Whenyou slowly emerged from the den of Time,And gained percipience as you grew,And fleshed you fair out of shapeless slime,
Wherefore, O Man, did there come to youThe unhappy need of creating me—A form like your own—for praying to?
My virtue, power, utility,Within my maker must all abide,Since none in myself can ever be,
One thin as a shape on a lantern-slideShown forth in the dark upon some dim sheet,And by none but its showman vivified.
“Such a forced device,” you may say, “is meetFor easing a loaded heart at whiles:Man needs to conceive of a mercy-seat
Somewhere above the gloomy aislesOf this wailful world, or he could not bearThe irk no local hope beguiles.”
—But since I was framed in your first despairThe doing without me has had no playIn the minds of men when shadows scare;
And now that I dwindle day by dayBeneath the deicide eyes of seersIn a light that will not let me stay,
And to-morrow the whole of me disappears,The truth should be told, and the fact be facedThat had best been faced in earlier years:
The fact of life with dependence placedOn the human heart’s resource alone,In brotherhood bonded close and graced
With loving-kindness fully blown,And visioned help unsought, unknown.
1909–10.
I
I saw a slowly-stepping train—Lined on the brows, scoop-eyed and bent and hoar—Following in files across a twilit plainA strange and mystic form the foremost bore.
II
And by contagious throbs of thoughtOr latent knowledge that within me layAnd had already stirred me, I was wroughtTo consciousness of sorrow even as they.
III
The fore-borne shape, to my blurred eyes,At first seemed man-like, and anon to changeTo an amorphous cloud of marvellous size,At times endowed with wings of glorious range.
IV
And this phantasmal variousnessEver possessed it as they drew along:Yet throughout all it symboled none the lessPotency vast and loving-kindness strong.
V
Almost before I knew I bentTowards the moving columns without a word;They, growing in bulk and numbers as they went,Struck out sick thoughts that could be overheard:—
VI
“O man-projected Figure, of lateImaged as we, thy knell who shall survive?Whence came it we were tempted to createOne whom we can no longer keep alive?
VII
“Framing him jealous, fierce, at first,We gave him justice as the ages rolled,Will to bless those by circumstance accurst,And longsuffering, and mercies manifold.
VIII
“And, tricked by our own early dreamAnd need of solace, we grew self-deceived,Our making soon our maker did we deem,And what we had imagined we believed.
IX
“Till, in Time’s stayless stealthy swing,Uncompromising rude realityMangled the Monarch of our fashioning,Who quavered, sank; and now has ceased to be.
X
“So, toward our myth’s oblivion,Darkling, and languid-lipped, we creep and gropeSadlier than those who wept in Babylon,Whose Zion was a still abiding hope.
XI
“How sweet it was in years far hiedTo start the wheels of day with trustful prayer,To lie down liegely at the eventideAnd feel a blest assurance he was there!
XII
“And who or what shall fill his place?Whither will wanderers turn distracted eyesFor some fixed star to stimulate their paceTowards the goal of their enterprise?” . . .
XIII
Some in the background then I saw,Sweet women, youths, men, all incredulous,Who chimed as one: “This figure is of straw,This requiem mockery! Still he lives to us!”
XIV
I could not prop their faith: and yetMany I had known: with all I sympathized;And though struck speechless, I did not forgetThat what was mourned for, I, too, once had prized.
XV
Still, how to bear such loss I deemedThe insistent question for each animate mind,And gazing, to my growing sight there seemedA pale yet positive gleam low down behind,
XVI
Whereof to lift the general night,A certain few who stood aloof had said,“See you upon the horizon that small light—Swelling somewhat?” Each mourner shook his head.
XVII
And they composed a crowd of whomSome were right good, and many nigh the best . . .Thus dazed and puzzled ’twixt the gleam and gloomMechanically I followed with the rest.
1908–10.
“Itis not death that harrows us,” they lipped,“The soundless cell is in itself relief,For life is an unfenced flower, benumbed and nippedAt unawares, and at its best but brief.”
The speakers, sundry phantoms of the gone,Had risen like filmy flames of phosphor dye,As if the palest of sheet lightnings shoneFrom the sward near me, as from a nether sky.
And much surprised was I that, spent and dead,They should not, like the many, be at rest,But stray as apparitions; hence I said,“Why, having slipped life, hark you back distressed?
“We are among the few death sets not free,The hurt, misrepresented names, who comeAt each year’s brink, and cry to HistoryTo do them justice, or go past them dumb.
