enjoyment with wide wingsAdvancing to reach me here?”—“Yea; I see Enjoyment with wide wingsAdvancing to reach you here.”
II
“Good. Soon I’ll come and ask youTo tell me again thereon . . .Well, what is he doing now? Hoi, there!”—“He still is flying on.”“Ah, waiting till I have full-finished.Good. Tell me again anon . . .
III
“Hoi, Watchman! I’m here. When comes he?Between my sweats I am chill.”—“Oh, you there, working still?Why, surely he reached you a time back,And took you miles from your mill?He duly came in his winging,And now he has passed out of view.How can it be that you missed him?He brushed you by as he flew.”
“And I saw the figure and visage of Madness seeking for a home.”
“And I saw the figure and visage of Madness seeking for a home.”
Thereare three folk driving in a quaint old chaise,And the cliff-side track looks green and fair;I view them talking in quiet gleeAs they drop down towards the puffins’ lairBy the roughest of ways;But another with the three rides on, I see,Whom I like not to be there!
No: it’s not anybody you think of. NextA dwelling appears by a slow sweet streamWhere two sit happy and half in the dark:They read, helped out by a frail-wick’d gleam,Some rhythmic text;But one sits with them whom they don’t mark,One I’m wishing could not be there.
No: not whom you knew and name. And nowI discern gay diners in a mansion-place,And the guests dropping wit—pert, prim, or choice,And the hostess’s tender and laughing face,And the host’s bland brow;I cannot help hearing a hollow voice,And I’d fain not hear it there.
No: it’s not from the stranger you met once. Ah,Yet a goodlier scene than that succeeds;People on a lawn—quite a crowd of them. Yes,And they chatter and ramble as fancy leads;And they say, “Hurrah!”To a blithe speech made; save one, mirthless,Who ought not to be there.
Nay: it’s not the pale Form your imagings raise,That waits on us all at a destined time,It is not the Fourth Figure the Furnace showed,O that it were such a shape sublime;In these latter days!It is that under which best lives corrode;Would, would it could not be there!
Thefire advances along the logOf the tree we felled,Which bloomed and bore striped apples by the peckTill its last hour of bearing knelled.
The fork that first my hand would reachAnd then my footIn climbings upward inch by inch, lies nowSawn, sapless, darkening with soot.
Where the bark chars is where, one year,It was pruned, and bled—Then overgrew the wound. But now, at last,Its growings all have stagnated.
My fellow-climber rises dimFrom her chilly grave—Just as she was, her foot near mine on the bending limb,Laughing, her young brown hand awave.
December1915.
Ah—it’s the skeleton of a lady’s sunshade,Here at my feet in the hard rock’s chink,Merely a naked sheaf of wires!—Twenty years have gone with their livers and diersSince it was silked in its white or pink.
Noonshine riddles the ribs of the sunshade,No more a screen from the weakest ray;Nothing to tell us the hue of its dyes,Nothing but rusty bones as it liesIn its coffin of stone, unseen till to-day.
Where is the woman who carried that sun-shadeUp and down this seaside place?—Little thumb standing against its stem,Thoughts perhaps bent on a love-stratagem,Softening yet more the already soft face!
Is the fair woman who carried that sunshadeA skeleton just as her property is,Laid in the chink that none may scan?And does she regret—if regret dust can—The vain things thought when she flourished this?
Swanage Cliffs.
Whenthe walls were redThat now are seenTo be overspreadWith a mouldy green,A fresh fair headWould often leanFrom the sunny casementAnd scan the scene,While blithely spoke the wind to the little sycamore tree.
But storms have ragedThose walls about,And the head has agedThat once looked out;And zest is suagedAnd trust is doubt,And slow effacementIs rife throughout,While fiercely girds the wind at the long-limbed sycamore tree!
Withina churchyard, on a recent grave,I saw a little cageThat jailed a goldfinch. All was silence saveIts hops from stage to stage.
There was inquiry in its wistful eye,And once it tried to sing;Of him or her who placed it there, and why,No one knew anything.
