“Love, while you were away there came to me—From whence I cannot tell—A plaintive lady pale and passionless,Who bent her eyes upon me critically,And weighed me with a wearing wistfulness,As if she knew me well.”
“I saw no lady of that wistful sortAs I came riding home.Perhaps she was some dame the Fates constrainBy memories sadder than she can support,Or by unhappy vacancy of brain,To leave her roof and roam?”
“Ah, but she knew me. And before this timeI have seen her, lending earTo my light outdoor words, and pondering each,Her frail white finger swayed in pantomime,As if she fain would close with me in speech,And yet would not come near.
“And once I saw her beckoning with her handAs I came into sightAt an upper window. And I at last went out;But when I reached where she had seemed to stand,And wandered up and down and searched about,I found she had vanished quite.”
Then thought I how my dead Love used to say,With a small smile, when sheWas waning wan, that she would hover roundAnd show herself after her passing dayTo any newer Love I might have found,But show her not to me.
“Whydo you stand in the dripping rye,Cold-lipped, unconscious, wet to the knee,When there are firesides near?” said I.“I told him I wished him dead,” said she.
“Yea, cried it in my haste to oneWhom I had loved, whom I well loved still;And die he did. And I hate the sun,And stand here lonely, aching, chill;
“Stand waiting, waiting under skiesThat blow reproach, the while I seeThe rooks sheer off to where he liesWrapt in a peace withheld from me.”
Whydo you harbour that great cheval-glassFilling up your narrow room?You never preen or plume,Or look in a week at your full-length figure—Picture of bachelor gloom!
“Well, when I dwelt in ancient England,Renting the valley farm,Thoughtless of all heart-harm,I used to gaze at the parson’s daughter,A creature of nameless charm.
“Thither there came a lover and won her,Carried her off from my view.O it was then I knewMisery of a cast undreamt of—More than, indeed, my due!
“Then far rumours of her ill-usageCame, like a chilling breathWhen a man languisheth;Followed by news that her mind lost balance,And, in a space, of her death.
“Soon sank her father; and next was the auction—Everything to be sold:Mid things new and oldStood this glass in her former chamber,Long in her use, I was told.
“Well, I awaited the sale and bought it . . .There by my bed it stands,And as the dawn expandsOften I see her pale-faced form thereBrushing her hair’s bright bands.
“There, too, at pallid midnight momentsQuick she will come to my call,Smile from the frame withalPonderingly, as she used to regard mePassing her father’s wall.
“So that it was for its revelationsI brought it oversea,And drag it about with me . . .Anon I shall break it and bury its fragmentsWhere my grave is to be.”
Betweenthe folding sea-downs,In the gloomOf a wailful wintry nightfall,When the boomOf the ocean, like a hammering in a hollow tomb,
Throbbed up the copse-clothed valleyFrom the shoreTo the chamber where I darkled,Sunk and soreWith gray ponderings why my Loved one had not come before
To salute me in the dwellingThat of lateI had hired to waste a while in—Vague of date,Quaint, and remote—wherein I now expectant sate;
On the solitude, unsignalled,Broke a manWho, in air as if at home there,Seemed to scanEvery fire-flecked nook of the apartment span by span.
A stranger’s and no lover’sEyes were these,Eyes of a man who measuresWhat he seesBut vaguely, as if wrapt in filmy phantasies.
Yea, his bearing was so absentAs he stood,It bespoke a chord so plaintiveIn his mood,That soon I judged he would not wrong my quietude.
“Ah—the supper is just ready,”Then he said,“And the years’-long binned MadeiraFlashes red!”(There was no wine, no food, no supper-table spread.)
“You will forgive my coming,Lady fair?I see you as at that timeRising there,The self-same curious querying in your eyes and air.
“Yet no. How so? You wear notThe same gown,Your locks show woful difference,Are not brown:What, is it not as when I hither came from town?
“And the place . . . But you seem other—Can it be?What’s this that Time is doingUnto me?Youdwell here, unknown woman? . . . Whereabouts, then, is she?
“And the house—things are much shifted.—Put them whereThey stood on this night’s fellow;Shift her chair:Here was the couch: and the piano should be there.”
I indulged him, verily nerve-strainedBeing alone,And I moved the things as bidden,One by one,And feigned to push the old piano where he had shown.
“Aha—now I can see her!Stand aside:Don’t thrust her from the tableWhere, meek-eyed,She makes attempt with matron-manners to preside.
“She serves me: now she rises,Goes to play . . .But you obstruct her, fill herWith dismay,And embarrassed, scared, she vanishes away!”
And, as ’twere useless longerTo persist,He sighed, and sought the entryEre I wist,And retreated, disappearing soundless in the mist.
That here some mighty passionOnce had burned,Which still the walls enghosted,I discerned,And that by its strong spell mine might be overturned.