“We are stript of rights; our shames lie unredressed,Our deeds in full anatomy are not shown,Our words in morsels merely are expressedOn the scriptured page, our motives blurred, unknown.”
Then all these shaken slighted visitants spedInto the vague, and left me musing thereOn fames that well might instance what they had said,Until the New-Year’s dawn strode up the air.
“Ah, are you digging on my graveMy loved one?—planting rue?”—“No: yesterday he went to wedOne of the brightest wealth has bred.‘It cannot hurt her now,’ he said,‘That I should not be true.’”
“Then who is digging on my grave?My nearest dearest kin?”—“Ah, no; they sit and think, ‘What use!What good will planting flowers produce?No tendance of her mound can looseHer spirit from Death’s gin.’”
“But some one digs upon my grave?My enemy?—prodding sly?”—“Nay: when she heard you had passed the GateThat shuts on all flesh soon or late,She thought you no more worth her hate,And cares not where you lie.”
“Then, who is digging on my grave?Say—since I have not guessed!”—“O it is I, my mistress dear,Your little dog, who still lives near,And much I hope my movements hereHave not disturbed your rest?”
“Ah, yes!Youdig upon my grave . . .Why flashed it not on meThat one true heart was left behind!What feeling do we ever findTo equal among human kindA dog’s fidelity!”
“Mistress, I dug upon your graveTo bury a bone, in caseI should be hungry near this spotWhen passing on my daily trot.I am sorry, but I quite forgotIt was your resting-place.”
Thekettle descants in a cozy drone,And the young wife looks in her husband’s face,And then at her guest’s, and shows in her ownHer sense that she fills an envied place;And the visiting lady is all abloom,And says there was never so sweet a room.
And the happy young housewife does not knowThat the woman beside her was first his choice,Till the fates ordained it could not be so . . .Betraying nothing in look or voiceThe guest sits smiling and sips her tea,And he throws her a stray glance yearningly.
“Andnow to God the Father,” he ends,And his voice thrills up to the topmost tiles:Each listener chokes as he bows and bends,And emotion pervades the crowded aisles.Then the preacher glides to the vestry-door,And shuts it, and thinks he is seen no more.
The door swings softly ajar meanwhile,And a pupil of his in the Bible class,Who adores him as one without gloss or guile,Sees her idol stand with a satisfied smileAnd re-enact at the vestry-glassEach pulpit gesture in deft dumb-showThat had moved the congregation so.
“Sixpencea week,” says the girl to her lover,“Aunt used to bring me, for she could confideIn me alone, she vowed. ’Twas to coverThe cost of her headstone when she died.And that was a year ago last June;I’ve not yet fixed it. But I must soon.”
“And where is the money now, my dear?”“O, snug in my purse . . . Aunt wassoslowIn saving it—eighty weeks, or near.” . . .“Let’s spend it,” he hints. “For she won’t know.There’s a dance to-night at the Load of Hay.”She passively nods. And they go that way.
“Wouldit had been the man of our wish!”Sighs her mother. To whom with vehemence sheIn the wedding-dress—the wife to be—“Then why were you so mollyishAs not to insist on him for me!”The mother, amazed: “Why, dearest one,Because you pleaded for this or none!”
“But Father and you should have stood out strong!Since then, to my cost, I have lived to findThat you were right and that I was wrong;This man is a dolt to the one declined . . .Ah!—here he comes with his button-hole rose.Good God—I must marry him I suppose!”
Theysit and smoke on the esplanade,The man and his friend, and regard the bayWhere the far chalk cliffs, to the left displayed,Smile sallowly in the decline of day.And saunterers pass with laugh and jest—A handsome couple among the rest.
“That smart proud pair,” says the man to his friend,“Are to marry next week . . . How little he thinksThat dozens of days and nights on endI have stroked her neck, unhooked the linksOf her sleeve to get at her upper arm . . .Well, bliss is in ignorance: what’s the harm!”
“Yousee those mothers squabbling there?”Remarks the man of the cemetery.One says in tears, ‘’Tis mine lies here!’Another, ‘Nay,mine,you Pharisee!’Another, ‘How dare you move my flowersAnd put your own on this grave of ours!’But all their children were laid thereinAt different times, like sprats in a tin.
“And then the main drain had to cross,And we moved the lot some nights ago,And packed them away in the general fossWith hundreds more. But their folks don’t know,And as well cry over a new-laid drainAs anything else, to ease your pain!”