“Thatsame first fiddler who leads the orchéstra to-nightHere fiddled four decades of years ago;He bears the same babe-like smile of self-centred delight,Same trinket on watch-chain, same ring on the hand with the bow.
“But his face, if regarded, is woefully wanner, and drier,And his once dark beard has grown straggling and gray;Yet a blissful existence he seems to have led with his lyre,In a trance of his own, where no wearing or tearing had sway.
“Mid these wax figures, who nothing can do, it may seemThat to do but a little thing counts a great deal;To be watched by kings, councillors, queens, may be flattering to him—With their glass eyes longing they too could wake notes that appeal.”
* * *
Ah, but he played staunchly—that fiddler—whoever he was,With the innocent heart and the soul-touching string:May he find the Fair Haven! For did he not smile with good cause?Yes; gamuts that graced forty years’-flight were not a small thing!
Theycrush together—a rustling heap of flesh—Of more than flesh, a heap of souls; and thenThey part, enmesh,And crush together again,Like the pink petals of a too sanguine roseFrightened shut just when it blows.
Though all alike in their tinsel livery,And indistinguishable at a sweeping glance,They muster, maybe,As lives wide in irrelevance;A world of her own has each one underneath,Detached as a sword from its sheath.
Daughters, wives, mistresses; honest or false, sold, bought;Hearts of all sizes; gay, fond, gushing, or penned,Various in thoughtOf lover, rival, friend;Links in a one-pulsed chain, all showing one smile,Yet severed so many a mile!
Thesparrow dips in his wheel-rut bath,The sun grows passionate-eyed,And boils the dew to smoke by the paddock-path;As strenuously we stride,—Five of us; dark He, fair He, dark She, fair She, I,All beating by.
The air is shaken, the high-road hot,Shadowless swoons the day,The greens are sobered and cattle at rest; but notWe on our urgent way,—Four of us; fair She, dark She, fair He, I, are there,But one—elsewhere.
Autumn moulds the hard fruit mellow,And forward still we pressThrough moors, briar-meshed plantations, clay-pits yellow,As in the spring hours—yes,Three of us: fair He, fair She, I, as heretofore,But—fallen one more.
The leaf drops: earthworms draw it inAt night-time noiselessly,The fingers of birch and beech are skeleton-thin,And yet on the beat are we,—Two of us; fair She, I. But no more left to goThe track we know.
Icicles tag the church-aisle leads,The flag-rope gibbers hoarse,The home-bound foot-folk wrap their snow-flaked heads,Yet I still stalk the course,—One of us . . . Dark and fair He, dark and fair She, gone:The rest—anon.
Itravelon by barren farms,And gulls glint out like silver flecksAgainst a cloud that speaks of wrecks,And bellies down with black alarms.I say: “Thus from my lady’s armsI go; those arms I love the best!”The wind replies from dip and rise,“Nay; toward her arms thou journeyest.”
A distant verge morosely grayAppears, while clots of flying foamBreak from its muddy monochrome,And a light blinks up far away.I sigh: “My eyes now as all dayBehold her ebon loops of hair!”Like bursting bonds the wind responds,“Nay, wait for tresses flashing fair!”
From tides the lofty coastlands screenCome smitings like the slam of doors,Or hammerings on hollow floors,As the swell cleaves through caves unseen.Say I: “Though broad this wild terrene,Her city home is matched of none!”From the hoarse skies the wind replies:“Thou shouldst have said her sea-bord one.”
The all-prevailing clouds excludeThe one quick timorous transient star;The waves outside where breakers areHuzza like a mad multitude.“Where the sun ups it, mist-imbued,”I cry, “there reigns the star for me!”The wind outshrieks from points and peaks:“Here, westward, where it downs, mean ye!”
Yonder the headland, vulturine,Snores like old Skrymer in his sleep,And every chasm and every steepBlackens as wakes each pharos-shine.“I roam, but one is safely mine,”I say. “God grant she stay my own!”Low laughs the wind as if it grinned:“Thy Love is one thou’st not yet known.”
Rewritten from an old copy.
Theysing their dearest songs—He, she, all of them—yea,Treble and tenor and bass,And one to play;With the candles mooning each face . . .Ah, no; the years O!How the sick leaves reel down in throngs!