I sat depressed; till, later,My Love came;But something in the chamberDimmed our flame,—An emanation, making our due words fall tame,
As if the intenser dramaShown me thereOf what the walls had witnessedFilled the air,And left no room for later passion anywhere.
So came it that our fervoursDid quite failOf future consummation—Being made quailBy the weird witchery of the parlour’s hidden tale,
Which I, as years passed, faintlyLearnt to trace,—One of sad love, born full-wingedIn that placeWhere the predestined sorrowers first stood face to face.
And as that month of winterCircles round,And the evening of the date-dayGrows embrowned,I am conscious of those presences, and sit spellbound.
There, often—lone, forsaken—Queries breedWithin me; whether a phantomHad my heedOn that strange night, or was it some wrecked heart indeed?
Thatlove’s dull smart distressed my heartHe shrewdly learnt to see,But that I was in love with a dead manNever suspected he.
He searched for the trace of a pictured face,He watched each missive come,And a note that seemed like a love-lineMade him look frozen and glum.
He dogged my feet to the city street,He followed me to the sea,But not to the neighbouring churchyardDid he dream of following me.
Shecharged me with having said this and thatTo another woman long years before,In the very parlour where we sat,—
Sat on a night when the endless pourOf rain on the roof and the road belowBent the spring of the spirit more and more . . .
—So charged she me; and the Cupid’s bowOf her mouth was hard, and her eyes, and her face,And her white forefinger lifted slow.
Had she done it gently, or shown a traceThat not too curiously would she viewA folly passed ere her reign had place,
A kiss might have ended it. But I knewFrom the fall of each word, and the pause between,That the curtain would drop upon us twoEre long, in our play of slave and queen.
Hepaused on the sill of a door ajarThat screened a lively liquor-bar,For the name had reached him through the doorOf her he had married the week before.
“We called her the Hack of the Parade;But she was discreet in the games she played;If slightly worn, she’s pretty yet,And gossips, after all, forget.
“And he knows nothing of her past;I am glad the girl’s in luck at last;Such ones, though stale to native eyes,Newcomers snatch at as a prize.”
“Yes, being a stranger he sees her blentOf all that’s fresh and innocent,Nor dreams how many a love-campaignShe had enjoyed before his reign!”
That night there was the splash of a fallOver the slimy harbour-wall:They searched, and at the deepest placeFound him with crabs upon his face.
Helay awake, with a harassed air,And she, in her cloud of loose lank hair,Seemed trouble-triedAs the dawn drew in on their faces there.
The chamber looked far over the seaFrom a white hotel on a white-stoned quay,And stepping a strideHe parted the window-drapery.
Above the level horizon spreadThe sunrise, firing them foot to headFrom its smouldering lair,And painting their pillows with dyes of red.
“What strange disquiets have stirred you, dear,This dragging night, with starts in fearOf me, as it were,Or of something evil hovering near?”
“My husband, can I have fear of you?What should one fear from a man whom few,Or none, had matchedIn that late long spell of delays undue!”
He watched her eyes in the heaving sun:“Then what has kept, O reticent one,Those lids unlatched—Anything promised I’ve not yet done?”
“O it’s not a broken promise of yours(For what quite lightly your lip assuresThe due time brings)That has troubled my sleep, and no waking cures!” . . .
“I have shaped my will; ’tis at hand,” said he;“I subscribe it to-day, that no risk there beIn the hap of thingsOf my leaving you menaced by poverty.”
“That a boon provision I’m safe to get,Signed, sealed by my lord as it were a debt,I cannot doubt,Or ever this peering sun be set.”
“But you flung my arms away from your side,And faced the wall. No month-old brideEre the tour be outIn an air so loth can be justified?
“Ah—had you a male friend once loved well,Upon whose suit disaster fellAnd frustrance swift?Honest you are, and may care to tell.”
She lay impassive, and nothing brokeThe stillness other than, stroke by stroke,The lazy liftOf the tide below them; till she spoke:
“I once had a friend—a Love, if you will—Whose wife forsook him, and sank untilShe was made a thrallIn a prison-cell for a deed of ill . . .
“He remained alone; and we met—to love,But barring legitimate joy thereofStood a doorless wall,Though we prized each other all else above.
“And this was why, though I’d touched my prime,I put off suitors from time to time—Yourself with the rest—Till friends, who approved you, called it crime,
“And when misgivings weighed on meIn my lover’s absence, hurriedly,And much distrest,I took you . . . Ah, that such could be! . . .
“Now, saw you when crossing from yonder shoreAt yesternoon, that the packet boreOn a white-wreathed bierA coffined body towards the fore?
“Well, while you stood at the other end,The loungers talked, and I could but lendA listening ear,For they named the dead. ’Twas the wife of my friend.
“He was there, but did not note me, veiled,Yet I saw that a joy, as of one unjailed,Now shone in his gaze;He knew not his hope of me just had failed!