“Mystick!” he says, and turns in the laneTo the house just left, whence a vixen voiceComes out with the firelight through the pane,And he sees within that the girl of his choiceStands rating her mother with eyes aglareFor something said while he was there.
“At last I behold her soul undraped!”Thinks the man who had loved her more than himself;“My God—’tis but narrowly I have escaped.—My precious porcelain proves it delf.”His face has reddened like one ashamed,And he steals off, leaving his stick unclaimed.
Heenters, and mute on the edge of a chairSits a thin-faced lady, a stranger there,A type of decayed gentility;And by some small signs he well can guessThat she comes to him almost breakfastless.
“I have called—I hope I do not err—I am looking for a purchaserOf some score volumes of the worksOf eminent divines I own,—Left by my father—though it irksMy patience to offer them.” And she smilesAs if necessity were unknown;“But the truth of it is that oftenwhilesI have wished, as I am fond of art,To make my rooms a little smart.”And lightly still she laughs to him,As if to sell were a mere gay whim,And that, to be frank, Life were indeedTo her not vinegar and gall,But fresh and honey-like; and NeedNo household skeleton at all.
“Mybride is not coming, alas!” says the groom,And the telegram shakes in his hand. “I ownIt was hurried! We met at a dancing-roomWhen I went to the Cattle-Show alone,And then, next night, where the Fountain leaps,And the Street of the Quarter-Circle sweeps.
“Ay, she won me to ask her to be my wife—’Twas foolish perhaps!—to forsake the waysOf the flaring town for a farmer’s life.She agreed. And we fixed it. Now she says:‘It’s sweet of you,dear,to prepare me a nest,But a swift,short,gay life suits me best.What I really am you have never gleaned;I had eaten the apple ere you were weaned.’”
“Othatmastering tune?” And up in the bedLike a lace-robed phantom springs the bride;“And why?” asks the man she had that day wed,With a start, as the band plays on outside.“It’s the townsfolks’ cheery complimentBecause of our marriage, my Innocent.”
“O but you don’t know! ’Tis the passionate airTo which my old Love waltzed with me,And I swore as we spun that none should shareMy home, my kisses, till death, save he!And he dominates me and thrills me through,And it’s he I embrace while embracing you!”
“Buthear. If you stay, and the child be born,It will pass as your husband’s with the rest,While, if we fly, the teeth of scornWill be gleaming at us from east to west;And the child will come as a life despised;I feel an elopement is ill-advised!”
“O you realize not what it is, my dear,To a woman! Daily and hourly alarmsLest the truth should out. How can I stay here,And nightly take him into my arms!Come to the child no name or fame,Let us go, and face it, and bear the shame.”
“Istoodat the back of the shop, my dear,But you did not perceive me.Well, when they deliver what you were shownIshall know nothing of it, believe me!”
And he coughed and coughed as she paled and said,“O, I didn’t see you come in there—Why couldn’t you speak?”—“Well, I didn’t. I leftThat you should not notice I’d been there.
“You were viewing some lovely things. ‘Soon requiredFor a widow,of latest fashion’;And I knew ’twould upset you to meet the manWho had to be cold and ashen
“And screwed in a box before they could dress you‘In the last new note in mourning,’As they defined it. So, not to distress you,I left you to your adorning.”
“I’lltell—being past all praying for—Then promptly die . . . He was out at the war,And got some scent of the intimacyThat was under way between her and me;And he stole back home, and appeared like a ghostOne night, at the very time almostThat I reached her house. Well, I shot him dead,And secretly buried him. Nothing was said.
“The news of the battle came next day;He was scheduled missing. I hurried away,Got out there, visited the field,And sent home word that a search revealedHe was one of the slain; though, lying aloneAnd stript, his body had not been known.
“But she suspected. I lost her love,Yea, my hope of earth, and of Heaven above;And my time’s now come, and I’ll pay the score,Though it be burning for evermore.”
Theystand confronting, the coffin between,His wife of old, and his wife of late,And the dead man whose they both had beenSeems listening aloof, as to things past date.—“I have called,” says the first. “Do you marvel or not?”“In truth,” says the second, “I do—somewhat.”
“Well, there was a word to be said by me! . . .I divorced that man because of you—It seemed I must do it, boundenly;But now I am older, and tell you true,For life is little, and dead lies he;I would I had let alone you two!And both of us, scorning parochial ways,Had lived like the wives in the patriarchs’ days.”
“Olonelyworkman, standing thereIn a dream, why do you stare and stareAt her grave, as no other grave there were?