They clear the creeping moss—Elders and juniors—aye,Making the pathways neatAnd the garden gay;And they build a shady seat . . .Ah, no; the years, the years;See, the white storm-birds wing across!
They are blithely breakfasting all—Men and maidens—yea,Under the summer tree,With a glimpse of the bay,While pet fowl come to the knee . . .Ah, no; the years O!And the rotten rose is ript from the wall.
They change to a high new house,He, she, all of them—aye,Clocks and carpets and chairsOn the lawn all day,And brightest things that are theirs . . .Ah, no; the years, the years;Down their carved names the rain-drop ploughs.
Thisafter-sunset is a sight for seeing,Cliff-heads of craggy cloud surrounding it.—And dwell you in that glory-show?You may; for there are strange strange things in being,Stranger than I know.
Yet if that chasm of splendour claim your presenceWhich glows between the ash cloud and the dun,How changed must be your mortal mould!Changed to a firmament-riding earthless essenceFrom what you were of old:
All too unlike the fond and fragile creatureThen known to me . . . Well, shall I say it plain?I would not have you thus and there,But still would grieve on, missing you, still featureYou as the one you were.
“Wheneveryou dress me dolls, mammy,Why do you dress them so,And make them gallant soldiers,When never a one I know;And not as gentle ladiesWith frills and frocks and curls,As people dress the dolliesOf other little girls?”
Ah—why did she not answer:—“Because your mammy’s heedIs always gallant soldiers,As well may be, indeed.One of them was your daddy,His name I must not tell;He’s not the dad who lives here,But one I love too well.”
Nomore summer for Molly and me;There is snow on the tree,And the blackbirds plump large as the rooks are, almost,And the water is hardWhere they used to dip bills at the dawn ere her figure was lostTo these coasts, now my prison close-barred.
No more planting by Molly and meWhere the beds used to beOf sweet-william; no training the clambering roseBy the framework of firNow bowering the pathway, whereon it swings gaily and blowsAs if calling commendment from her.
No more jauntings by Molly and meTo the town by the sea,Or along over Whitesheet to Wynyard’s green Gap,Catching Montacute CrestTo the right against Sedgmoor, and Corton-Hill’s far-distant cap,And Pilsdon and Lewsdon to west.
No more singing by Molly to meIn the evenings when sheWas in mood and in voice, and the candles were lit,And past the porch-quoinThe rays would spring out on the laurels; and dumbledores hitOn the pane, as if wishing to join.
Where, then, is Molly, who’s no more with me?—As I stand on this lea,Thinking thus, there’s a many-flamed star in the air,That tosses a signThat her glance is regarding its face from her home, so that thereHer eyes may have meetings with mine.
Thetrees are afraid to put forth buds,And there is timidity in the grass;The plots lie gray where gouged by spuds,And whether next week will passFree of sly sour winds is the fret of each bushOf barberry waiting to bloom.
Yet the snowdrop’s face betrays no gloom,And the primrose pants in its heedless push,Though the myrtle asks if it’s worth the fightThis year with frost and rimeTo venture one more timeOn delicate leaves and buttons of whiteFrom the selfsame bough as at last year’s prime,And never to ruminate on or rememberWhat happened to it in mid-December.
April1917.
I
Itis dark in the sky,And silence is whereOur laughs rang high;And recall do IThat One is out there.
II
The dawn is not nigh,And the trees are bare,And the waterways sighThat a year has drawn by,And Two are out there.
III
The wind drops to dieLike the phantom of CareToo frail for a cry,And heart brings to eyeThat Three are out there.
IV
This Life runs dryThat once ran rareAnd rosy in dye,And fleet the days fly,And Four are out there.
V
Tired, tired am IOf this earthly air,And my wraith asks: Why,Since these calm lie,Are not Five out there?
December1915.
Iwentand stood outside myself,Spelled the dark skyAnd ship-lights nigh,And grumbling winds that passed thereby.
Then next inside myself I looked,And there, aboveAll, shone my Love,That nothing matched the image of.
Beyond myself again I ranged;And saw the freeLife by the sea,And folk indifferent to me.