“They had brought her home: she was born in this isle;And he will return to his domicile,And pass his daysAlone, and not as he dreamt erstwhile!”
“—So you’ve lost a sprucer spouse than I!”She held her peace, as if fain denyShe would indeedFor his pleasure’s sake, but could lip no lie.
“One far less formal and plain and slow!”She let the laconic assertion goAs if of needShe held the conviction that it was so.
“Regard me as his he always should,He had said, and wed me he vowed he wouldIn his prime or sereMost verily do, if ever he could.
“And this fulfilment is now his aim,For a letter, addressed in my maiden name,Has dogged me here,Reminding me faithfully of his claim.
“And it started a hope like a lightning-streakThat I might go to him—say for a week—And afford you rightTo put me away, and your vows unspeak.
“To be sure you have said, as of dim intent,That marriage is a plain eventOf black and white,Without any ghost of sentiment,
“And my heart has quailed.—But deny it trueThat you will never this lock undo!No God intendsTo thwart the yearning He’s father to!”
The husband hemmed, then blandly bowedIn the light of the angry morning cloud.“So my idyll ends,And a drama opens!” he mused aloud;
And his features froze. “You may take it as trueThat I will never this lock undoFor so depravedA passion as that which kindles you.”
Said she: “I am sorry you see it so;I had hoped you might have let me go,And thus been savedThe pain of learning there’s more to know.”
“More? What may that be? Gad, I thinkYou have told me enough to make me blink!Yet if more remainThen own it to me. I will not shrink!”
“Well, it is this. As we could not seeThat a legal marriage could ever be,To end our painWe united ourselves informally;
“And vowed at a chancel-altar nigh,With book and ring, a lifelong tie;A contract vainTo the world, but real to Him on High.”
“And you became as his wife?”—“I did.”—He stood as stiff as a caryatid,And said, “Indeed! . . .No matter. You’re mine, whatever you ye hid!”
“But is it right! When I only gaveMy hand to you in a sweat to save,Through desperate need(As I thought), my fame, for I was not brave!”
“To save your fame? Your meaning is dim,For nobody knew of your altar-whim?”“I mean—I fearedThere might be fruit of my tie with him;
“And to cloak it by marriage I’m not the first,Though, maybe, morally most accurstThrough your unpeeredAnd strict uprightness. That’s the worst!
“While yesterday his worn contoursConvinced me that love like his endures,And that my troth-plightHad been his, in fact, and not truly yours.”
“So, my lady, you raise the veil by degrees . . .I own this last is enough to freezeThe warmest wight!Now hear the other side, if you please:
“I did say once, though without intent,That marriage is a plain eventOf black and white,Whatever may be its sentiment.
“I’ll act accordingly, none the lessThat you soiled the contract in time of stress,Thereto inducedBy the feared results of your wantonness.
“But the thing is over, and no one knows,And it’s nought to the future what you disclose.That you’ll be loosedFor such an episode, don’t suppose!
“No: I’ll not free you. And if it appearThere was too good ground for your first fearFrom your amorous tricks,I’ll father the child. Yes, by God, my dear.
“Even should you fly to his arms, I’ll damnOpinion, and fetch you; treat as shamYour mutinous kicks,And whip you home. That’s the sort I am!”
She whitened. “Enough . . . Since you disapproveI’ll yield in silence, and never moveTill my last pulse ticksA footstep from the domestic groove.”
“Then swear it,” he said, “and your king uncrown.”He drew her forth in her long white gown,And she knelt and swore.“Good. Now you may go and again lie down
“Since you’ve played these pranks and given no sign,You shall crave this man of yours; pine and pineWith sighings sore,’Till I’ve starved your love for him; nailed you mine.
“I’m a practical man, and want no tears;You’ve made a fool of me, it appears;That you don’t againIs a lesson I’ll teach you in future years.”
She answered not, but lay listlesslyWith her dark dry eyes on the coppery sea,That now and thenFlung its lazy flounce at the neighbouring quay.
1910.
Fromthe slow march and muffled drumAnd crowds distrest,And book and bell, at length I have comeTo my full rest.
A ten years’ rule beneath the sunIs wound up here,And what I have done, what left undone,Figures out clear.
Yet in the estimate of suchIt grieves me moreThat I by some was loved so muchThan that I bore,
From others, judgment of that hueWhich over-hopeBreeds from a theoretic viewOf regal scope.
For kingly opportunitiesRight many have sighed;How best to bear its devilriesThose learn who have tried!
I have eaten the fat and drunk the sweet,Lived the life outFrom the first greeting glad drum-beatTo the last shout.
What pleasure earth affords to kingsI have enjoyedThrough its long vivid pulse-stirringsEven till it cloyed.
What days of drudgery, nights of stressCan cark a throne,Even one maintained in peacefulness,I too have known.
