This, then, is the grave of my son,Whose heart she won! And nettles growUpon his mound; and she lives just below.
How he upbraided me, and left,And our lives were cleft, because I saidShe was hard, unfeeling, caring but to wed.
Well, to see this sight I have fared these miles,And her firelight smiles from her window there,Whom he left his mother to cherish with tender care!
It is enough. I’ll turn and go;Yes, nettles grow where lone lies he,Who spurned me for seeing what he could not see.
Ona morning sick as the day of doomWith the drizzling grayOf an English May,There were few in the railway waiting-room.About its walls were framed and varnishedPictures of liners, fly-blown, tarnished.The table bore a TestamentFor travellers’ reading, if suchwise bent.
I read it on and on,And, thronging the Gospel of Saint John,Were figures—additions, multiplications—By some one scrawled, with sundry emendations;Not scoffingly designed,But with an absent mind,—Plainly a bagman’s counts of cost,What he had profited, what lost;And whilst I wondered if there could have beenAny particle of a soulIn that poor man at all,
To cypher rates of wageUpon that printed page,There joined in the charmless sceneAnd stood over me and the scribbled book(To lend the hour’s mean hueA smear of tragedy too)A soldier and wife, with haggard lookSubdued to stone by strong endeavour;And then I heardFrom a casual wordThey were parting as they believed for ever.
But next there cameLike the eastern flameOf some high altar, children—a pair—Who laughed at the fly-blown pictures there.“Here are the lovely ships that we,Mother, are by and by going to see!When we get there it’s ’most sure to be fine,And the band will play, and the sun will shine!”
It rained on the skylight with a dinAs we waited and still no train came in;But the words of the child in the squalid roomHad spread a glory through the gloom.
Itis dark as a cave,Or a vault in the naveWhen the iron doorIs closed, and the floorOf the church relaidWith trowel and spade.
But the parish-clerkCares not for the darkAs he winds in the towerAt a regular hourThe rheumatic clock,Whose dilatory knockYou can hear when prayingAt the day’s decaying,Or at any lone whileFrom a pew in the aisle.
Up, up from the groundAround and aroundIn the turret stairHe clambers, to whereThe wheelwork is,With its tick, click, whizz,Reposefully measuringEach day to its endThat mortal men spendIn sorrowing and pleasuringNightly thus does he climbTo the trackway of Time.
Him I followed one nightTo this place without light,And, ere I spoke, heardHim say, word by word,At the end of his winding,The darkness unminding:—
“So I wipe out one more,My Dear, of the soreSad days that still be,Like a drying Dead Sea,Between you and me!”
Who she was no man knew:He had long borne him blindTo all womankind;And was ever one whoKept his past out of view.
“What’sthe good of going to Ridgeway,Cerne, or Sydling Mill,Or to Yell’ham Hill,Blithely bearing Casterbridge-wayAs we used to do?She will no more climb up there,Or be visible anywhereIn those haunts we knew.”
But to-night, while walking weary,Near me seemed her shade,Come as ’twere to upbraidThis my mood in deeming drearyScenes that used to please;And, if she did come to me,Still solicitous, there may beGood in going to these.
So, I’ll care to roam to Ridgeway,Cerne, or Sydling Mill,Or to Yell’ham Hill,Blithely bearing Casterbridge-wayAs we used to do,Since her phasm may flit out there,And may greet me anywhereIn those haunts we knew.
April1913.
Ifoundme in a great surging space,At either end a door,And I said: “What is this giddying place,With no firm-fixéd floor,That I knew not of before?”“It is Life,” said a mask-clad face.
I asked: “But how do I come here,Who never wished to come;Can the light and air be made more clear,The floor more quietsome,And the doors set wide? They numbFast-locked, and fill with fear.”
The mask put on a bleak smile then,And said, “O vassal-wight,There once complained a goosequill penTo the scribe of the InfiniteOf the words it had to writeBecause they were past its ken.”