O ’twas a charm to draw withinThereafter, whereBut she was; careFor one thing only, her hid there!
But so it chanced, without myselfI had to look,And then I tookMore heed of what I had long forsook:
The boats, the sands, the esplanade,The laughing crowd;Light-hearted, loudGreetings from some not ill-endowed;
The evening sunlit cliffs, the talk,Hailings and halts,The keen sea-salts,The band, the Morgenblätter Waltz.
Still, when at night I drew insideForward she came,Sad, but the sameAs when I first had known her name.
Then rose a time when, as by force,Outwardly wooedBy contacts crude,Her image in abeyance stood . . .
At last I said: This outside lifeShall not endure;I’ll seek the pureThought-world, and bask in her allure.
Myself again I crept within,Scanned with keen careThe temple whereShe’d shone, but could not find her there.
I sought and sought. But O her soulHas not since thrownUpon my ownOne beam! Yea, she is gone, is gone.
From an old note.
Shesped through the doorAnd, following in haste,And stirred to the core,I entered hot-faced;But I could not find her,No sign was behind her.“Where is she?” I said:—“Who?” they asked that sat there;“Not a soul’s come in sight.”—“A maid with red hair.”—“Ah.” They paled. “She is dead.People see her at night,But you are the firstOn whom she has burstIn the keen common light.”
It was ages ago,When I was quite strong:I have waited since,—O,I have waited so long!—Yea, I set me to ownThe house, where now loneI dwell in void roomsBooming hollow as tombs!But I never come near her,Though nightly I hear her.And my cheek has grown thinAnd my hair has grown grayWith this waiting therein;But she still keeps away!
“Sir, will you let me give you a ride?Nox Venit, and the heath is wide.”—My phaeton-lantern shone on oneYoung, fair, even fresh,But burdened with flesh:A leathern satchel at his side,His breathings short, his coat undone.
’Twas as if his corpulent figure sloppedWith the shake of his walking when he stopped,And, though the night’s pinch grew acute,He wore but a thinWind-thridded suit,Yet well-shaped shoes for walking in,Artistic beaver, cane gold-topped.
“Alas, my friend,” he said with a smile,“I am daily bound to foot ten mile—Wet, dry, or dark—before I rest.Six months to liveMy doctors giveMe as my prospect here, at best,Unless I vamp my sturdiest!”
His voice was that of a man refined,A man, one well could feel, of mind,Quite winning in its musical ease;But in mould malignedBy some disease;And I asked again. But he shook his head;Then, as if more were due, he said:—
“A student was I—of Schopenhauer,Kant, Hegel,—and the fountained bowerOf the Muses, too, knew my regard:But ah—I fear meThe grave gapes near me! . . .Would I could this gross sheath discard,And rise an ethereal shape, unmarred!”
How I remember him!—his short breath,His aspect, marked for early death,As he dropped into the night for ever;One caught in his primeOf high endeavour;From all philosophies soon to severThrough an unconscienced trick of Time!
“Who’sin the next room?—who?I seemed to seeSomebody in the dawning passing through,Unknown to me.”“Nay: you saw nought. He passed invisibly.”
“Who’s in the next room?—who?I seem to hearSomebody muttering firm in a language newThat chills the ear.”“No: you catch not his tongue who has entered there.”
“Who’s in the next room?—who?I seem to feelHis breath like a clammy draught, as if it drewFrom the Polar Wheel.”“No: none who breathes at all does the door conceal.”
“Who’s in the next room?—who?A figure wanWith a message to one in there of something due?Shall I know him anon?”“Yea he; and he brought such; and you’ll know him anon.”
At a bygone Western country fairI saw a giant led by a dwarfWith a red string like a long thin scarf;How much he was the stronger thereThe giant seemed unaware.
And then I saw that the giant was blind,And the dwarf a shrewd-eyed little thing;The giant, mild, timid, obeyed the stringAs if he had no independent mind,Or will of any kind.
Wherever the dwarf decided to goAt his heels the other trotted meekly,(Perhaps—I know not—reproaching weakly)Like one Fate bade that it must be so,Whether he wished or no.