And so, I think, could I step backTo life again,I should prefer the average trackOf average men,
Since, as with them, what kingship wouldIt cannot do,Nor to first thoughts however goodHold itself true.
Something binds hard the royal hand,As all that be,And it is That has shaped, has plannedMy acts and me.
May1910.
AtWestminster, hid from the light of day,Many who once had shone as monarchs lay.
Edward the Pious, and two Edwards more,The second Richard, Henrys three or four;
That is to say, those who were called the Third,Fifth, Seventh, and Eighth (the much self-widowered),
And James the Scot, and near him Charles the Second,And, too, the second George could there be reckoned.
Of women, Mary and Queen Elizabeth,And Anne, all silent in a musing death;
And William’s Mary, and Mary, Queen of Scots,And consort-queens whose names oblivion blots;
And several more whose chronicle one seesAdorning ancient royal pedigrees.
—Now, as they drowsed on, freed from Life’s old thrall,And heedless, save of things exceptional,
Said one: “What means this throbbing thudding soundThat reaches to us here from overground;
“A sound of chisels, augers, planes, and saws,Infringing all ecclesiastic laws?
“And these tons-weight of timber on us pressed,Unfelt here since we entered into rest?
“Surely, at least to us, being corpses royal,A meet repose is owing by the loyal?”
“—Perhaps a scaffold!” Mary Stuart sighed,“If such still be. It was that way I died.”
“—Ods! Far more like,” said he the many-wived,“That for a wedding ’tis this work’s contrived.
“Ha-ha! I never would bow down to Rimmon,But I had a rare time with those six women!”
“Not all at once?” gasped he who loved confession.“Nay, nay!” said Hal. “That would have been transgression.”
“—They build a catafalque here, black and tall,Perhaps,” mused Richard, “for some funeral?”
And Anne chimed in: “Ah, yes: it maybe so!”“Nay!” squeaked Eliza. “Little you seem to know—
“Clearly ’tis for some crowning here in state,As they crowned us at our long bygone date;
“Though we’d no such a power of carpentry,But let the ancient architecture be;
“If I were up there where the parsons sit,In one of my gold robes, I’d see to it!”
“But you are not,” Charles chuckled. “You are here,And never will know the sun again, my dear!”
“Yea,” whispered those whom no one had addressed;“With slow, sad march, amid a folk distressed,We were brought here, to take our dusty rest.
“And here, alas, in darkness laid below,We’ll wait and listen, and endure the show . . .Clamour dogs kingship; afterwards not so!”
1911.
Thechimes called midnight, just at interlune,And the daytime talk of the Roman investigationsWas checked by silence, save for the husky tuneThe bubbling waters played near the excavations.
And a warm air came up from underground,And a flutter, as of a filmy shape unsepulchred,That collected itself, and waited, and looked around:Nothing was seen, but utterances could be heard:
Those of the goddess whose shrine was beneath the pileOf the God with the baldachined altar overhead:“And what did you get by raising this nave and aisleClose on the site of the temple I tenanted?
“The notes of your organ have thrilled down out of viewTo the earth-clogged wrecks of my edifice many a year,Though stately and shining once—ay, long ere youHad set up crucifix and candle here.
“Your priests have trampled the dust of mine without rueing,Despising the joys of man whom I so much loved,Though my springs boil on by your Gothic arcades and pewing,And sculptures crude . . . Would Jove they could be removed!”
“—Repress, O lady proud, your traditional ires;You know not by what a frail thread we equally hang;It is said we are images both—twitched by people’s desires;And that I, like you, fail as a song men yesterday sang!”
* * * * *
And the olden dark hid the cavities late laid bare,And all was suspended and soundless as before,Except for a gossamery noise fading off in the air,And the boiling voice of the waters’ medicinal pour.
Bath.
Heregoes a man of seventy-four,Who sees not what life means for him,And here another in years a scoreWho reads its very figure and trim.
The one who shall walk to-day with meIs not the youth who gazes far,But the breezy wight who cannot seeWhat Earth’s ingrained conditions are.
“Awomannever agreed to it!” said my knowing friend to me.“That one thing she’d refuse to do for Solomon’s mines in fee:No woman ever will make herself look older than she is.”I did not answer; but I thought, “you err there, ancient Quiz.”
It took a rare one, true, to do it; for she was surely rare—As rare a soul at that sweet time of her life as she was fair.And urging motives, too, were strong, for ours was a passionate case,Yea, passionate enough to lead to freaking with that young face.
I have told no one about it, should perhaps make few believe,But I think it over now that life looms dull and years bereave,How blank we stood at our bright wits’ end, two frail barks in distress,How self-regard in her was slain by her large tenderness.
I said: “The only chance for us in a crisis of this kindIs going it thorough!”—“Yes,” she calmly breathed. “Well, I don’t mind.”And we blanched her dark locks ruthlessly: set wrinkles on her brow;Ay—she was a right rare woman then, whatever she may be now.