Thatwhisper takes the voiceOf a Spirit’s compassioningsClose, but invisible,And throws me under a spellAt the kindling vision it brings;And for a moment I rejoice,And believe in transcendent thingsThat would mould from this muddy earthA spot for the splendid birthOf everlasting lives,Whereto no night arrives;And this gaunt gray galleryA tabernacle of worthOn this drab-aired afternoon,When you can barely seeAcross its hazed lacuneIf opposite aught there beOf fleshed humanityWherewith I may commune;Or if the voice so nearBe a soul’s voice floating here.
Itwas whenWhirls of thick waters laved meAgain and again,That something arose and saved me;Yea, it was then.
In that dayUnseeing the azure went IOn my way,And to white winter bent I,Knowing no May.
Reft of renown,Under the night clouds beatingUp and down,In my needfulness greetingCit and clown.
Long there had beenMuch of a murky colourIn the scene,Dull prospects meeting duller;Nought between.
Last, there loomedA closing-in blind alley,Though there boomedA feeble summons to rallyWhere it gloomed.
The clock rang;The hour brought a hand to deliver;I upsprang,And looked back at den, ditch and river,And sang.
Hesaw the portrait of his enemy, offeredAt auction in a street he journeyed nigh,That enemy, now late dead, who in his life-timeHad injured deeply him the passer-by.“To get that picture, pleased be God, I’ll try,And utterly destroy it; and no moreShall be inflicted on man’s mortal eyeA countenance so sinister and sore!”
And so he bought the painting. Driving homeward,“The frame will come in useful,” he declared,“The rest is fuel.” On his arrival, weary,Asked what he bore with him, and how he fared,He said he had bid for a picture, though he caredFor the frame only: on the morrow heWould burn the canvas, which could well be spared,Seeing that it portrayed his enemy.
Next day some other duty found him busy;The foe was laid his face against the wall;But on the next he set himself to loosenThe straining-strips. And then a casual callPrevented his proceeding therewithal;And thus the picture waited, day by day,Its owner’s pleasure, like a wretched thrall,Until a month and more had slipped away.
And then upon a morn he found it shifted,Hung in a corner by a servitor.“Why did you take on you to hang that picture?You know it was the frame I bought it for.”“It stood in the way of every visitor,And I just hitched it there.”—“Well, it must go:I don’t commemorate men whom I abhor.Remind me ’tis to do. The frame I’ll stow.”
But things become forgotten. In the shadowOf the dark corner hung it by its string,And there it stayed—once noticed by its owner,Who said, “Ah me—I must destroy that thing!”But when he died, there, none remembering,It hung, till moved to prominence, as one sees;And comers pause and say, examining,“I thought they were the bitterest enemies?”
Shesaw herself a ladyWith fifty frocks in wear,And rolling wheels, and rooms the best,And faithful maidens’ care,And open lawns and shadyFor weathers warm or drear.
She found herself a striver,All liberal gifts debarred,With days of gloom, and movements stressed,And early visions marred,And got no man to wive herBut one whose lot was hard.
Yet in the moony night-timeShe steals to stile and leaDuring his heavy slumberous restWhen homecome wearily,And dreams of some blest bright-timeShe knows can never be.
Therain imprinted the step’s wet shineWith target-circles that quivered and crossedAs I was leaving this porch of mine;When from within there swelled and pausedA song’s sweet note;And back I turned, and thought,“Here I’ll abide.”
The step shines wet beneath the rain,Which prints its circles as heretofore;I watch them from the porch again,But no song-notes within the doorNow call to meTo shun the dripping leaAnd forth I stride.
Jan.1914.
Saidthe red-cloaked croneIn a whispered moan:
“The dead man was limpWhen laid in his chest;Yea, limp; and whyBut to signifyThat the grave will crimpEre next year’s sunYet another oneOf those in that house—It may be the best—For its endless drowse!”