“If your great gaunt eyes so importuneHer soul by the shine of this corpse-cold moon,Maybe you’ll raise her phantom soon!”
“Why, fool, it is what I would rather seeThan all the living folk there be;But alas, there is no such joy for me!”
“Ah—she was one you loved, no doubt,Through good and evil, through rain and drought,And when she passed, all your sun went out?”
“Nay: she was the woman I did not love,Whom all the others were ranked above,Whom during her life I thought nothing of.”
Alongthe wayHe walked that day,Watching shapes that reveries limn,And seldom heHad eyes to seeThe moment that encompassed him.
Bright yellowhammersMade mirthful clamours,And billed long straws with a bustling air,And bearing their loadFlew up the roadThat he followed, alone, without interest there.
From bank to groundAnd over and roundThey sidled along the adjoining hedge;Sometimes to the gutterTheir yellow flutterWould dip from the nearest slatestone ledge.
The smooth sea-lineWith a metal shine,And flashes of white, and a sail thereon,He would also descryWith a half-wrapt eyeBetween the projects he mused upon.
Yes, round him were theseEarth’s artistries,But specious plans that came to his callDid most engageHis pilgrimage,While himself he did not see at all.
Dead now as sherdsAre the yellow birds,And all that mattered has passed away;Yet God, the Elf,Now shows him that selfAs he was, and should have been shown, that day.
O it would have been goodCould he then have stoodAt a focussed distance, and conned the whole,But now such visionIs mere derision,Nor soothes his body nor saves his soul.
Not much, some mayIncline to say,To see therein, had it all been seen.Nay! he is awareA thing was thereThat loomed with an immortal mien.
Iwanderedto a crude coastLike a ghost;Upon the hills I saw fires—Funeral pyresSeemingly—and heard breakingWaves like distant cannonades that set the land shaking.
And so I never once guessedA Love-nest,Bowered and candle-lit, layIn my way,Till I found a hid hollow,Where I burst on her my heart could not but follow.
“Itis a foolish thing,” said I,“To bear with such, and pass it by;Yet so I do, I know not why!”
And at each clash I would surmiseThat if I had acted otherwiseI might have saved me many sighs.
But now the only happinessIn looking back that I possess—Whose lack would leave me comfortless—
Is to remember I refrainedFrom masteries I might have gained,And for my tolerance was disdained;
For see, a tomb. And if it wereI had bent and broke, I should not dareTo linger in the shadows there.
I
Lookingforward to the springOne puts up with anything.On this February day,Though the winds leap down the street,Wintry scourgings seem but play,And these later shafts of sleet—Sharper pointed than the first—And these later snows—the worst—Are as a half-transparent blindRiddled by rays from sun behind.
II
Shadows of the October pineReach into this room of mine:On the pine there stands a bird;He is shadowed with the tree.Mutely perched he bills no word;Blank as I am even is he.For those happy suns are past,Fore-discerned in winter last.When went by their pleasure, then?I, alas, perceived not when.
Theten hours’ light is abating,And a late bird flies across,Where the pines, like waltzers waiting,Give their black heads a toss.
Beech leaves, that yellow the noon-time,Float past like specks in the eye;I set every tree in my June time,And now they obscure the sky.
And the children who ramble through hereConceive that there never has beenA time when no tall trees grew here,A time when none will be seen.
Howdo you know that the pilgrim trackAlong the belting zodiacSwept by the sun in his seeming roundsIs traced by now to the Fishes’ boundsAnd into the Ram, when weeks of cloudHave wrapt the sky in a clammy shroud,And never as yet a tinct of springHas shown in the Earth’s apparelling;O vespering bird, how do you know,How do you know?
How do you know, deep underground,Hid in your bed from sight and sound,Without a turn in temperature,With weather life can scarce endure,That light has won a fraction’s strength,And day put on some moments’ length,Whereof in merest rote will come,Weeks hence, mild airs that do not numb;O crocus root, how do you know,How do you know?
February1910.
“WheneverI plunge my arm, like this,In a basin of water, I never missThe sweet sharp sense of a fugitive dayFetched back from its thickening shroud of gray.Hence the only primeAnd real love-rhymeThat I know by heart,And that leaves no smart,Is the purl of a little valley fallAbout three spans wide and two spans tallOver a table of solid rock,And into a scoop of the self-same block;The purl of a runlet that never ceasesIn stir of kingdoms, in wars, in peaces;With a hollow boiling voice it speaksAnd has spoken since hills were turfless peaks.”