That night we heard a coach drive up, and questions asked below.“A gent with an elderly wife, sir,” was returned from the bureau.And the wheels went rattling on, and free at last from public kenWe washed all off in her chamber and restored her youth again.
How many years ago it was! Some fifty can it beSince that adventure held us, and she played old wife to me?But in time convention won her, as it wins all women at last,And now she is rich and respectable, and time has buried the past.
Iroseup as my custom isOn the eve of All-Souls’ day,And left my grave for an hour or soTo call on those I used to knowBefore I passed away.
I visited my former LoveAs she lay by her husband’s side;I asked her if life pleased her, nowShe was rid of a poet wrung in brow,And crazed with the ills he eyed;
Who used to drag her here and thereWherever his fancies led,And point out pale phantasmal things,And talk of vain vague purposingsThat she discredited.
She was quite civil, and replied,“Old comrade, is that you?Well, on the whole, I like my life.—I know I swore I’d be no wife,But what was I to do?
“You see, of all men for my sexA poet is the worst;Women are practical, and theyCrave the wherewith to pay their way,And slake their social thirst.
“You were a poet—quite the idealThat we all love awhile:But look at this man snoring here—He’s no romantic chanticleer,Yet keeps me in good style.
“He makes no quest into my thoughts,But a poet wants to knowWhat one has felt from earliest days,Why one thought not in other ways,And one’s Loves of long ago.”
Her words benumbed my fond frail ghost;The nightmares neighed from their stallsThe vampires screeched, the harpies flew,And under the dim dawn I withdrewTo Death’s inviolate halls.
OnMonday night I closed my door,And thought you were not as heretofore,And little cared if we met no more.
I seemed on Tuesday night to traceSomething beyond mere commonplaceIn your ideas, and heart, and face.
On Wednesday I did not opineYour life would ever be one with mine,Though if it were we should well combine.
On Thursday noon I liked you well,And fondly felt that we must dwellNot far apart, whatever befell.
On Friday it was with a thrillIn gazing towards your distant villI owned you were my dear one still.
I saw you wholly to my mindOn Saturday—even one who shrinedAll that was best of womankind.
As wing-clipt sea-gull for the seaOn Sunday night I longed for thee,Without whom life were waste to me!
Hadyou wept; had you but neared me with a frail uncertain ray,Dewy as the face of the dawn, in your large and luminous eye,Then would have come back all the joys the tidings had slain that day,And a new beginning, a fresh fair heaven, have smoothed the things awry.But you were less feebly human, and no passionate need for clingingPossessed your soul to overthrow reserve when I came near;Ay, though you suffer as much as I from storms the hours are bringingUpon your heart and mine, I never see you shed a tear.
The deep strong woman is weakest, the weak one is the strong;The weapon of all weapons best for winning, you have not used;Have you never been able, or would you not, through the evil times and long?Has not the gift been given you, or such gift have you refused?When I bade me not absolve you on that evening or the morrow,Why did you not make war on me with those who weep like rain?You felt too much, so gained no balm for all your torrid sorrow,And hence our deep division, and our dark undying pain.
Idreamthat the dearest I ever knewHas died and been entombed.I am sure it’s a dream that cannot be true,But I am so overgloomedBy its persistence, that I would gladlyHave quick death take me,Rather than longer think thus sadly;So wake me, wake me!
It has lasted days, but minute and hourI expect to get arousedAnd find him as usual in the bowerWhere we so happily housed.Yet stays this nightmare too appalling,And like a web shakes me,And piteously I keep on calling,And no one wakes me!
“Whatdo you see in that time-touched stone,When nothing is thereBut ashen blankness, although you give itA rigid stare?
“You look not quite as if you saw,But as if you heard,Parting your lips, and treading softlyAs mouse or bird.
“It is only the base of a pillar, they’ll tell you,That came to usFrom a far old hill men used to nameAreopagus.”
—“I know no art, and I only viewA stone from a wall,But I am thinking that stone has echoedThe voice of Paul,
“Paul as he stood and preached beside itFacing the crowd,A small gaunt figure with wasted features,Calling out loud
“Words that in all their intimate accentsPattered uponThat marble front, and were far reflected,And then were gone.
“I’m a labouring man, and know but little,Or nothing at all;But I can’t help thinking that stone once echoedThe voice of Paul.”
“Man, you too, aren’t you, one of these rough followers of the criminal?All hanging hereabout to gather how he’s going to bearExamination in the hall.” She flung disdainful glances onThe shabby figure standing at the fire with others there,Who warmed them by its flare.
“No indeed, my skipping maiden: I know nothing of the trial here,Or criminal, if so he be.—I chanced to come this way,And the fire shone out into the dawn, and morning airs are cold now;I, too, was drawn in part by charms I see before me play,That I see not every day.”