Said the brown-shawled dameTo confirm the same:
“And the slothful fliesOn the rotting fruitHave been seen to wearWhile crawling thereCrape scarves, by eyesThat were quick and acute;As did those that had pitchedOn the cows by the pails,And with flaps of their tailsWere far away switched.”
Said the third in plaid,Each word being weighed:
“And trotting doesIn the park, in the lane,And just outsideThe shuttered pane,Have also been heard—Quick feet as lightAs the feet of a sprite—And the wise mind knowsWhat things may betideWhen such has occurred.”
Cried the black-craped fourth,Cold faced as the north:
“O, though giving suchSome head-room, I smileAt your falteringsWhen noting those thingsRound your domicile!For what, what can touchOne whom, riven of allThat makes life gay,No hints can appalOf more takings away!”
No; no;It must not be so:They are the ways we do not go.
Still chewThe kine, and mooIn the meadows we used to wander through;
Still purlThe rivulets and curlTowards the weirs with a musical swirl;
HaymakersAs in former yearsRake rolls into heaps that the pitchfork rears;
Wheels crackOn the turfy trackThe waggon pursues with its toppling pack.
“Why then shun—Since summer’s not done—All this because of the lack of one?”
Had you beenSharer of that sceneYou would not ask while it bites in keen
Why it is soWe can no more goBy the summer paths we used to know!
1913.
“A spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up.”
Andthe Spirit said,“I can make the clock of the years go backward,But am loth to stop it where you will.”And I cried, “AgreedTo that. Proceed:It’s better than dead!”
He answered, “Peace”;And called her up—as last before me;Then younger, younger she freshed, to the yearI first had knownHer woman-grown,And I cried, “Cease!—
“Thus far is good—It is enough—let her stay thus always!”But alas for me. He shook his head:No stop was there;And she waned child-fair,And to babyhood.
Still less in mienTo my great sorrow became she slowly,And smalled till she was nought at allIn his checkless griff;And it was as ifShe had never been.
“Better,” I plained,“She were dead as before! The memory of herHad lived in me; but it cannot now!”And coldly his voice:“It was your choiceTo mar the ordained.”
1916.
Awomanwas playing,A man looking on;And the mould of her face,And her neck, and her hair,Which the rays fell uponOf the two candles there,Sent him mentally strayingIn some fancy-placeWhere pain had no trace.
A cowled ApparitionCame pushing between;And her notes seemed to sigh,And the lights to burn pale,As a spell numbed the scene.But the maid saw no bale,And the man no monition;And Time laughed awry,And the Phantom hid nigh.
Iwentby the Druid stoneThat broods in the garden white and lone,And I stopped and looked at the shifting shadowsThat at some moments fall thereonFrom the tree hard by with a rhythmic swing,And they shaped in my imaginingTo the shade that a well-known head and shouldersThrew there when she was gardening.
I thought her behind my back,Yea, her I long had learned to lack,And I said: “I am sure you are standing behind me,Though how do you get into this old track?”And there was no sound but the fall of a leafAs a sad response; and to keep down griefI would not turn my head to discoverThat there was nothing in my belief.
Yet I wanted to look and seeThat nobody stood at the back of me;But I thought once more: “Nay, I’ll not unvisionA shape which, somehow, there may be.”So I went on softly from the glade,And left her behind me throwing her shade,As she were indeed an apparition—My head unturned lest my dream should fade.
Begun1913:finished1916.
Wewaited for the sunTo break its cloudy prison(For day was not yet done,And night still unbegun)Leaning by the dial.
After many a trial—We all silent there—It burst as new-arisen,Throwing a shade to whereTime travelled at that minute.
Little saw we in it,But this much I know,Of lookers on that shade,Her towards whom it madeSoonest had to go.
1915.
Ihavedone all I couldFor that lady I knew! Through the heats I have shaded her,Drawn to her songsters when summer has jaded her,Home from the heath or the wood.
