I
WhenI weekly knewAn ancient pew,And murmured thereThe forms of prayerAnd thanks and praiseIn the ancient ways,And heard read outDuring August droughtThat chapter from KingsHarvest-time brings;—How the prophet, brokenBy griefs unspoken,Went heavily awayTo fast and to pray,And, while waiting to die,The Lord passed by,And a whirlwind and fireDrew nigher and nigher,And a small voice anonBade him up and be gone,—I did not apprehendAs I sat to the endAnd watched for her smileAcross the sunned aisle,That this tale of a seerWhich came once a yearMight, when sands were heaping,Be like a sweat creeping,Or in any degreeBear on her or on me!
II
When later, by chanceOf circumstance,It befel me to readOn a hot afternoonAt the lectern thereThe selfsame wordsAs the lesson decreed,To the gathered fewFrom the hamlets near—Folk of flocks and herdsSitting half aswoon,Who listened theretoAs women and menNot overmuchConcerned at such—So, like them then,I did not seeWhat drought might beWith me, with her,As the KalendarMoved on, and TimeDevoured our prime.
III
But now, at last,When our glory has passed,And there is no smileFrom her in the aisle,But where it once shoneA marble, men say,With her name thereonIs discerned to-day;And spiritlessIn the wildernessI shrink from sightAnd desire the night,(Though, as in old wise,I might still arise,Go forth, and standAnd prophesy in the land),I feel the shakeOf wind and earthquake,And consuming fireNigher and nigher,And the voice catch clear,“What doest thou here?”
The Spectator1916. During the War.
Iidlycut a parsley stalk,And blew therein towards the moon;I had not thought what ghosts would walkWith shivering footsteps to my tune.
I went, and knelt, and scooped my handAs if to drink, into the brook,And a faint figure seemed to standAbove me, with the bygone look.
I lipped rough rhymes of chance, not choice,I thought not what my words might be;There came into my ear a voiceThat turned a tenderer verse for me.
Lalage’scoming:Where is she now, O?Turning to bow, O,And smile, is she,Just at parting,Parting, parting,As she is startingTo come to me?
Where is she now, O,Now, and now, O,Shadowing a bough, O,Of hedge or treeAs she is rushing,Rushing, rushing,Gossamers brushingTo come to me?
Lalage’s coming;Where is she now, O;Climbing the brow, O,Of hills I see?Yes, she is nearing,Nearing, nearing,Weather unfearingTo come to me.
Near is she now, O,Now, and now, O;Milk the rich cow, O,Forward the tea;Shake the down bed for her,Linen sheets spread for her,Drape round the head for herComing to me.
Lalage’s coming,She’s nearer now, O,End anyhow, O,To-day’s husbandry!Would a gilt chair were mine,Slippers of vair were mine,Brushes for hair were mineOf ivory!
What will she think, O,She who’s so comely,Viewing how homelyA sort are we!Nothing resplendent,No prompt attendant,Not one dependentPertaining to me!
Lalage’s coming;Where is she now, O?Fain I’d avow, O,Full honestlyNought here’s enough for her,All is too rough for her,Even my love for herPoor in degree.
She’s nearer now, O,Still nearer now, O,She ’tis, I vow, O,Passing the lea.Rush down to meet her there,Call out and greet her there,Never a sweeter thereCrossed to me!
Lalage’s come; aye,Come is she now, O! . . .Does Heaven allow, O,A meeting to be?Yes, she is here now,Here now, here now,Nothing to fear now,Here’s Lalage!
WhenI walked roseless tracks and wide,Ere dawned your date for meeting me,O why did you not cry HallooAcross the stretch between, and say:
“We move, while years as yet divide,On closing lines which—though it beYou know me not nor I know you—Will intersect and join some day!”
Then well I had borneEach scraping thorn;But the winters froze,And grew no rose;No bridge bestrodeThe gap at all;No shape you showed,And I heard no call!
Sozestfully canst thou sing?And all this indignity,With God’s consent, on thee!Blinded ere yet a-wingBy the red-hot needle thou,I stand and wonder howSo zestfully thou canst sing!
Resenting not such wrong,Thy grievous pain forgot,Eternal dark thy lot,Groping thy whole life long;After that stab of fire;Enjailed in pitiless wire;Resenting not such wrong!