“And why gives this the only primeIdea to you of a real love-rhyme?And why does plunging your arm in a bowlFull of spring water, bring throbs to your soul?”
“Well, under the fall, in a crease of the stone,Though where precisely none ever has known,Jammed darkly, nothing to show how prized,And by now with its smoothness opalized,Is a drinking-glass:For, down that passMy lover and IWalked under a skyOf blue with a leaf-woven awning of green,In the burn of August, to paint the scene,And we placed our basket of fruit and wineBy the runlet’s rim, where we sat to dine;And when we had drunk from the glass together,Arched by the oak-copse from the weather,I held the vessel to rinse in the fall,Where it slipped, and sank, and was past recall,Though we stooped and plumbed the little abyssWith long bared arms. There the glass still is.And, as said, if I thrust my arm belowCold water in basin or bowl, a throeFrom the past awakens a sense of that time,And the glass both used, and the cascade’s rhyme.The basin seems the pool, and its edgeThe hard smooth face of the brook-side ledge,And the leafy pattern of china-wareThe hanging plants that were bathing there.By night, by day, when it shines or lours,There lies intact that chalice of ours,And its presence adds to the rhyme of lovePersistently sung by the fall above.No lip has touched it since his and mineIn turns therefrom sipped lovers’ wine.”
“Imeanto build a hall anon,And shape two turrets there,And a broad newelled stair,And a cool well for crystal water;Yes; I will build a hall anon,Plant roses love shall feed upon,And apple trees and pear.”
He set to build the manor-hall,And shaped the turrets there,And the broad newelled stair,And the cool well for crystal water;He built for me that manor-hall,And planted many trees withal,But no rose anywhere.
And as he planted never a roseThat bears the flower of love,Though other flowers throveA frost-wind moved our souls to severSince he had planted never a rose;And misconceits raised horrid shows,And agonies came thereof.
“I’ll mend these miseries,” then said I,And so, at dead of night,I went and, screened from sight,That nought should keep our souls in severance,I set a rose-bush. “This,” said I,“May end divisions dire and wry,And long-drawn days of blight.”
But I was called from earth—yea, calledBefore my rose-bush grew;And would that now I knewWhat feels he of the tree I planted,And whether, after I was calledTo be a ghost, he, as of old,Gave me his heart anew!
Perhaps now blooms that queen of treesI set but saw not grow,And he, beside its glow—Eyes couched of the mis-vision that blurred me—Ay, there beside that queen of treesHe sees me as I was, though seesToo late to tell me so!
Slipback, Time!Yet again I am nearingCastle and keep, uprearingGray, as in my prime.
At the innSmiling close, why is itNot as on my visitWhen hope and I were twin?
Groom and jadeWhom I found here, moulder;Strange the tavern-holder,Strange the tap-maid.
Here I hiredHorse and man for bearingMe on my wayfaringTo the door desired.
Evening gloomedAs I journeyed forwardTo the faces shoreward,Till their dwelling loomed.
If againTowards the Atlantic sea thereI should speed, they’d be thereSurely now as then? . . .
Why waste thought,When I know them vanishedUnder earth; yea, banishedEver into nought.
Veteris vestigia flammae
Whydid you give no hint that nightThat quickly after the morrow’s dawn,And calmly, as if indifferent quite,You would close your term here, up and be goneWhere I could not followWith wing of swallowTo gain one glimpse of you ever anon!
Never to bid good-bye,Or give me the softest call,Or utter a wish for a word, while ISaw morning harden upon the wall,Unmoved, unknowingThat your great goingHad place that moment, and altered all.
Why do you make me leave the houseAnd think for a breath it is you I seeAt the end of the alley of bending boughsWhere so often at dusk you used to be;Till in darkening danknessThe yawning blanknessOf the perspective sickens me!
You were she who abodeBy those red-veined rocks far West,You were the swan-necked one who rodeAlong the beetling Beeny Crest,And, reining nigh me,Would muse and eye me,While Life unrolled us its very best.
Why, then, latterly did we not speak,Did we not think of those days long dead,And ere your vanishing strive to seekThat time’s renewal? We might have said,“In this bright spring weatherWe’ll visit togetherThose places that once we visited.”
Well, well! All’s past amend,Unchangeable. It must go.I seem but a dead man held on endTo sink down soon . . . O you could not knowThat such swift fleeingNo soul foreseeing—Not even I—would undo me so!
December1912.
Hereby the moorway you returned,And saw the borough lights aheadThat lit your face—all undiscernedTo be in a week the face of the dead,And you told of the charm of that haloed viewThat never again would beam on you.