At the mirth-time of May,When my shadow first lured her, I’d donned my new braveryOf greenth: ’twas my all. Now I shiver in slavery,Icicles grieving me gray.
Plumed to every twig’s endI could tempt her chair under me. Much did I treasure herDuring those days she had nothing to pleasure her;Mutely she used me as friend.
I’m a skeleton now,And she’s gone, craving warmth. The rime sticks like a skin to me;Through me Arcturus peers; Nor’lights shoot into me;Gone is she, scorning my bough!
NowI am dead you sing to meThe songs we used to know,But while I lived you had no wishOr care for doing so.
Now I am dead you come to meIn the moonlight, comfortless;Ah, what would I have given aliveTo win such tenderness!
When you are dead, and stand to meNot differenced, as now,But like again, will you be coldAs when we lived, or how?
“TheseGothic windows, how they wear me outWith cusp and foil, and nothing straight or square,Crude colours, leaden borders roundabout,And fitting in Peter here, and Matthew there!
“What a vocation! Here do I draw nowThe abnormal, loving the Hellenic norm;Martha I paint, and dream of Hera’s brow,Mary, and think of Aphrodite’s form.”
Nov.1893.
Butdon’t you know it, my dear,Don’t you know it,That this day of the year(What rainbow-rays embow it!)We met, strangers confessed,But parted—blest?
Though at this query, my dear,There in your frameUnmoved you still appear,You must be thinking the same,But keep that look demureJust to allure.
And now at length a traceI surely visionUpon that wistful faceOf old-time recognition,Smiling forth, “Yes, as you say,It is the day.”
For this one phase of youNow left on earthThis great date must endueWith pulsings of rebirth?—I see them vitalizeThose two deep eyes!
But if this face I conDoes not declareConsciousness living onStill in it, little I careTo live myself, my dear,Lone-labouring here!
Spring1913.
Heoften would ask usThat, when he died,After playing so manyTo their last rest,If out of us anyShould here abide,And it would not task us,We would with our lutesPlay over himBy his grave-brimThe psalm he liked best—The one whose sense suits“Mount Ephraim”—And perhaps we should seemTo him, in Death’s dream,Like the seraphim.
As soon as I knewThat his spirit was goneI thought this his due,And spoke thereupon.“I think,” said the vicar,“A read service quickerThan viols out-of-doorsIn these frosts and hoars.That old-fashioned wayRequires a fine day,And it seems to meIt had better not be.”
Hence, that afternoon,Though never knew heThat his wish could not be,To get through it fasterThey buried the masterWithout any tune.
But ’twas said that, whenAt the dead of next nightThe vicar looked out,There struck on his kenThronged roundabout,Where the frost was grayingThe headstoned grass,A band all in whiteLike the saints in church-glass,Singing and playingThe ancient staveBy the choirmaster’s grave.
Such the tenor man toldWhen he had grown old.
Ata lonely cross where bye-roads metI sat upon a gate;I saw the sun decline and set,And still was fain to wait.
A trotting boy passed up the wayAnd roused me from my thought;I called to him, and showed where layA spot I shyly sought.
“A summer-house fair stands hidden whereYou see the moonlight thrown;Go, tell me if within it thereA lady sits alone.”
He half demurred, but took the track,And silence held the scene;I saw his figure rambling back;I asked him if he had been.
“I went just where you said, but foundNo summer-house was there:Beyond the slope ’tis all bare ground;Nothing stands anywhere.
“A man asked what my brains were worth;The house, he said, grew rotten,And was pulled down before my birth,And is almost forgotten!”
My right mind woke, and I stood dumb;Forty years’ frost and flowerHad fleeted since I’d used to comeTo meet her in that bower.
“Itis sad that so many of worth,Still in the flesh,” soughed the yew,“Misjudge their lot whom kindly earthSecludes from view.
“They ride their diurnal roundEach day-span’s sum of hoursIn peerless ease, without jolt or boundOr ache like ours.