Who hath charity? This bird.Who suffereth long and is kind,Is not provoked, though blindAnd alive ensepulchred?Who hopeth, endureth all things?Who thinketh no evil, but sings?Who is divine? This bird.
Thewind blew words along the skies,And these it blew to meThrough the wide dusk: “Lift up your eyes,Behold this troubled tree,Complaining as it sways and plies;It is a limb of thee.
“Yea, too, the creatures sheltering round—Dumb figures, wild and tame,Yea, too, thy fellows who abound—Either of speech the sameOr far and strange—black, dwarfed, and browned,They are stuff of thy own frame.”
I moved on in a surging aweOf inarticulatenessAt the pathetic Me I sawIn all his huge distress,Making self-slaughter of the lawTo kill, break, or suppress.
Howwas this I did not seeSuch a look as here was shownEre its womanhood had blownPast its first felicity?—That I did not know you young,Faded Face,Know you young!
Why did Time so ill besteadThat I heard no voice of yoursHail from out the curved contoursOf those lips when rosy red;Weeted not the songs they sung,Faded Face,Songs they sung!
By these blanchings, blooms of old,And the relics of your voice—Leavings rare of rich and choiceFrom your early tone and mould—Let me mourn,—aye, sorrow-wrung,Faded Face,Sorrow-wrung!
I
Stretchingeyes westOver the sea,Wind foul or fair,Always stood sheProspect-impressed;Solely out thereDid her gaze rest,Never elsewhereSeemed charm to be.
II
Always eyes eastPonders she now—As in devotion—Hills of blank browWhere no waves plough.Never the leastRoom for emotionDrawn from the oceanDoes she allow.
“Iamhere to time, you see;The glade is well-screened—eh?—against alarm;Fit place to vindicate by my armThe honour of my spotless wife,Who scorns your libel upon her lifeIn boasting intimacy!
“‘All hush-offerings you’ll spurn,My husband. Two must come; one only go,’She said. ‘That he’ll be you I know;To faith like ours Heaven will be just,And I shall abide in fullest trustYour speedy glad return.’”
“Good. Here am also I;And we’ll proceed without more waste of wordsTo warm your cockpit. Of the swordsTake you your choice. I shall therebyFeel that on me no blame can lie,Whatever Fate accords.”
So stripped they there, and fought,And the swords clicked and scraped, and the onsets sped;Till the husband fell; and his shirt was redWith streams from his heart’s hot cistern. NoughtCould save him now; and the other, wroughtMaybe to pity, said:
“Why did you urge on this?Your wife assured you; and ’t had better beenThat you had let things pass, sereneIn confidence of long-tried bliss,Holding there could be nought amissIn what my words might mean.”
Then, seeing nor ruth nor rageCould move his foeman more—now Death’s deaf thrall—He wiped his steel, and, with a callLike turtledove to dove, swift brokeInto the copse, where under an oakHis horse cropt, held by a page.
“All’s over, Sweet,” he criedTo the wife, thus guised; for the young page was she.“’Tis as we hoped and said ’t would be.He never guessed . . . We mount and rideTo where our love can reign uneyed.He’s clay, and we are free.”
Howcould I be aware,The opposite window eyeingAs I lay listless there,That through its blinds was dyingOne I had rated rareBefore I had set me sighingFor another more fair?
Had the house-front been glass,My vision unobscuring,Could aught have come to passMore happiness-insuringTo her, loved as a lassWhen spouseless, all-alluring?I reckon not, alas!
So, the square window stood,Steadily night-long shiningIn my close neighbourhood,Who looked forth undiviningThat soon would go for goodOne there in pain reclining,Unpardoned, unadieu’d.
Silently screened from viewHer tragedy was endingThat need not have come dueHad she been less unbending.How near, near were we twoAt that last vital rending,—And neither of us knew!
Doeshe want you down thereIn the Nether Glooms whereThe hours may be a dragging load upon him,As he hears the axle grindRound and roundOf the great world, in the blindStill profoundOf the night-time? He might liven at the soundOf your string, revealing you had not forgone him.
In the gallery west the nave,But a few yards from his grave,Did you, tucked beneath his chin, to his bowingGuide the homely harmonyOf the quireWho for long years strenuously—Son and sire—Caught the strains that at his fingering low or higherFrom your four thin threads and eff-holes came outflowing.