And on your left you passed the spotWhere eight days later you were to lie,And be spoken of as one who was not;Beholding it with a cursory eyeAs alien from you, though under its treeYou soon would halt everlastingly.
I drove not with you . . . Yet had I satAt your side that eve I should not have seenThat the countenance I was glancing atHad a last-time look in the flickering sheen,Nor have read the writing upon your face,“I go hence soon to my resting-place;
“You may miss me then. But I shall not knowHow many times you visit me there,Or what your thoughts are, or if you goThere never at all. And I shall not care.Should you censure me I shall take no heedAnd even your praises I shall not need.”
True: never you’ll know. And you will not mind.But shall I then slight you because of such?Dear ghost, in the past did you ever findThe thought “What profit?” move me muchYet the fact indeed remains the same,You are past love, praise, indifference, blame.
December1912.
Youdid not walk with meOf late to the hill-top treeBy the gated ways,As in earlier days;You were weak and lame,So you never came,And I went alone, and I did not mind,Not thinking of you as left behind.
I walked up there to-dayJust in the former way:Surveyed aroundThe familiar groundBy myself again:What difference, then?Only that underlying senseOf the look of a room on returning thence.
Cloudsspout upon herTheir waters amainIn ruthless disdain,—Her who but latelyHad shivered with painAs at touch of dishonourIf there had lit on herSo coldly, so straightlySuch arrows of rain.
She who to shelterHer delicate headWould quicken and quickenEach tentative treadIf drops chanced to pelt herThat summertime spillsIn dust-paven rillsWhen thunder-clouds thickenAnd birds close their bills.
Would that I lay thereAnd she were housed here!Or better, togetherWere folded away thereExposed to one weatherWe both,—who would stray thereWhen sunny the day there,Or evening was clearAt the prime of the year.
Soon will be growingGreen blades from her mound,And daises be showingLike stars on the ground,Till she form part of them—Ay—the sweet heart of them,Loved beyond measureWith a child’s pleasureAll her life’s round.
Jan.31, 1913.
Ifoundher out thereOn a slope few see,That falls westwardlyTo the salt-edged air,Where the ocean breaksOn the purple strand,And the hurricane shakesThe solid land.
I brought her here,And have laid her to restIn a noiseless nestNo sea beats near.She will never be stirredIn her loamy cellBy the waves long heardAnd loved so well.
So she does not sleepBy those haunted heightsThe Atlantic smitesAnd the blind gales sweep,Whence she often would gazeAt Dundagel’s far head,While the dipping blazeDyed her face fire-red;
And would sigh at the taleOf sunk Lyonnesse,As a wind-tugged tressFlapped her cheek like a flail;Or listen at whilesWith a thought-bound browTo the murmuring milesShe is far from now.
Yet her shade, maybe,Will creep undergroundTill it catch the soundOf that western seaAs it swells and sobsWhere she once domiciled,And joy in its throbsWith the heart of a child.
Itwas your way, my dear,To be gone without a wordWhen callers, friends, or kinHad left, and I hastened inTo rejoin you, as I inferred.
And when you’d a mind to careerOff anywhere—say to town—You were all on a sudden goneBefore I had thought thereon,Or noticed your trunks were down.
So, now that you disappearFor ever in that swift style,Your meaning seems to meJust as it used to be:“Good-bye is not worth while!”
Howshe would have lovedA party to-day!—Bright-hatted and gloved,With table and trayAnd chairs on the lawnHer smiles would have shoneWith welcomings . . . ButShe is shut, she is shutFrom friendship’s spellIn the jailing shellOf her tiny cell.
Or she would have reignedAt a dinner to-nightWith ardours unfeigned,And a generous delight;All in her abodeShe’d have freely bestowedOn her guests . . . But alas,She is shut under grassWhere no cups flow,Powerless to knowThat it might be so.
And she would have soughtWith a child’s eager glanceThe shy snowdrops broughtBy the new year’s advance,And peered in the rimeOf Candlemas-timeFor crocuses . . . chancedIt that she were not trancedFrom sights she loved best;Wholly possessedBy an infinite rest!
And we are here stayingAmid these stale thingsWho care not for gaying,And those junketingsThat used so to joy her,And never to cloy herAs us they cloy! . . . ButShe is shut, she is shutFrom the cheer of them, deadTo all done and saidIn a yew-arched bed.