“If the living could but hearWhat is heard by my roots as they creepRound the restful flock, and the things said there,No one would weep.”
“‘Now set among the wise,’They say: ‘Enlarged in scope,That no God trumpet us to riseWe truly hope.’”
I listened to his strange taleIn the mood that stillness brings,And I grew to accept as the day wore paleThat show of things.
ForLife I had never cared greatly,As worth a man’s while;Peradventures unsought,Peradventures that finished in nought,Had kept me from youth and through manhood till latelyUnwon by its style.
In earliest years—why I know not—I viewed it askance;Conditions of doubt,Conditions that leaked slowly out,May haply have bent me to stand and to show notMuch zest for its dance.
With symphonies soft and sweet colourIt courted me then,Till evasions seemed wrong,Till evasions gave in to its song,And I warmed, until living aloofly loomed dullerThan life among men.
Anew I found nought to set eyes on,When, lifting its hand,It uncloaked a star,Uncloaked it from fog-damps afar,And showed its beams burning from pole to horizonAs bright as a brand.
And so, the rough highway forgetting,I pace hill and daleRegarding the sky,Regarding the vision on high,And thus re-illumed have no humour for lettingMy pilgrimage fail.
Whatof the faith and fire within usMen who march awayEre the barn-cocks sayNight is growing gray,Leaving all that here can win us;What of the faith and fire within usMen who march away?
Is it a purblind prank, O think you,Friend with the musing eye,Who watch us stepping byWith doubt and dolorous sigh?Can much pondering so hoodwink you!Is it a purblind prank, O think you,Friend with the musing eye?
Nay. We well see what we are doing,Though some may not see—Dalliers as they be—England’s need are we;Her distress would leave us rueing:Nay. We well see what we are doing,Though some may not see!
In our heart of hearts believingVictory crowns the just,And that braggarts mustSurely bite the dust,Press we to the field ungrieving,In our heart of hearts believingVictory crowns the just.
Hence the faith and fire within usMen who march awayEre the barn-cocks sayNight is growing gray,Leaving all that here can win us;Hence the faith and fire within usMen who march away.
September5, 1914.
[He travels southward, and looks around;]I journeyed from my native spotAcross the south sea shine,And found that people in hall and cotLaboured and suffered each his lotEven as I did mine.
[and cannot discern the boundary]Thus noting them in meads and martsIt did not seem to meThat my dear country with its hearts,Minds, yearnings, worse and better partsHad ended with the sea.
[of his native country;]I further and further went anon,As such I still surveyed,And further yet—yea, on and on,And all the men I looked uponHad heart-strings fellow-made.
[or where his duties to his fellow-creatures end;]I traced the whole terrestrial round,Homing the other side;Then said I, “What is there to boundMy denizenship? It seems I have foundIts scope to be world-wide.”
[nor who are his enemies]I asked me: “Whom have I to fight,And whom have I to dare,And whom to weaken, crush, and blight?My country seems to have kept in sightOn my way everywhere.”
1913.
“OEngland, may God punish thee!”—Is it that Teuton genius flowersOnly to breathe malignityUpon its friend of earlier hours?—We have eaten your bread, you have eaten ours,We have loved your burgs, your pines’ green moan,Fair Rhine-stream, and its storied towers;Your shining souls of deathless dowersHave won us as they were our own:
We have nursed no dreams to shed your blood,We have matched your might not rancorously,Save a flushed few whose blatant moodYou heard and marked as well as weTo tongue not in their country’s key;But yet you cry with face aflame,“O England, may God punish thee!”And foul in onward history,And present sight, your ancient name.
Autumn1914.
Idreamtthat people from the Land of ChimesArrived one autumn morning with their bells,To hoist them on the towers and citadelsOf my own country, that the musical rhymes
Rung by them into space at meted timesAmid the market’s daily stir and stress,And the night’s empty star-lit silentness,Might solace souls of this and kindred climes.