And, too, what merry tunesHe would bow at nights or noonsThat chanced to find him bent to lute a measure,When he made you speak his heartAs in dream,Without book or music-chart,On some themeElusive as a jack-o’-lanthorn’s gleam,And the psalm of duty shelved for trill of pleasure.
Well, you can not, alas,The barrier overpassThat screens him in those Mournful Meads hereunder,Where no fiddling can be heardIn the gladesOf silentness, no birdThrills the shades;Where no viol is touched for songs or serenades,No bowing wakes a congregation’s wonder.
He must do without you now,Stir you no more anyhowTo yearning concords taught you in your glory;While, your strings a tangled wreck,Once smart drawn,Ten worm-wounds in your neck,Purflings wanWith dust-hoar, here alone I sadly conYour present dumbness, shape your olden story.
1916.
Thisstatue of Liberty, busy man,Here erect in the city square,I have watched while your scrubbings, this early morning,Strangely wistful,And half tristful,Have turned her from foul to fair;
With your bucket of water, and mop, and brush,Bringing her out of the grimeThat has smeared her during the smokes of winterWith such glumnessIn her dumbness,And aged her before her time.
You have washed her down with motherly care—Head, shoulders, arm, and foot,To the very hem of the robes that drape her—All expertlyAnd alertly,Till a long stream, black with soot,
Flows over the pavement to the road,And her shape looms pure as snow:I read you are hired by the City guardians—May be yearly,Or once merely—To treat the statues so?
“Oh, I’m not hired by the CouncilmenTo cleanse the statues here.I do this one as a self-willed duty,Not as paid to,Or at all made to,But because the doing is dear.”
Ah, then I hail you brother and friend!Liberty’s knight divine.What you have done would have been my doing,Yea, most verily,Well, and thoroughly,Had but your courage been mine!
“Oh I care not for Liberty’s mould,Liberty charms not me;What’s Freedom but an idler’s vision,Vain, pernicious,Often vicious,Of things that cannot be!
“Memory it is that brings me to this—Of a daughter—my one sweet own.She grew a famous carver’s model,One of the fairestAnd of the rarest:—She sat for the figure as shown.
“But alas, she died in this distant placeBefore I was warned to betakeMyself to her side! . . . And in love of my darling,In love of the fame of her,And the good name of her,I do this for her sake.”
Answer I gave not. Of that formThe carver was I at his side;His child, my model, held so saintly,Grand in feature,Gross in nature,In the dens of vice had died.
I think of the slope where the rabbits fed,Of the periwinks’ rockwork lair,Of the fuchsias ringing their bells of red—And the something else seen there.
Between the blooms where the sod basked bright,By the bobbing fuchsia trees,Was another and yet more eyesome sight—The sight that richened these.
I shall seek those beauties in the spring,When the days are fit and fair,But only as foils to the one more thingThat also will flower there!
Outof the past there rises a week—Who shall read the years O!—Out of the past there rises a weekEnringed with a purple zone.Out of the past there rises a weekWhen thoughts were strung too thick to speak,And the magic of its lineaments remains with me alone.
In that week there was heard a singing—Who shall spell the years, the years!—In that week there was heard a singing,And the white owl wondered why.In that week, yea, a voice was ringing,And forth from the casement were candles flingingRadiance that fell on the deodar and lit up the path thereby.
Could that song have a mocking note?—Who shall unroll the years O!—Could that song have a mocking noteTo the white owl’s sense as it fell?Could that song have a mocking noteAs it trilled out warm from the singer’s throat,And who was the mocker and who the mocked when two felt all was well?
In a tedious trampling crowd yet later—Who shall bare the years, the years!—In a tedious trampling crowd yet later,When silvery singings were dumb;In a crowd uncaring what time might fate her,Mid murks of night I stood to await her,And the twanging of iron wheels gave out the signal that she was come.
She said with a travel-tired smile—Who shall lift the years O!—She said with a travel-tired smile,Half scared by scene so strange;She said, outworn by mile on mile,The blurred lamps wanning her face the while,“O Love, I am here; I am with you!” . . . Ah, that there should have come a change!
O the doom by someone spoken—Who shall unseal the years, the years!—O the doom that gave no token,When nothing of bale saw we:O the doom by someone spoken,O the heart by someone broken,The heart whose sweet reverberances are all time leaves to me.