Various sights in various climesI have seen, and more I may see yet,But that sight never shall I forget,And have thought it the sorriest of pantomimes,If once, a hundred times!
“Whydo you weep there, O sweet lady,Why do you weep before that brass?—(I’m a mere student sketching the mediaeval)Is some late death lined there, alas?—Your father’s? . . . Well, all pay the debt that paid he!”
“Young man, O must I tell!—My husband’s! And underHis name I set mine, and mydeath!—Its date left vacant till my heirs should fill it,Stating me faithful till my last breath.”—“Madam, that you are a widow wakes my wonder!”
“O wait! For last month I—remarried!And now I fear ’twas a deed amiss.We’ve just come home. And I am sick and saddenedAt what the new one will say to this;And will he think—think that I should have tarried?
“I may add, surely,—with no wish to harm him—That he’s a temper—yes, I fear!And when he comes to church next Sunday morning,And sees that written . . . O dear, O dear!”—“Madam, I swear your beauty will disarm him!”
WhenI looked up at my love-birdsThat Sunday afternoon,There was in their tiny tuneA dying fetch like broken words,When I looked up at my love-birdsThat Sunday afternoon.
When he, too, scanned the love-birdsOn entering there that day,’Twas as if he had nought to sayOf his long journey citywards,When he, too, scanned the love-birds,On entering there that day.
And billed and billed the love-birds,As ’twere in fond despairAt the stress of silence whereHad once been tones in tenor thirds,And billed and billed the love-birdsAs ’twere in fond despair.
O, his speech that chilled the love-birds,And smote like death on me,As I learnt what was to be,And knew my life was broke in sherds!O, his speech that chilled the love-birds,And smote like death on me!
Iwentby footpath and by stileBeyond where bustle ends,Strayed here a mile and there a mileAnd called upon some friends.
On certain ones I had not seenFor years past did I call,And then on others who had beenThe oldest friends of all.
It was the time of midsummerWhen they had used to roam;But now, though tempting was the air,I found them all at home.
I spoke to one and other of themBy mound and stone and treeOf things we had done ere days were dim,But they spoke not to me.
Warm yellowy-greenIn the blue serene,How they skip and swayOn this autumn day!They cannot knowWhat has happened below,—That their boughs down thereAre already quite bare,That their own will beWhen a week has passed,—For they jig as in gleeTo this very last.
But no; there liesAt times in their tuneA note that criesWhat at first I fearI did not hear:“O we rememberAt each wind’s hollo—Though life holds yet—We go hence soon,For ’tis November;—But that you followYou may forget!”
“Itnever looks like summer hereOn Beeny by the sea.”But though she saw its look as drear,Summer it seemed to me.
It never looks like summer nowWhatever weather’s there;But ah, it cannot anyhow,On Beeny or elsewhere!
Boscastle,March8, 1913.
“Thehouse is bleak and coldBuilt so new for me!All the winds upon the woldSearch it through for me;No screening trees abound,And the curious eyes aroundKeep on view for me.”
“My Love, I am planting treesAs a screen for youBoth from winds, and eyes that teaseAnd peer in for you.Only wait till they have grown,No such bower will be knownAs I mean for you.”
“Then I will bear it, Love,And will wait,” she said.—So, with years, there grew a grove.“Skill how great!” she said.“As you wished, Dear?”—“Yes, I see!But—I’m dying; and for me’Tis too late,” she said.
Therewas merry-makingWhen the first dart fellAs a heralding,—Till grinned the fully bared thing,And froze like a spell—Like a spell.
Innocent was she,Innocent was I,Too simple we!Before us we did not see,Nearing, aught wry—Aught wry!
I can tell it not now,It was long ago;And such things cow;But that is why and howTwo lives were so—Were so.
Yes, the years matured,And the blows were threeThat time ensuredOn her, which she dumbly endured;And one on me—One on me.
Therewas a glorious timeAt an epoch of my prime;Mornings beryl-bespread,And evenings golden-red;Nothing gray:And in my heart I said,“However this chanced to be,It is too full for me,Too rare, too rapturous, rash,Its spell must close with a crashSome day!”