Then I awoke; and lo, before me stoodThe visioned ones, but pale and full of fear;From Bruges they came, and Antwerp, and Ostend,
No carillons in their train. Foes of mad moodHad shattered these to shards amid the gearOf ravaged roof, and smouldering gable-end.
October18, 1914.
Sevenmillions standEmaciate, in that ancient Delta-land:—We here, full-charged with our own maimed and dead,And coiled in throbbing conflicts slow and sore,Can poorly soothe these ails unmeritedOf souls forlorn upon the facing shore!—Where naked, gaunt, in endless band on bandSeven millions stand.
No man can sayTo your great country that, with scant delay,You must, perforce, ease them in their loud need:We know that nearer first your duty lies;But—is it much to ask that you let pleadYour lovingkindness with you—wooing-wise—Albeit that aught you owe, and must repay,No man can say?
December1914.
Iwalkedin loamy Wessex lanes, afarFrom rail-track and from highway, and I heardIn field and farmstead many an ancient wordOf local lineage like “Thu bist,” “Er war,”
“Ich woll,” “Er sholl,” and by-talk similar,Nigh as they speak who in this month’s moon girdAt England’s very loins, thereunto spurredBy gangs whose glory threats and slaughters are.
Then seemed a Heart crying: “Whosoever they beAt root and bottom of this, who flung this flameBetween kin folk kin tongued even as are we,
“Sinister, ugly, lurid, be their fame;May their familiars grow to shun their name,And their brood perish everlastingly.”
April1915.
“Wouldthat I’d not drawn breath here!” some one said,“To stalk upon this stage of evil deeds,Where purposelessly month by month proceedsA play so sorely shaped and blood-bespread.”
Yet had his spark not quickened, but lain deadTo the gross spectacles of this our day,And never put on the proffered cloak of clay,He had but known not things now manifested;
Life would have swirled the same. Morns would have dawnedOn the uprooting by the night-gun’s strokeOf what the yester noonshine brought to flower;
Brown martial brows in dying throes have wannedDespite his absence; hearts no fewer been brokeBy Empery’s insatiate lust of power.
1915.
I
Only a man harrowing clodsIn a slow silent walkWith an old horse that stumbles and nodsHalf asleep as they stalk.
II
Only thin smoke without flameFrom the heaps of couch-grass;Yet this will go onward the sameThough Dynasties pass.
III
Yonder a maid and her wightCome whispering by:War’s annals will cloud into nightEre their story die.
1915.
“Instigatorof the ruin—Whichsoever thou mayst beOf the masterful of EuropeThat contrived our misery—Hear the wormwood-worded greetingFrom each city, shore, and leaOf thy victims:“Conqueror, all hail to thee!”
“Yea: ‘All hail!’ we grimly shout theeThat wast author, fount, and headOf these wounds, whoever provenWhen our times are throughly read.‘May thy loved be slighted, blighted,And forsaken,’ be it saidBy thy victims,‘And thy children beg their bread!’
“Nay: a richer malediction!—Rather let this thing befallIn time’s hurling and unfurlingOn the night when comes thy call;That compassion dew thy pillowAnd bedrench thy senses allFor thy victims,Till death dark thee with his pall.”
August1915.
Orionswung southward aslantWhere the starved Egdon pine-trees had thinned,The Pleiads aloft seemed to pantWith the heather that twitched in the wind;But he looked on indifferent to sights such as these,Unswayed by love, friendship, home joy or home sorrow,And wondered to what he would march on the morrow.
The crazed household-clock with its whirrRang midnight within as he stood,He heard the low sighing of herWho had striven from his birth for his good;But he still only asked the spring starlight, the breeze,What great thing or small thing his history would borrowFrom that Game with Death he would play on the morrow.