“Ha, ha!” then laughed the constables who also stood to warm themselves,The while another maiden scrutinized his features hard,As the blaze threw into contrast every line and knot that wrinkled them,Exclaiming, “Why, last night when he was brought in by the guard,You were with him in the yard!”
“Nay, nay, you teasing wench, I say! You know you speak mistakenly.Cannot a tired pedestrian who has footed it afarHere on his way from northern parts, engrossed in humble marketings,Come in and rest awhile, although judicial doings areAfoot by morning star?”
“O, come, come!” laughed the constables. “Why, man, you speak the dialectHe uses in his answers; you can hear him up the stairs.So own it. We sha’n’t hurt ye. There he’s speaking now! His syllablesAre those you sound yourself when you are talking unawares,As this pretty girl declares.”
“And you shudder when his chain clinks!” she rejoined. “O yes, I noticed it.And you winced, too, when those cuffs they gave him echoed to us here.They’ll soon be coming down, and you may then have to defend yourselfUnless you hold your tongue, or go away and keep you clearWhen he’s led to judgment near!”
“No! I’ll be damned in hell if I know anything about the man!No single thing about him more than everybody knows!Must not I even warm my hands but I am charged with blasphemies?” . . .—His face convulses as the morning cock that moment crows,And he stops, and turns, and goes.
“Morethan half my life longDid they weigh me falsely, to my bitter wrong,But they all have shrunk away into the silenceLike a lost song.
“And the day has dawned and comeFor forgiveness, when the past may hold it dumbOn the once reverberate words of hatred utteredHalf in delirium . . .
“With folded lips and handsThey lie and wait what next the Will commands,And doubtless think, if think they can: ‘Let discordSink with Life’s sands!’
“By these late years their names,Their virtues, their hereditary claims,May be as near defacement at their grave-placeAs are their fames.”
—Such thoughts bechanced to seizeA traveller’s mind—a man of memories—As he set foot within the western cityWhere had died these
Who in their lifetime deemedHim their chief enemy—one whose brain had schemedTo get their dingy greatness deeplier dingiedAnd disesteemed.
So, sojourning in their town,He mused on them and on their once renown,And said, “I’ll seek their resting-place to-morrowEre I lie down,
“And end, lest I forget,Those ires of many years that I regret,Renew their names, that men may see some liegenessIs left them yet.”
Duly next day he wentAnd sought the church he had known them to frequent,And wandered in the precincts, set on eyeingWhere they lay pent,
Till by remembrance ledHe stood at length beside their slighted bed,Above which, truly, scarce a line or letterCould now be read.
“Thus years obliterateTheir graven worth, their chronicle, their date!At once I’ll garnish and revive the recordOf their past state,
“That still the sage may sayIn pensive progress here where they decay,‘This stone records a luminous line whose talentsTold in their day.’”
While speaking thus he turned,For a form shadowed where they lay inurned,And he beheld a stranger in foreign vesture,And tropic-burned.
“Sir, I am right pleased to viewThat ancestors of mine should interest you,For I have come of purpose here to trace them . . .They are time-worn, true,
“But that’s a fault, at most,Sculptors can cure. On the Pacific coastI have vowed for long that relics of my forbearsI’d trace ere lost,
“And hitherward I come,Before this same old Time shall strike me numb,To carry it out.”—“Strange, this is!” said the other;“What mind shall plumb
“Coincident design!Though these my father’s enemies were and mine,I nourished a like purpose—to restore themEach letter and line.”
“Such magnanimityIs now not needed, sir; for you will seeThat since I am here, a thing like this is, plainly,Best done by me.”
The other bowed, and left,Crestfallen in sentiment, as one bereftOf some fair object he had been moved to cherish,By hands more deft.
And as he slept that nightThe phantoms of the ensepulchred stood up-rightBefore him, trembling that he had set him seekingTheir charnel-site.
And, as unknowing his ruth,Asked as with terrors founded not on truthWhy he should want them. “Ha,” they hollowly hackered,“You come, forsooth,
“By stealth to obliterateOur graven worth, our chronicle, our date,That our descendant may not gild the recordOf our past state,
“And that no sage may sayIn pensive progress near where we decay:‘This stone records a luminous line whose talentsTold in their day.’”
Upon the morrow he wentAnd to that town and churchyard never bentHis ageing footsteps till, some twelvemonths onward,An accident
Once more detained him there;And, stirred by hauntings, he must needs repairTo where the tomb was. Lo, it stood still wastingIn no man’s care.
“The travelled man you metThe last time,” said the sexton, “has not yetAppeared again, though wealth he had in plenty.—Can he forget?
“The architect was hiredAnd came here on smart summons as desired,But never the descendant came to tell himWhat he required.”
And so the tomb remainedUntouched, untended, crumbling, weather-stained,And though the one-time foe was fain to right itHe still refrained.
“I’ll set about it whenI am sure he’ll come no more. Best wait till then.”But so it was that never the stranger enteredThat city again.
