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diff --git a/old/satcr10.txt b/old/satcr10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..157af76 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/satcr10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5631 @@ +Project Gutenberg Etext of Satires of Circumstance etc. by Hardy +#9 in our series by Thomas Hardy + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.07.00*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk, +from the 1919 Macmillan and Co edition. + + + + + +SATIRES OF CIRCUMSTANCE WITH MISCELLANEOUS PIECES + +by Thomas Hardy + + + + +Contents: + +Lyrics and Reveries + In Front of the Landscape + Channel Firing + The Convergence of the Twain + The Ghost of the Past + After the Visit + To Meet, or Otherwise + The Difference + The Sun on the Bookcase + "When I set out for Lyonnesse" + A Thunderstorm in Town + The Torn Letter + Beyond the Last Lamp + The Face at the Casement + Lost Love + "My spirit will not haunt the mound" + "Wessex Heights + In Death divided + The Place on the Map + Where the Picnic was + The Schreckhorn + A Singer asleep + A Plaint to Man + God's Funeral + Spectres that grieve + "Ah, are you digging on my grave?" +Satires of Circumstance + At Tea + In Church + By her Aunt's Grave + In the Room of the Bride-elect + At the Watering-place + In the Cemetery + Outside the Window + In the Study + At the Altar-rail + In the Nuptial Chamber + In the Restaurant + At the Draper's + On the Death-bed + Over the Coffin + In the Moonlight + Self-unconscious + The Discovery + Tolerance + Before and after Summer + At Day-close in November + The Year's Awakening + Under the Waterfall + The Spell of the Rose + St. Launce's revisited +Poems of 1912-13- + The Going + Your Last Drive + The Walk + Rain on a Grace + "I found her out there" + Without Ceremony + Lament + The Haunter + The Voice + His Visitor + A Circular + A Dream or No + After a Journey + A Death-ray recalled + Beeny Cliff + At Castle Boterel + Places + The Phantom Horsewoman +Miscellaneous Pieces + The Wistful Lady + The Woman in the Rye + The Cheval-Glass + The Re-enactment + Her Secret + "She charged me" + The Newcomer's Wife + A Conversation at Dawn + A King's Soliloquy + The Coronation + Aquae Sulis + Seventy-four and Twenty + The Elopement + "I rose up as my custom is" + A Week + Had you wept + Bereft, she thinks she dreams + In the British Museum + In the Servants' Quarters + The Obliterate Tomb + "Regret not me" + The Recalcitrants + Starlings on the Roof + The Moon looks in + The Sweet Hussy + The Telegram + The Moth-signal + Seen by the Waits + The Two Soldiers + The Death of Regret + In the Days of Crinoline + The Roman Gravemounds + The Workbox + The Sacrilege + The Abbey Mason + The Jubilee of a Magazine + The Satin Shoes + Exeunt Omnes + A Poet +Postscript + "Men who march away" + + + +IN FRONT OF THE LANDSCAPE + + + +Plunging and labouring on in a tide of visions, + Dolorous and dear, +Forward I pushed my way as amid waste waters + Stretching around, +Through whose eddies there glimmered the customed landscape + Yonder and near, + +Blotted to feeble mist. And the coomb and the upland + Foliage-crowned, +Ancient chalk-pit, milestone, rills in the grass-flat + Stroked by the light, +Seemed but a ghost-like gauze, and no substantial + Meadow or mound. + +What were the infinite spectacles bulking foremost + Under my sight, +Hindering me to discern my paced advancement + Lengthening to miles; +What were the re-creations killing the daytime + As by the night? + +O they were speechful faces, gazing insistent, + Some as with smiles, +Some as with slow-born tears that brinily trundled + Over the wrecked +Cheeks that were fair in their flush-time, ash now with anguish, + Harrowed by wiles. + +Yes, I could see them, feel them, hear them, address them - + Halo-bedecked - +And, alas, onwards, shaken by fierce unreason, + Rigid in hate, +Smitten by years-long wryness born of misprision, + Dreaded, suspect. + +Then there would breast me shining sights, sweet seasons + Further in date; +Instruments of strings with the tenderest passion + Vibrant, beside +Lamps long extinguished, robes, cheeks, eyes with the earth's crust + Now corporate. + +Also there rose a headland of hoary aspect + Gnawed by the tide, +Frilled by the nimb of the morning as two friends stood there + Guilelessly glad - +Wherefore