Jan.-Feb.1913.
Sittingon the bridgePast the barracks, town and ridge,At once the spirit seized usTo sing a song that pleased us—As “The Fifth” were much in rumour;It was “Whilst I’m in the humour,Take me, Paddy, will you now?”And a lancer soon drew nigh,And his Royal Irish eyeSaid, “Willing, faith, am I,O, to take you anyhow, dears,To take you anyhow.”
But, lo!—dad walking by,Cried, “What, you lightheels! Fie!Is this the way you roamAnd mock the sunset gleam?”And he marched us straightway home,Though we said, “We are only, daddy,Singing, ‘Will you take me, Paddy?’”—Well, we never saw from thenIf we sang there anywhen,The soldier dear again,Except at night in dream-time,Except at night in dream.
Perhaps that soldier’s fightingIn a land that’s far away,Or he may be idly plightingSome foreign hussy gay;Or perhaps his bones are whitingIn the wind to their decay! . . .Ah!—does he mind him howThe girls he saw that dayOn the bridge, were sitting singingAt the time of curfew-ringing,“Take me, Paddy; will you now, dear?Paddy, will you now?”
Grey’s Bridge.
Whenhe lit the candles there,And the light fell on his hand,And it trembled as he scannedHer and me, his vanquished airHinted that his dream was done,And I saw he had begunTo understand.
When Love’s viol was unstrung,Sore I wished the hand that shookHad been mine that shared her bookWhile that evening hymn was sung,His the victor’s, as he litCandles where he had bidden us sitWith vanquished look.
Now her dust lies listless there,His afar from tending hand,What avails the victory scanned?Does he smile from upper air:“Ah, my friend, your dream is done;And ’tisyouwho have begunTo understand!
Itravelas a phantom now,For people do not wish to seeIn flesh and blood so bare a boughAs Nature makes of me.
And thus I visit bodilessStrange gloomy households often at odds,And wonder if Man’s consciousnessWas a mistake of God’s.
And next I meet you, and I pause,And think that if mistake it were,As some have said, O then it wasOne that I well can bear!
1915.
Showme again the timeWhen in the Junetide’s primeWe flew by meads and mountains northerly!—Yea, to such freshness, fairness, fulness, fineness, freeness,Love lures life on.
Show me again the dayWhen from the sandy bayWe looked together upon the pestered sea!—Yea, to such surging, swaying, sighing, swelling, shrinking,Love lures life on.
Show me again the hourWhen by the pinnacled towerWe eyed each other and feared futurity!—Yea, to such bodings, broodings, beatings, blanchings, blessings,Love lures life on.
Show me again just this:The moment of that kissAway from the prancing folk, by the strawberry-tree!—Yea, to such rashness, ratheness, rareness, ripeness, richness,Love lures life on.
Begun November1898.
“Qui deridetur ab amico suo sicut ego.”—Job.
“Qui deridetur ab amico suo sicut ego.”—Job.
Inthe seventies I was bearing in my breast,Penned tight,Certain starry thoughts that threw a magic lightOn the worktimes and the soundless hours of restIn the seventies; aye, I bore them in my breastPenned tight.
In the seventies when my neighbours—even my friend—Saw me pass,Heads were shaken, and I heard the words, “Alas,For his onward years and name unless he mend!”In the seventies, when my neighbours and my friendSaw me pass.
In the seventies those who met me did not knowOf the visionThat immuned me from the chillings of mis-prisionAnd the damps that choked my goings to and froIn the seventies; yea, those nodders did not knowOf the vision.
In the seventies nought could darken or destroy it,Locked in me,Though as delicate as lamp-worm’s lucency;Neither mist nor murk could weaken or alloy itIn the seventies!—could not darken or destroy it,Locked in me.
I
Ibentin the deep of nightOver a pedigree the chronicler gaveAs mine; and as I bent there, half-unrobed,The uncurtained panes of my window-square let in the watery lightOf the moon in its old age:And green-rheumed clouds were hurrying past where mute and cold it globedLike a drifting dolphin’s eye seen through a lapping wave.
II
So, scanning my sire-sown tree,And the hieroglyphs of this spouse tied to that,With offspring mapped below in lineage,Till the tangles troubled me,The branches seemed to twist into a seared and cynic faceWhich winked and tokened towards the window like a MageEnchanting me to gaze again thereat.