When the heath wore the robe of late summer,And the fuchsia-bells, hot in the sun,Hung red by the door, a quick comerBrought tidings that marching was doneFor him who had joined in that game overseasWhere Death stood to win, though his name was to borrowA brightness therefrom not to fade on the morrow.
September1915.
Oftenwhen warring for he wist not what,An enemy-soldier, passing by one weak,Has tendered water, wiped the burning cheek,And cooled the lips so black and clammed and hot;
Then gone his way, and maybe quite forgotThe deed of grace amid the roar and reek;Yet larger vision than loud arms bespeakHe there has reached, although he has known it not.
For natural mindsight, triumphing in the actOver the throes of artificial rage,Has thuswise muffled victory’s peal of pride,Rended to ribands policy’s specious pageThat deals but with evasion, code, and pact,And war’s apology wholly stultified.
1915.
Whenbattles were foughtWith a chivalrous sense of Should and Ought,In spirit men said,“End we quick or dead,Honour is some reward!Let us fight fair—for our own best or worst;So, Gentlemen of the Guard,Fire first!”
In the open they stood,Man to man in his knightlihood:They would not deignTo profit by a stainOn the honourable rules,Knowing that practise perfidy no man durstWho in the heroic schoolsWas nurst.
But now, behold, whatIs warfare wherein honour is not!Rama lamentsIts dead innocents:Herod breathes: “Sly slaughterShall rule! Let us, by modes once called accurst,Overhead, under water,Stab first.”
1915.
Upand be doing, all who have a handTo lift, a back to bend. It must not beIn times like these that vaguely linger weTo air our vaunts and hopes; and leave our land
Untended as a wild of weeds and sand.—Say, then, “I come!” and go, O women and menOf palace, ploughshare, easel, counter, pen;That scareless, scathless, England still may stand.
Would years but let me stir as once I stirredAt many a dawn to take the forward track,And with a stride plunged on to enterprize,
I now would speed like yester wind that whirredThrough yielding pines; and serve with never a slack,So loud for promptness all around outcries!
March1917.
Thedead woman lay in her first night’s grave,And twilight fell from the clouds’ concave,And those she had asked to forgive forgave.
The woman passing came to a pauseBy the heaped white shapes of wreath and cross,And looked upon where the other was.
And as she mused there thus spoke she:“Never your countenance did I see,But you’ve been a good good friend to me!”
Rose a plaintive voice from the sod below:“O woman whose accents I do not know,What is it that makes you approve me so?”
“O dead one, ere my soldier went,I heard him saying, with warm intent,To his friend, when won by your blandishment:
“‘I would change for that lass here and now!And if I return I may break my vowTo my present Love, and contrive somehow
“‘To call my own this new-found pearl,Whose eyes have the light, whose lips the curl,I always have looked for in a girl!’
“—And this is why that by ceasing to be—Though never your countenance did I see—You prove you a good good friend to me;
“And I pray each hour for your soul’s reposeIn gratitude for your joining thoseNo lover will clasp when his campaigns close.”
Away she turned, when arose to her eyeA martial phantom of gory dye,That said, with a thin and far-off sigh:
“O sweetheart, neither shall I clasp you,For the foe this day has pierced me through,And sent me to where she is. Adieu!—
“And forget not when the night-wind’s whineCalls over this turf where her limbs recline,That it travels on to lament by mine.”
There was a cry by the white-flowered mound,There was a laugh from underground,There was a deeper gloom around.
1915.
I
Phantasmalfears,And the flap of the flame,And the throb of the clock,And a loosened slate,And the blind night’s drone,Which tiredly the spectral pines intone!
II
And the blood in my earsStrumming always the same,And the gable-cockWith its fitful grate,And myself, alone.
III
The twelfth hour nearsHand-hid, as in shame;I undo the lock,And listen, and waitFor the Young Unknown.
IV
In the dark there careers—As if Death astride cameTo numb all with his knock—A horse at mad rateOver rut and stone.
V
No figure appears,No call of my name,No sound but “Tic-toc”Without check. Past the gateIt clatters—is gone.