they knew not--touched by the fringe of an ecstasy + Scantly descried. + +Later images too did the day unfurl me, + Shadowed and sad, +Clay cadavers of those who had shared in the dramas, + Laid now at ease, +Passions all spent, chiefest the one of the broad brow + Sepulture-clad. + +So did beset me scenes miscalled of the bygone, + Over the leaze, +Past the clump, and down to where lay the beheld ones; + --Yea, as the rhyme +Sung by the sea-swell, so in their pleading dumbness + Captured me these. + +For, their lost revisiting manifestations + In their own time +Much had I slighted, caring not for their purport, + Seeing behind +Things more coveted, reckoned the better worth calling + Sweet, sad, sublime. + +Thus do they now show hourly before the intenser + Stare of the mind +As they were ghosts avenging their slights by my bypast + Body-borne eyes, +Show, too, with fuller translation than rested upon them + As living kind. + +Hence wag the tongues of the passing people, saying + In their surmise, +"Ah--whose is this dull form that perambulates, seeing nought + Round him that looms +Whithersoever his footsteps turn in his farings, + Save a few tombs?" + + + +CHANNEL FIRING + + + +That night your great guns, unawares, +Shook all our coffins as we lay, +And broke the chancel window-squares, +We thought it was the Judgment-day + +And sat upright. While drearisome +Arose the howl of wakened hounds: +The mouse let fall the altar-crumb, +The worms drew back into the mounds, + +The glebe cow drooled. Till God called, "No; +It's gunnery practice out at sea +Just as before you went below; +The world is as it used to be: + +"All nations striving strong to make +Red war yet redder. Mad as hatters +They do no more for Christes sake +Than you who are helpless in such matters. + +"That this is not the judgment-hour +For some of them's a blessed thing, +For if it were they'd have to scour +Hell's floor for so much threatening . . . + +"Ha, ha. It will be warmer when +I blow the trumpet (if indeed +I ever do; for you are men, +And rest eternal sorely need)." + +So down we lay again. "I wonder, +Will the world ever saner be," +Said one, "than when He sent us under +In our indifferent century!" + +And many a skeleton shook his head. +"Instead of preaching forty year," +My neighbour Parson Thirdly said, +"I wish I had stuck to pipes and beer." + +Again the guns disturbed the hour, +Roaring their readiness to avenge, +As far inland as Stourton Tower, +And Camelot, and starlit Stonehenge. + +April 1914. + + + +THE CONVERGENCE OF THE TWAIN + + + +(Lines on the loss of the "Titanic") + +I + + In a solitude of the sea + Deep from human vanity, +And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she. + +II + + Steel chambers, late the pyres + Of her salamandrine fires, +Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres. + +III + + Over the mirrors meant + To glass the opulent +The sea-worm crawls--grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent. + +IV + + Jewels in joy designed + To ravish the sensuous mind +Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind. + +V + + Dim moon-eyed fishes near + Gaze at the gilded gear +And query: "What does this vaingloriousness down here?" . . . + +VI + + Well: while was fashioning + This creature of cleaving wing, +The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything + +VII + + Prepared a sinister mate + For her--so gaily great - +A Shape of Ice, for the time far and dissociate. + +VIII + + And as the smart ship grew + In stature, grace, and hue, +In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too. + +IX + + Alien they seemed to be: + No mortal eye could see +The intimate welding of their later history, + +X + + Or sign that they were bent + By paths coincident +On being anon twin halves of one august event, + +XI + + Till the Spinner of the Years + Said "Now!" And each one hears, +And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres. + + + +THE GHOST OF THE PAST + + + +We two kept house, the Past and I, + The Past and I; +I tended while it hovered nigh, + Leaving me never alone. +It was a spectral housekeeping + Where fell no jarring tone, +As strange, as still a housekeeping + As ever has been known. + +As daily I went up the stair + And down the stair, +I did not mind the Bygone there - + The Present once to me; +Its moving meek companionship + I wished might ever