Hedoes not think that I haunt here nightly:How shall I let him knowThat whither his fancy sets him wanderingI, too, alertly go?—Hover and hover a few feet from himJust as I used to do,But cannot answer his words addressed me—Only listen thereto!
When I could answer he did not say them:When I could let him knowHow I would like to join in his journeysSeldom he wished to go.Now that he goes and wants me with himMore than he used to do,Never he sees my faithful phantomThough he speaks thereto.
Yes, I accompany him to placesOnly dreamers know,Where the shy hares limp long paces,Where the night rooks go;Into old aisles where the past is all to him,Close as his shade can do,Always lacking the power to call to him,Near as I reach thereto!
What a good haunter I am, O tell him,Quickly make him knowIf he but sigh since my loss befell himStraight to his side I go.Tell him a faithful one is doingAll that love can doStill that his path may be worth pursuing,And to bring peace thereto.
Womanmuch missed, how you call to me, call to me,Saying that now you are not as you wereWhen you had changed from the one who was all to me,But as at first, when our day was fair.
Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then,Standing as when I drew near to the townWhere you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then,Even to the original air-blue gown!
Or is it only the breeze, in its listlessnessTravelling across the wet mead to me here,You being ever consigned to existlessness,Heard no more again far or near?
Thus I; faltering forward,Leaves around me falling,Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norwardAnd the woman calling.
December1912.
Icomeacross from Mellstock while the moon wastes weakerTo behold where I lived with you for twenty years and more:I shall go in the gray, at the passing of the mail-train,And need no setting open of the long familiar doorAs before.
The change I notice in my once own quarters!A brilliant budded border where the daisies used to be,The rooms new painted, and the pictures altered,And other cups and saucers, and no cozy nook for teaAs with me.
I discern the dim faces of the sleep-wrapt servants;They are not those who tended me through feeble hours and strong,But strangers quite, who never knew my rule here,Who never saw me painting, never heard my softling songFloat along.
So I don’t want to linger in this re-decked dwelling,I feel too uneasy at the contrasts I behold,And I make again for Mellstock to return here never,And rejoin the roomy silence, and the mute and manifoldSouls of old.
1913.
As“legal representative”I read a missive not my own,On new designs the senders giveFor clothes, in tints as shown.
Here figure blouses, gowns for tea,And presentation-trains of state,Charming ball-dresses, millinery,Warranted up to date.
And this gay-pictured, spring-time shoutOf Fashion, hails what lady proud?Her who before last year was outWas costumed in a shroud.
Whygo to Saint-Juliot? What’s Juliot to me?I was but made fancyBy some necromancyThat much of my life claims the spot as its key.
Yes. I have had dreams of that place in the West,And a maiden abidingThereat as in hiding;Fair-eyed and white-shouldered, broad-browed and brown-tressed.
And of how, coastward bound on a night long ago,There lonely I found her,The sea-birds around her,And other than nigh things uncaring to know.
So sweet her life there (in my thought has it seemed)That quickly she drew meTo take her unto me,And lodge her long years with me. Such have I dreamed.
But nought of that maid from Saint-Juliot I see;Can she ever have been here,And shed her life’s sheen here,The woman I thought a long housemate with me?
Does there even a place like Saint-Juliot exist?Or a Vallency ValleyWith stream and leafed alley,Or Beeny, or Bos with its flounce flinging mist?
February1913.
HeretoI come to interview a ghost;Whither, O whither will its whim now draw me?Up the cliff, down, till I’m lonely, lost,And the unseen waters’ ejaculations awe me.Where you will next be there’s no knowing,Facing round about me everywhere,With your nut-coloured hair,And gray eyes, and rose-flush coming and going.
Yes: I have re-entered your olden haunts at last;Through the years, through the dead scenes I have tracked you;What have you now found to say of our past—Viewed across the dark space wherein I have lacked you?Summer gave us sweets, but autumn wrought division?Things were not lastly as firstly wellWith us twain, you tell?But all’s closed now, despite Time’s derision.
I see what you are doing: you are leading me onTo the spots we knew when we haunted here together,The waterfall, above which the mist-bow shoneAt the then fair hour in the then fair weather,And the cave just under, with a voice still so hollowThat it seems to call out to me from forty years ago,When you were all aglow,And not the thin ghost that I now frailly follow!
Ignorant of what there is flitting here to see,The waked birds preen and the seals flop lazily,Soon you will have, Dear, to vanish from me,For the stars close their shutters and the dawn whitens hazily.Trust me, I mind not, though Life lours,The bringing me here; nay, bring me here again!I am just the same as whenOur days were a joy, and our paths through flowers.