And the well-meaner diedWhile waiting tremulously unsatisfiedThat no return of the family’s foreign scionWould still betide.
And many years slid by,And active church-restorers cast their eyeUpon the ancient garth and hoary buildingThe tomb stood nigh.
And when they had scraped each wall,Pulled out the stately pews, and smartened all,“It will be well,” declared the spruce church-warden,“To overhaul
“And broaden this path where shown;Nothing prevents it but an old tombstonePertaining to a family forgotten,Of deeds unknown.
“Their names can scarce be read,Depend on’t, all who care for them are dead.”So went the tomb, whose shards were as path-pavingDistributed.
Over it and aboutMen’s footsteps beat, and wind and water-spout,Until the names, aforetime gnawed by weathers,Were quite worn out.
So that no sage can sayIn pensive progress near where they decay,“This stone records a luminous line whose talentsTold in their day.”
Regretnot me;Beneath the sunny treeI lie uncaring, slumbering peacefully.
Swift as the lightI flew my faery flight;Ecstatically I moved, and feared no night.
I did not knowThat heydays fade and go,But deemed that what was would be always so.
I skipped at mornBetween the yellowing corn,Thinking it good and glorious to be born.
I ran at evesAmong the piled-up sheaves,Dreaming, “I grieve not, therefore nothing grieves.”
Now soon will comeThe apple, pear, and plumAnd hinds will sing, and autumn insects hum.
Again you will fareTo cider-makings rare,And junketings; but I shall not be there.
Yet gaily singUntil the pewter ringThose songs we sang when we went gipsying.
And lightly danceSome triple-timed romanceIn coupled figures, and forget mischance;
And mourn not meBeneath the yellowing tree;For I shall mind not, slumbering peacefully.
Letus off and search, and find a placeWhere yours and mine can be natural lives,Where no one comes who dissects and divesAnd proclaims that ours is a curious case,That its touch of romance can scarcely grace.
You would think it strange at first, but thenEverything has been strange in its time.When some one said on a day of the primeHe would bow to no brazen god againHe doubtless dazed the mass of men.
None will recognize us as a pair whose claimsTo righteous judgment we care not making;Who have doubted if breath be worth the taking,And have no respect for the current famesWhence the savour has flown while abide the names.
We have found us already shunned, disdained,And for re-acceptance have not once striven;Whatever offence our course has givenThe brunt thereof we have long sustained.Well, let us away, scorned unexplained.
“Nosmoke spreads out of this chimney-pot,The people who lived here have left the spot,And others are coming who knew them not.
“If you listen anon, with an ear intent,The voices, you’ll find, will be differentFrom the well-known ones of those who went.”
“Why did they go? Their tones so blandWere quite familiar to our band;The comers we shall not understand.”
“They look for a new life, rich and strange;They do not know that, let them rangeWherever they may, they will get no change.
“They will drag their house-gear ever so farIn their search for a home no miseries mar;They will find that as they were they are,
“That every hearth has a ghost, alack,And can be but the scene of a bivouacTill they move perforce—no time to pack!”
I
I have risen again,And awhile surveyBy my chilly rayThrough your window-paneYour upturned face,As you think, “Ah-sheNow dreams of meIn her distant place!”
II
I pierce her blindIn her far-off home:She fixes a comb,And says in her mind,“I start in an hour;Whom shall I meet?Won’t the men be sweet,And the women sour!”
Inhis early days he was quite surprisedWhen she told him she was compromisedBy meetings and lingerings at his whim,And thinking not of herself but him;While she lifted orbs aggrieved and roundThat scandal should so soon abound,(As she had raised them to nine or tenOf antecedent nice young men)And in remorse he thought with a sigh,How good she is, and how bad am I!—It was years before he understoodThat she was the wicked one—he the good.
“Ohe’ssuffering—maybe dying—and I not there to aid,And smooth his bed and whisper to him! Can I nohow go?Only the nurse’s brief twelve words thus hurriedly conveyed,As by stealth, to let me know.
“He was the best and brightest!—candour shone upon his brow,And I shall never meet again a soldier such as he,And I loved him ere I knew it, and perhaps he’s sinking now,Far, far removed from me!”
—The yachts ride mute at anchor and the fulling moon is fair,And the giddy folk are strutting up and down the smooth parade,And in her wild distraction she seems not to be awareThat she lives no more a maid,
But has vowed and wived herself to one who blessed the ground she trodTo and from his scene of ministry, and thought her history knownIn its last particular to him—aye, almost as to God,And believed her quite his own.
So great her absentmindedness she droops as in a swoon,And a movement of aversion mars her recent spousal grace,And in silence we two sit here in our waning honeymoonAt this idle watering-place . . .
What now I see before me is a long lane overhungWith lovelessness, and stretching from the present to the grave.And I would I were away from this, with friends I knew when young,Ere a woman held me slave.