VI
What rider it bearsThere is none to proclaim;And the Old Year has struck,And, scarce animate,The New makes moan.
VII
Maybe that “More Tears!—More Famine and Flame—More Severance and Shock!”Is the order from FateThat the Rider speeds onTo pale Europe; and tiredly the pines intone.
1915–1916.
Imeta man when night was nigh,Who said, with shining face and eyeLike Moses’ after Sinai:—
“I have seen the Moulder of Monarchies,Realms, peoples, plains and hills,Sitting upon the sunlit seas!—And, as He sat, soliloquiesFell from Him like an antiphonic breezeThat pricks the waves to thrills.
“Meseemed that of the maimed and deadMown down upon the globe,—Their plenteous blooms of promise shedEre fruiting-time—His words were said,Sitting against the western web of redWrapt in His crimson robe.
“And I could catch them now and then:—‘Why let these gambling clansOf human Cockers, pit liege menFrom mart and city, dale and glen,In death-mains, but to swell and swell againTheir swollen All-Empery plans,
“‘When a mere nod (if my malignCompeer but passive keep)Would mend that old mistake of mineI made with Saul, and ever consignAll Lords of War whose sanctuaries enshrineLiberticide, to sleep?
“‘With violence the lands are spreadEven as in Israel’s day,And it repenteth me I bredChartered armipotents lust-ledTo feuds . . . Yea, grieves my heart, as then I said,To see their evil way!’
—“The utterance grew, and flapped like flame,And further speech I feared;But no Celestial tongued acclaim,And no huzzas from earthlings came,And the heavens mutely masked as ’twere in shameTill daylight disappeared.”
Thus ended he as night rode high—The man of shining face and eye,Like Moses’ after Sinai.
1916.
Ilookedup from my writing,And gave a start to see,As if rapt in my inditing,The moon’s full gaze on me.
Her meditative misty headWas spectral in its air,And I involuntarily said,“What are you doing there?”
“Oh, I’ve been scanning pond and holeAnd waterway hereaboutFor the body of one with a sunken soulWho has put his life-light out.
“Did you hear his frenzied tattle?It was sorrow for his sonWho is slain in brutish battle,Though he has injured none.
“And now I am curious to lookInto the blinkered mindOf one who wants to write a bookIn a world of such a kind.”
Her temper overwrought me,And I edged to shun her view,For I felt assured she thought meOne who should drown him too.
Howit came to an end!The meeting afar from the crowd,And the love-looks and laughters unpenned,The parting when much was avowed,How it came to an end!
It came to an end;Yes, the outgazing over the stream,With the sun on each serpentine bend,Or, later, the luring moon-gleam;It came to an end.
It came to an end,The housebuilding, furnishing, planting,As if there were ages to spendIn welcoming, feasting, and jaunting;It came to an end.
It came to an end,That journey of one day a week:(“It always goes on,” said a friend,“Just the same in bright weathers or bleak;”)But it came to an end.
“Howwill come to an endThis orbit so smoothly begun,Unless some convulsion attend?”I often said. “What will be doneWhen it comes to an end?”
Well, it came to an endQuite silently—stopped without jerk;Better close no prevision could lend;Working out as One planned it should workEre it came to an end.
Whenthe Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay,And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings,Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbours say,“He was a man who used to notice such things”?
If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid’s soundless blink,The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alightUpon the wind-warped upland thorn, a gazer may think,“To him this must have been a familiar sight.”
If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm,When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn,One may say, “He strove that such innocent creatures should come to no harm,But he could do little for them; and now he is gone”?
If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the door,Watching the full-starred heavens that winter sees,Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no more,“He was one who had an eye for such mysteries”?
And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom,And a crossing breeze cuts a pause in its outrollings,Till they rise again, as they were a new bell’s boom,“He hears it not now, but used to notice such things”?
[235]Jer. li. 20.