III
It was a mirror now,And in it a long perspective I could traceOf my begetters, dwindling backward each past eachAll with the kindred look,Whose names had since been inked down in their placeOn the recorder’s book,Generation and generation of my mien, and build, and brow.
IV
And then did I divineThat every heave and coil and move I madeWithin my brain, and in my mood and speech,Was in the glass portrayedAs long forestalled by their so making it;The first of them, the primest fuglemen of my line,Being fogged in far antiqueness past surmise and reason’s reach.
V
Said I then, sunk in tone,“I am merest mimicker and counterfeit!—Though thinking,I am I,And what I do I do myself alone.”—The cynic twist of the page thereat unknitBack to its normal figure, having wrought its purport wry,The Mage’s mirror left the window-square,And the stained moon and drift retook their places there.
1916.
Atmidnight, in the room where he lay deadWhom in his life I had never clearly read,I thought if I could peer into that citadelHis heart, I should at last know full and well
What hereto had been known to him alone,Despite our long sit-out of years foreflown,“And if,” I said, “I do this for his memory’s sake,It would not wound him, even if he could wake.”
So I bent over him. He seemed to smileWith a calm confidence the whole long whileThat I, withdrawing his heart, held it and, bit by bit,Perused the unguessed things found written on it.
It was inscribed like a terrestrial sphereWith quaint vermiculations close and clear—His graving. Had I known, would I have risked the strokeIts reading brought, and my own heart nigh broke!
Yes, there at last, eyes opened, did I seeHis whole sincere symmetric history;There were his truth, his simple singlemindedness,Strained, maybe, by time’s storms, but there no less.
There were the daily deeds from sun to sunIn blindness, but good faith, that he had done;There were regrets, at instances wherein he swerved(As he conceived) from cherishings I had deserved.
There were old hours all figured down as bliss—Those spent with me—(how little had I thought this!)There those when, at my absence, whether he slept or waked,(Though I knew not ’twas so!) his spirit ached.
There that when we were severed, how day dulledTill time joined us anew, was chronicled:And arguments and battlings in defence of meThat heart recorded clearly and ruddily.
I put it back, and left him as he layWhile pierced the morning pink and then the grayInto each dreary room and corridor around,Where I shall wait, but his step will not sound.
Dishevelledleaves creep downUpon that bank to-day,Some green, some yellow, and some pale brown;The wet bents bob and sway;The once warm slippery turf is soddenWhere we laughingly sat or lay.
The summerhouse is gone,Leaving a weedy space;The bushes that veiled it once have grownGaunt trees that interlace,Through whose lank limbs I see too clearlyThe nakedness of the place.
And where were hills of blue,Blind drifts of vapour blow,And the names of former dwellers few,If any, people know,And instead of a voice that called, “Come in, Dears,”Time calls, “Pass below!”
Whenthe cloud shut down on the morning shine,And darkened the sun,I said, “So ended that joy of mineYears back begun.”
But day continued its lustrous rollIn upper air;And did my late irradiate soulLive on somewhere?
RamblingI looked for an old abodeWhere, years back, one had lived I knew;Its site a dwelling duly showed,But it was new.
I went where, not so long ago,The sod had riven two breasts asunder;Daisies throve gaily there, as thoughNo grave were under.
I walked along a terrace whereLoud children gambolled in the sun;The figure that had once sat thereWas missed by none.
Life laughed and moved on unsubdued,I saw that Old succumbed to Young:’Twas well. My too regretful moodDied on my tongue.
Itwas but a little thing,Yet I knew it meant to meEase from what had given a stingTo the very birdsingingLatterly.
But I would not welcome it;And for all I then declinedO the regrettings infiniteWhen the night-processions flitThrough the mind!
Somethingtapped on the pane of my roomWhen there was never a traceOf wind or rain, and I saw in the gloomMy weary Belovéd’s face.
“O I am tired of waiting,” she said,“Night, morn, noon, afternoon;So cold it is in my lonely bed,And I thought you would join me soon!”
I rose and neared the window-glass,But vanished thence had she:Only a pallid moth, alas,Tapped at the pane for me.
August1913.
Iclimbedto the crest,And, fog-festooned,The sun lay westLike a crimson wound:
Like that wound of mineOf which none knew,For I’d given no signThat it pierced me through.