“Whatare you still, still thinking,”He asked in vague surmise,“That stare at the wick unblinkingWith those great lost luminous eyes?”
“O, I see a poor moth burningIn the candle-flame,” said she,“Its wings and legs are turningTo a cinder rapidly.”
“Moths fly in from the heather,”He said, “now the days decline.”“I know,” said she. “The weather,I hope, will at last be fine.
“I think,” she added lightly,“I’ll look out at the door.The ring the moon wears nightlyMay be visible now no more.”
She rose, and, little heeding,Her husband then went onWith his attentive readingIn the annals of ages gone.
Outside the house a figureCame from the tumulus near,And speedily waxed bigger,And clasped and called her Dear.
“I saw the pale-winged tokenYou sent through the crack,” sighed she.“That moth is burnt and brokenWith which you lured out me.
“And were I as the moth isIt might be better farFor one whose marriage troth isShattered as potsherds are!”
Then grinned the Ancient BritonFrom the tumulus treed with pine:“So, hearts are thwartly smittenIn these days as in mine!”
Throughsnowy woods and shadyWe went to play a tuneTo the lonely manor-ladyBy the light of the Christmas moon.
We violed till, upward glancingTo where a mirror leaned,We saw her airily dancing,Deeming her movements screened;
Dancing alone in the room there,Thin-draped in her robe of night;Her postures, glassed in the gloom there,Were a strange phantasmal sight.
She had learnt (we heard when homing)That her roving spouse was dead;Why she had danced in the gloamingWe thought, but never said.
Justat the corner of the wallWe met—yes, he and I—Who had not faced in camp or hallSince we bade home good-bye,And what once happened came back—all—Out of those years gone by.
And that strange woman whom we knewAnd loved—long dead and gone,Whose poor half-perished residue,Tombless and trod, lay yon!But at this moment to our viewRose like a phantom wan.
And in his fixed face I could see,Lit by a lurid shine,The drama re-enact which sheHad dyed incarnadineFor us, and more. And doubtless heBeheld it too in mine.
A start, as at one slightly known,And with an indifferent airWe passed, without a sign being shownThat, as it real were,A memory-acted scene had thrownIts tragic shadow there.
Iopenedmy shutter at sunrise,And looked at the hill hard by,And I heartily grieved for the comradeWho wandered up there to die.
I let in the morn on the morrow,And failed not to think of him then,As he trod up that rise in the twilight,And never came down again.
I undid the shutter a week thence,But not until after I’d turnedDid I call back his last departureBy the upland there discerned.
Uncovering the casement long later,I bent to my toil till the gray,When I said to myself, “Ah—what ails me,To forget him all the day!”
As daily I flung back the shutterIn the same blank bald routine,He scarcely once rose to remembranceThrough a month of my facing the scene.
And ah, seldom now do I ponderAt the window as heretoforeOn the long valued one who died yonder,And wastes by the sycamore.
Aplaintilt-bonnet on her headShe took the path across the leaze.—Her spouse the vicar, gardening, said,“Too dowdy that, for coquetries,So I can hoe at ease.”
But when she had passed into the heath,And gained the wood beyond the flat,She raised her skirts, and from beneathUnpinned and drew as from a sheathAn ostrich-feathered hat.
And where the hat had hung she nowConcealed and pinned the dowdy hood,And set the hat upon her brow,And thus emerging from the woodTripped on in jaunty mood.
The sun was low and crimson-facedAs two came that way from the town,And plunged into the wood untraced . . .When separately therefrom they pacedThe sun had quite gone down.
The hat and feather disappeared,The dowdy hood again was donned,And in the gloom the fair one nearedHer home and husband dour, who connedCalmly his blue-eyed blonde.
“To-day,” he said, “you have shown good sense,A dress so modest and so meekShould always deck your goings henceAlone.” And as a recompenseHe kissed her on the cheek.
ByRome’s dim relics there walks a man,Eyes bent; and he carries a basket and spade;I guess what impels him to scrape and scan;Yea, his dreams of that Empire long decayed.
“Vast was Rome,” he must muse, “in the world’s regard,Vast it looms there still, vast it ever will be;”And he stoops as to dig and unmine some shardLeft by those who are held in such memory.
But no; in his basket, see, he has broughtA little white furred thing, stiff of limb,Whose life never won from the world a thought;It is this, and not Rome, that is moving him.
And to make it a grave he has come to the spot,And he delves in the ancient dead’s long home;Their fames, their achievements, the man knows not;The furred thing is all to him—nothing Rome!
“Here say you that Cæsar’s warriors lie?—But my little white cat was my only friend!Could she but live, might the record dieOf Cæsar, his legions, his aims, his end!”
Well, Rome’s long rule here is oft and againA theme for the sages of history,And the small furred life was worth no one’s pen;Yet its mourner’s mood has a charm for me.
November1910.