The radiance went onAnon and yet anon,And sweetness fell aroundLike manna on the ground.“I’ve no claim,”Said I, “to be thus crowned:I am not worthy this:—Must it not go amiss?—Well . . . let the end foreseenCome duly!—I am serene.”—And it came.
Nouse hoping, or feeling vext,Tugged by a force above or underLike some fantocine, much I wonderWhat I shall find me doing next!
Shall I be rushing where bright eyes be?Shall I be suffering sorrows seven?Shall I be watching the stars of heaven,Thinking one of them looks like thee?
Part is mine of the general Will,Cannot my share in the sum of sourcesBend a digit the poise of forces,And a fair desire fulfil?
Nov.1893.
“Thevery last time I ever was here,” he said,“I saw much less of the quick than I saw of the dead.”—He was a man I had met with somewhere before,But how or when I now could recall no more.
“The hazy mazy moonlight at one in the morningSpread out as a sea across the frozen snow,Glazed to live sparkles like the great breastplate adorningThe priest of the Temple, with Urim and Thummim aglow.
“The yew-tree arms, glued hard to the stiff stark air,Hung still in the village sky as theatre-scenesWhen I came by the churchyard wall, and halted thereAt a shut-in sound of fiddles and tambourines.
“And as I stood hearkening, dulcimers, haut-boys, and shawms,And violoncellos, and a three-stringed double-bass,Joined in, and were intermixed with a singing of psalms;And I looked over at the dead men’s dwelling-place.
“Through the shine of the slippery snow I now could see,As it were through a crystal roof, a great companyOf the dead minueting in stately step undergroundTo the tune of the instruments I had before heard sound.
“It was ‘Eden New,’ and dancing they sang in a chore,‘We are out of it all!—yea, in Little-Ease cramped no more!’And their shrouded figures pacing with joy I could seeAs you see the stage from the gallery. And they had no heed of me.
“And I lifted my head quite dazed from the churchyard wallAnd I doubted not that it warned I should soon have my call.But—” . . . Then in the ashes he emptied the dregs of his cup,And onward he went, and the darkness swallowed him up.
Ishouldnot have shown in the flesh,I ought to have gone as a ghost;It was awkward, unseemly almost,Standing solidly there as when fresh,Pink, tiny, crisp-curled,My pinions yet furledFrom the winds of the world.
After waiting so many a yearTo wait longer, and go as a spriteFrom the tomb at the mid of some nightWas the right, radiant way to appear;Not as one wanzing weakFrom life’s roar and reek,His rest still to seek:
Yea, beglimpsed through the quaint quarried glassOf green moonlight, by me greener made,When they’d cry, perhaps, “There sits his shadeIn his olden haunt—just as he wasWhen in Walkingame heConned the grand Rule-of-ThreeWith the bent of a bee.”
But to show in the afternoon sun,With an aspect of hollow-eyed care,When none wished to see me come there,Was a garish thing, better undone.Yes; wrong was the way;But yet, let me say,I may right it—some day.
Ithought, my Heart, that you had healedOf those sore smartings of the past,And that the summers had oversealedAll mark of them at last.But closely scanning in the nightI saw them standing crimson-brightJust as she made them:Nothing could fade them;Yea, I can swearThat there they were—They still were there!
Then the Vision of her who cut them came,And looking over my shoulder said,“I am sure you deal me all the blameFor those sharp smarts and red;But meet me, dearest, to-morrow night,In the churchyard at the moon’s half-height,And so strange a kissShall be mine, I wis,That you’ll cease to knowIf the wounds you showBe there or no!”
Atlast I entered a long dark gallery,Catacomb-lined; and ranged at the sideWere the bodies of men from far and wideWho, motion past, were nevertheless not dead.
“The sense of waiting here strikes strong;Everyone’s waiting, waiting, it seems to me;What are you waiting for so long?—What is to happen?” I said.
“O we are waiting for one called God,” said they,“(Though by some the Will, or Force, or Laws;And, vaguely, by some, the Ultimate Cause;)Waiting for him to see us before we are clay.Yes; waiting, waiting, for Godto know it” . . .