“Iwillget a new string for my fiddle,And call to the neighbours to come,And partners shall dance down the middleUntil the old pewter-wares hum:And we’ll sip the mead, cyder, and rum!”
From the night came the oddest of answers:A hollow wind, like a bassoon,And headstones all ranged up as dancers,And cypresses droning a croon,And gurgoyles that mouthed to the tune.
Isaidand sang her excellence:They called it laud undue.(Have your way, my heart, O!)Yet what was homage far aboveThe plain deserts of my olden LoveProved verity of my new.
“She moves a sylph in picture-land,Where nothing frosts the air:”(Have your way, my heart, O!)“To all winged pipers overheadShe is known by shape and song,” I said,Conscious of licence there.
I sang of her in a dim old hallDream-built too fancifully,(Have your way, my heart, O!)But lo, the ripe months chanced to leadMy feet to such a hall indeed,Where stood the very She.
Strange, startling, was it then to learnI had glanced down unborn time,(Have your way, my heart, O!)And prophesied, whereby I knewThat which the years had planned to doIn warranty of my rhyme.
By Rushy-Pond.
Therain smites more and more,The east wind snarls and sneezes;Through the joints of the quivering doorThe water wheezes.
The tip of each ivy-shootWrithes on its neighbour’s face;There is some hid dread afootThat we cannot trace.
Is it the spirit astrayOf the man at the house belowWhose coffin they took in to-day?We do not know.
Bya wall the stranger now calls his,Was born of old a particular kiss,Without forethought in its genesis;Which in a trice took wing on the air.And where that spot is nothing shows:There ivy calmly grows,And no one knowsWhat a birth was there!
That kiss is gone where none can tell—Not even those who felt its spell:It cannot have died; that know we well.Somewhere it pursues its flight,One of a long procession of soundsTravelling aethereal roundsFar from earth’s boundsIn the infinite.
Theycame, the brothers, and took two chairsIn their usual quiet way;And for a time we did not thinkThey had much to say.
And they began and talked awhileOf ordinary things,Till spread that silence in the roomA pent thought brings.
And then they said: “The end has come.Yes: it has come at last.”And we looked down, and knew that dayA spirit had passed.
Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.“Now they are all on their knees,”An elder said as we sat in a flockBy the embers in hearthside ease.
We pictured the meek mild creatures whereThey dwelt in their strawy pen,Nor did it occur to one of us thereTo doubt they were kneeling then.
So fair a fancy few would weaveIn these years! Yet, I feel,If someone said on Christmas Eve,“Come; see the oxen kneel
“In the lonely barton by yonder coombOur childhood used to know,”I should go with him in the gloom,Hoping it might be so.
1915.
“Whenthe air was dampIt made my curls hang slackAs they kissed my neck and backWhile I footed the salt-aired trackI loved to tramp.
“When it was dryThey would roll up crisp and tightAs I went on in the lightOf the sun, which my own spriteSeemed to outvie.
“Now I am old;And have not one gay curlAs I had when a girlFor dampness to unfurlOr sun uphold!”
Theflame crept up the portrait line by lineAs it lay on the coals in the silence of night’s profound,And over the arm’s incline,And along the marge of the silkwork superfine,And gnawed at the delicate bosom’s defenceless round.
Then I vented a cry of hurt, and averted my eyes;The spectacle was one that I could not bear,To my deep and sad surprise;But, compelled to heed, I again looked furtive-wiseTill the flame had eaten her breasts, and mouth, and hair.
“Thank God, she is out of it now!” I said at last,In a great relief of heart when the thing was doneThat had set my soul aghast,And nothing was left of the picture unsheathed from the pastBut the ashen ghost of the card it had figured on.
She was a woman long hid amid packs of years,She might have been living or dead; she was lost to my sight,And the deed that had nigh drawn tearsWas done in a casual clearance of life’s arrears;But I felt as if I had put her to death that night! . . .
* * *
—Well; she knew nothing thereof did she survive,And suffered nothing if numbered among the dead;Yet—yet—if on earth aliveDid she feel a smart, and with vague strange anguish strive?If in heaven, did she smile at me sadly and shake her head?
Icouldhear a gown-skirt rustlingBefore I could see her shape,Rustling through the heatherThat wove the common’s drape,On that evening of dark weatherWhen I hearkened, lips agape.