Pentargan Bay.
Beenydid not quiver,Juliot grew not gray,Thin Valency’s riverHeld its wonted way.Bos seemed not to utterDimmest note of dirge,Targan mouth a mutterTo its creamy surge.
Yet though these, unheeding,Listless, passed the hourOf her spirit’s speeding,She had, in her flower,Sought and loved the places—Much and often pinedFor their lonely facesWhen in towns confined.
Why did not ValencyIn his purl deploreOne whose haunts were whence heDrew his limpid store?Why did Bos not thunder,Targan apprehendBody and breath were sunderOf their former friend?
I
Otheopal and the sapphire of that wandering western sea,And the woman riding high above with bright hair flapping free—The woman whom I loved so, and who loyally loved me.
II
The pale mews plained below us, and the waves seemed far awayIn a nether sky, engrossed in saying their ceaseless babbling say,As we laughed light-heartedly aloft on that clear-sunned March day.
III
A little cloud then cloaked us, and there flew an irised rain,And the Atlantic dyed its levels with a dull misfeatured stain,And then the sun burst out again, and purples prinked the main.
IV
—Still in all its chasmal beauty bulks old Beeny to the sky,And shall she and I not go there once again now March is nigh,And the sweet things said in that March say anew there by and by?
V
What if still in chasmal beauty looms that wild weird western shore,The woman now is—elsewhere—whom the ambling pony bore,And nor knows nor cares for Beeny, and will see it nevermore.
As I drive to the junction of lane and highway,And the drizzle bedrenches the waggonette,I look behind at the fading byway,And see on its slope, now glistening wet,Distinctly yet
Myself and a girlish form benightedIn dry March weather. We climb the roadBeside a chaise. We had just alightedTo ease the sturdy pony’s loadWhen he sighed and slowed.
What we did as we climbed, and what we talked ofMatters not much, nor to what it led,—Something that life will not be balked ofWithout rude reason till hope is dead,And feeling fled.
It filled but a minute. But was there everA time of such quality, since or before,In that hill’s story? To one mind never,Though it has been climbed, foot-swift, foot-sore,By thousands more.
Primaeval rocks form the road’s steep border,And much have they faced there, first and last,Of the transitory in Earth’s long order;But what they record in colour and castIs—that we two passed.
And to me, though Time’s unflinching rigour,In mindless rote, has ruled from sightThe substance now, one phantom figureRemains on the slope, as when that nightSaw us alight.
I look and see it there, shrinking, shrinking,I look back at it amid the rainFor the very last time; for my sand is sinking,And I shall traverse old love’s domainNever again.
March1913.
Nobodysays: Ah, that is the placeWhere chanced, in the hollow of years ago,What none of the Three Towns cared to know—The birth of a little girl of grace—The sweetest the house saw, first or last;Yet it was soOn that day long past.
Nobody thinks: There, there she layIn a room by the Hoe, like the bud of a flower,And listened, just after the bedtime hour,To the stammering chimes that used to playThe quaint Old Hundred-and-Thirteenth tuneIn Saint Andrew’s towerNight, morn, and noon.
Nobody calls to mind that hereUpon Boterel Hill, where the carters skid,With cheeks whose airy flush outbidFresh fruit in bloom, and free of fear,She cantered down, as if she must fall(Though she never did),To the charm of all.
Nay: one there is to whom these things,That nobody else’s mind calls back,Have a savour that scenes in being lack,And a presence more than the actual brings;To whom to-day is beneaped and stale,And its urgent clackBut a vapid tale.
Plymouth,March1913.
I
Queerare the ways of a man I know:He comes and standsIn a careworn craze,And looks at the sandsAnd the seaward haze,With moveless handsAnd face and gaze,Then turns to go . . .And what does he see when he gazes so?
II
They say he sees as an instant thingMore clear than to-day,A sweet soft sceneThat once was in playBy that briny green;Yes, notes alwayWarm, real, and keen,What his back years bring—A phantom of his own figuring.
III
Of this vision of his they might say more:Not only thereDoes he see this sight,But everywhereIn his brain—day, night,As if on the airIt were drawn rose bright—Yea, far from that shoreDoes he carry this vision of heretofore:
IV
A ghost-girl-rider. And though, toil-tried,He withers daily,Time touches her not,But she still rides gailyIn his rapt thoughtOn that shagged and shalyAtlantic spot,And as when first eyedDraws rein and sings to the swing of the tide.