“To know what?” questioned I.“To know how things have been going on earth and below it:It is clear he must know some day.”I thereon asked them why.
“Since he made us humble pioneersOf himself in consciousness of Life’s tears,It needs no mighty prophecyTo tell that what he could mindlessly showHis creatures, he himself will know.
“By some still close-cowled mysteryWe have reached feeling faster than he,But he will overtake us anon,If the world goes on.”
In the third-class seat sat the journeying boy,And the roof-lamp’s oily flamePlayed down on his listless form and face,Bewrapt past knowing to what he was going,Or whence he came.
In the band of his hat the journeying boyHad a ticket stuck; and a stringAround his neck bore the key of his box,That twinkled gleams of the lamp’s sad beamsLike a living thing.
What past can be yours, O journeying boyTowards a world unknown,Who calmly, as if incurious quiteOn all at stake, can undertakeThis plunge alone?
Knows your soul a sphere, O journeying boy,Our rude realms far above,Whence with spacious vision you mark and meteThis region of sin that you find you in,But are not of?
Atthe shiver of morning, a little before the false dawn,The moon was at the window-square,Deedily brooding in deformed decay—The curve hewn off her cheek as by an adze;At the shiver of morning a little before the false dawnSo the moon looked in there.
Her speechless eyeing reached across the chamber,Where lay two souls opprest,One a white lady sighing, “Why am I sad!”To him who sighed back, “Sad, my Love, am I!”And speechlessly the old moon conned the chamber,And these two reft of rest.
While their large-pupilled vision swept the scene there,Nought seeming imminent,Something fell sheer, and crashed, and from the floorLay glittering at the pair with a shattered gaze,While their large-pupilled vision swept the scene there,And the many-eyed thing outleant.
With a start they saw that it was an old-time pier-glassWhich had stood on the mantel near,Its silvering blemished,—yes, as if worn awayBy the eyes of the countless dead who had smirked at itEre these two ever knew that old-time pier-glassAnd its vague and vacant leer.
As he looked, his bride like a moth skimmed forth, and kneelingQuick, with quivering sighs,Gathered the pieces under the moon’s sly ray,Unwitting as an automaton what she did;Till he entreated, hasting to where she was kneeling,“Let it stay where it lies!”
“Long years of sorrow this means!” breathed the ladyAs they retired. “Alas!”And she lifted one pale hand across her eyes.“Don’t trouble, Love; it’s nothing,” the bridegroom said.“Long years of sorrow for us!” murmured the lady,“Or ever this evil pass!”
And the Spirits Ironic laughed behind the wainscot,And the Spirits of Pity sighed.“It’s good,” said the Spirits Ironic, “to tickle their mindsWith a portent of their wedlock’s after-grinds.”And the Spirits of Pity sighed behind the wainscot,“It’s a portent we cannot abide!
“More, what shall happen to prove the truth of the portent?”—“Oh; in brief, they will fade till old,And their loves grow numbed ere death, by the cark of care.”—“But nought see we that asks for portents there?—’Tis the lot of all.”—“Well, no less true is a portentThat it fits all mortal mould.”
Whenup aloftI fly and fly,I see in poolsThe shining sky,And a happy birdAm I, am I!
When I descendTowards their brinkI stand, and look,And stoop, and drink,And bathe my wings,And chink and prink.
When winter frostMakes earth as steelI search and searchBut find no meal,And most unhappyThen I feel.
But when it lasts,And snows still fall,I get to feelNo grief at all,For I turn to a cold stiffFeathery ball!
Iroseand went to Rou’tor TownWith gaiety and good heart,And ardour for the start,That morning ere the moon was downThat lit me off to Rou’tor TownWith gaiety and good heart.
When sojourn soon at Rou’tor TownWrote sorrows on my face,I strove that none should traceThe pale and gray, once pink and brown,When sojourn soon at Rou’tor TownWrote sorrows on my face.
The evil wrought at Rou’tor TownOn him I’d loved so trueI cannot tell anew:But nought can quench, but nought can drownThe evil wrought at Rou’tor TownOn him I’d loved so true!