And the town-shine in the distanceDid but baffle here the sight,And then a voice flew forward:“Dear, is’t you? I fear the night!”And the herons flapped to norwardIn the firs upon my right.
There was another loomingWhose life we did not see;There was one stilly bloomingFull nigh to where walked we;There was a shade entombingAll that was bright of me.
Itwas at the very date to which we have come,In the month of the matching name,When, at a like minute, the sun had upswum,Its couch-time at night being the same.And the same path stretched here that people now follow,And the same stile crossed their way,And beyond the same green hillock and hollowThe same horizon lay;And the same man pilgrims now hereby who pilgrimed here that day.
Let so much be said of the date-day’s sameness;But the tree that neighbours the track,And stoops like a pedlar afflicted with lameness,Knew of no sogged wound or windcrack.And the joints of that wall were not enshroudedWith mosses of many tones,And the garth up afar was not overcrowdedWith a multitude of white stones,And the man’s eyes then were not so sunk that you saw the socket-bones.
Kingston-Maurward Ewelease.
Bythe Runic StoneThey sat, where the grass sloped down,And chattered, he white-hatted, she in brown,Pink-faced, breeze-blown.
Rapt there aloneIn the transport of talking soIn such a place, there was nothing to let them knowWhat hours had flown.
And the die thrownBy them heedlessly there, the dentIt was to cut in their encompassment,Were, too, unknown.
It might have strownTheir zest with qualms to see,As in a glass, Time toss their historyFrom zone to zone!
“Omypretty pink frock,I sha’n’t be able to wear it!Why is he dying just now?I hardly can bear it!
“He might have contrived to live on;But they say there’s no hope whatever:And must I shut myself up,And go out never?
“O my pretty pink frock,Puff-sleeved and accordion-pleated!He might have passed in July,And not so cheated!”
Portionof this yewIs a man my grandsire knew,Bosomed here at its foot:This branch may be his wife,A ruddy human lifeNow turned to a green shoot.
These grasses must be madeOf her who often prayed,Last century, for repose;And the fair girl long agoWhom I often tried to knowMay be entering this rose.
So, they are not underground,But as nerves and veins aboundIn the growths of upper air,And they feel the sun and rain,And the energy againThat made them what they were!
Herhouse looked cold from the foggy lea,And the square of each window a dull black blurWhere showed no stir:Yes, her gloom within at the lack of meSeemed matching mine at the lack of her.
The black squares grew to be squares of lightAs the eyeshade swathed the house and lawn,And viols gave tone;There was glee within. And I found that nightThe gloom of severance mine alone.
Kingston-Maurward Park.
SilentlyI footed by an uphill roadThat led from my abode to a spot yew-boughed;Yellowly the sun sloped low down to westward,And dark was the east with cloud.
Then, amid the shadow of that livid sad east,Where the light was least, and a gate stood wide,Something flashed the fire of the sun that was facing it,Like a brief blaze on that side.
Looking hard and harder I knew what it meant—The sudden shine sent from the livid east scene;It meant the west mirrored by the coffin of my friend there,Turning to the road from his green,
To take his last journey forth—he who in his primeTrudged so many a time from that gate athwart the land!Thus a farewell to me he signalled on his grave-way,As with a wave of his hand.
Winterborne-Came Path.
“Thatis a quiet place—That house in the trees with the shady lawn.”“—If, child, you knew what there goes onYou would not call it a quiet place.Why, a phantom abides there, the last of its race,And a brain spins there till dawn.”
“But I see nobody there,—Nobody moves about the green,Or wanders the heavy trees between.”“—Ah, that’s because you do not bearThe visioning powers of souls who dareTo pierce the material screen.
“Morning, noon, and night,Mid those funereal shades that seemThe uncanny scenery of a dream,Figures dance to a mind with sight,And music and laughter like floods of lightMake all the precincts gleam.
“It is a poet’s bower,Through which there pass, in fleet arrays,Long teams of all the years and days,Of joys and sorrows, of earth and heaven,That meet mankind in its ages seven,An aion in an hour.”
Sweetcyder is a great thing,A great thing to me,Spinning down to Weymouth townBy Ridgway thirstily,And maid and mistress summoningWho tend the hostelry:O cyder is a great thing,A great thing to me!
The dance it is a great thing,A great thing to me,With candles lit and partners fitFor night-long revelry;And going home when day-dawningPeeps pale upon the lea:O dancing is a great thing,A great thing to me!
Love is, yea, a great thing,A great thing to me,When, having drawn across the lawnIn darkness silently,A figure flits like one a-wingOut from the nearest tree:O love is, yes, a great thing,A great thing to me!
Will these be always great things,Great things to me? . . .Let it befall that One will call,“Soul, I have need of thee:”What then? Joy-jaunts, impassioned flings,Love, and its ecstasy,Will always have been great things,Great things to me!
Thatmorning when I trod the townThe twitching chimes of long renownPlayed out to meThe sweet Sicilian sailors’ tune,And I knew not if late or soonMy day would be:
A day of sunshine beryl-brightAnd windless; yea, think as I might,I could not say,Even to within years’ measure, whenOne would be at my side who thenWas far away.
When hard utilitarian timesHad stilled the sweet Saint-Peter’s chimesI learnt to seeThat bale may spring where blisses are,And one desired might be afarThough near to me.
Itpleased her to step in front and sitWhere the cragged slope was green,While I stood back that I might pencil itWith her amid the scene;Till it gloomed and rained;But I kept on, despite the drifting wetThat fell and stainedMy draught, leaving for curious quizzings yetThe blots engrained.
And thus I drew her there alone,Seated amid the gauzeOf moisture, hooded, only her outline shown,With rainfall marked across.—Soon passed our stay;Yet her rainy form is the Genius still of the spot,Immutable, yea,Though the place now knows her no more, and has known her notEver since that day.
From an old note.
Whydid I sketch an upland green,And put the figure inOf one on the spot with me?—For now that one has ceased to be seenThe picture waxes akinTo a wordless irony.
If you go drawing on down or cliffLet no soft curves intrudeOf a woman’s silhouette,But show the escarpments stark and stiffAs in utter solitude;So shall you half forget.
Let me sooner pass from sight of the skyThan again on a thoughtless dayLimn, laugh, and sing, and rhymeWith a woman sitting near, whom IPaint in for love, and who mayBe called hence in my time!
From an old note.
Ifthere were in my kalendarNo Emma, Florence, Mary,What would be my existence now—A hermit’s?—wanderer’s weary?—How should I live, and howNear would be death, or far?
Could it have been that other eyesMight have uplit my highway?That fond, sad, retrospective sightWould catch from this dim bywayPrized figures different quiteFrom those that now arise?
With how strange aspect would there creepThe dawn, the night, the daytime,If memory were not what it isIn song-time, toil, or pray-time.—O were it else than this,I’d pass to pulseless sleep!
Thatno man schemed it is my hope—Yea, that it fell by will and scopeOf That Which some enthrone,And for whose meaning myriads grope.
For I would not that of my kindThere should, of his unbiassed mind,Have been one knownWho such a stroke could have designed;
Since it would augur works and waysBelow the lowest that man assaysTo have hurled that stoneInto the sunshine of our days!
And if it prove that no man did,And that the Inscrutable, the Hid,Was cause aloneOf this foul crash our lives amid,
I’ll go in due time, and forgetIn some deep graveyard’s oublietteThe thing whereof I groan,And cease from troubling; thankful yet
Time’s finger should have stretched to showNo aimful author’s was the blowThat swept us prone,But the Immanent Doer’s That doth not know,
Which in some age unguessed of usMay lift Its blinding incubus,And see, and own:“It grieves me I did thus and thus!”
Thetrain draws forth from the station-yard,And with it carries me.I rise, and stretch out, and regardThe platform left, and seeAn airy slim blue form there standing,And know that it is she.
While with strained vision I watch on,The figure turns round quiteTo greet friends gaily; then is gone . . .The import may be slight,But why remained she not hard gazingTill I was out of sight?
“O do not chat with others there,”I brood. “They are not I.O strain your thoughts as if they wereGold bands between us; eyeAll neighbour scenes as so much blanknessTill I again am by!
“A troubled soughing in the breezeAnd the sky overheadLet yourself feel; and shadeful trees,Ripe corn, and apples red,Read as things barren and distastefulWhile we are separated!
“When I come back uncloak your gloom,And let in lovely day;Then the long dark as of the tombCan well be thrust awayWith sweet things I shall have to practise,And you will have to say!”
Begun1871:finished—