be, +There was in that companionship + Something of ecstasy. + +It dwelt with me just as it was, + Just as it was +When first its prospects gave me pause + In wayward wanderings, +Before the years had torn old troths + As they tear all sweet things, +Before gaunt griefs had torn old troths + And dulled old rapturings. + +And then its form began to fade, + Began to fade, +Its gentle echoes faintlier played + At eves upon my ear +Than when the autumn's look embrowned + The lonely chambers here, +The autumn's settling shades embrowned + Nooks that it haunted near. + +And so with time my vision less, + Yea, less and less +Makes of that Past my housemistress, + It dwindles in my eye; +It looms a far-off skeleton + And not a comrade nigh, +A fitful far-off skeleton + Dimming as days draw by. + + + +AFTER THE VISIT +(To F. E. D.) + + + + Come again to the place +Where your presence was as a leaf that skims +Down a drouthy way whose ascent bedims + The bloom on the farer's face. + + Come again, with the feet +That were light on the green as a thistledown ball, +And those mute ministrations to one and to all + Beyond a man's saying sweet. + + Until then the faint scent +Of the bordering flowers swam unheeded away, +And I marked not the charm in the changes of day + As the cloud-colours came and went. + + Through the dark corridors +Your walk was so soundless I did not know +Your form from a phantom's of long ago + Said to pass on the ancient floors, + + Till you drew from the shade, +And I saw the large luminous living eyes +Regard me in fixed inquiring-wise + As those of a soul that weighed, + + Scarce consciously, +The eternal question of what Life was, +And why we were there, and by whose strange laws + That which mattered most could not be. + + + +TO MEET, OR OTHERWISE + + + +Whether to sally and see thee, girl of my dreams, + Or whether to stay +And see thee not! How vast the difference seems + Of Yea from Nay +Just now. Yet this same sun will slant its beams + At no far day +On our two mounds, and then what will the difference weigh! + +Yet I will see thee, maiden dear, and make + The most I can +Of what remains to us amid this brake Cimmerian +Through which we grope, and from whose thorns we ache, + While still we scan +Round our frail faltering progress for some path or plan. + +By briefest meeting something sure is won; + It will have been: +Nor God nor Daemon can undo the done, + Unsight the seen, +Make muted music be as unbegun, + Though things terrene +Groan in their bondage till oblivion supervene. + +So, to the one long-sweeping symphony + From times remote +Till now, of human tenderness, shall we + Supply one note, +Small and untraced, yet that will ever be + Somewhere afloat +Amid the spheres, as part of sick Life's antidote. + + + +THE DIFFERENCE + + + +I + +Sinking down by the gate I discern the thin moon, +And a blackbird tries over old airs in the pine, +But the moon is a sorry one, sad the bird's tune, +For this spot is unknown to that Heartmate of mine. + +II + +Did my Heartmate but haunt here at times such as now, +The song would be joyous and cheerful the moon; +But she will see never this gate, path, or bough, +Nor I find a joy in the scene or the tune. + + + +THE SUN ON THE BOOKCASE +(Student's Love-song) + + + +Once more the cauldron of the sun +Smears the bookcase with winy red, +And here my page is, and there my bed, +And the apple-tree shadows travel along. +Soon their intangible track will be run, + And dusk grow strong + And they be fled. + +Yes: now the boiling ball is gone, +And I have wasted another day . . . +But wasted--WASTED, do I say? +Is it a waste to have imaged one +Beyond the hills there, who, anon, + My great deeds done + Will be mine alway? + + + +"WHEN I SET OUT FOR LYONNESSE" + + + +When I set out for Lyonnesse, + A hundred miles away, + The rime was on the spray, +And starlight lit my lonesomeness +When I set out for Lyonnesse + A hundred miles away. + +What would bechance at Lyonnesse + While I should sojourn there + No prophet durst declare, +Nor did the wisest wizard guess +What would bechance at Lyonnesse + While I should sojourn there. + +When I came back from Lyonnesse + With magic in my eyes, + None managed to surmise +What meant my godlike gloriousness, +When I came back from Lyonnesse + With magic in my eyes. + + + +A THUNDERSTORM IN TOWN +(A Reminiscence) + + + +She wore a new "terra-cotta" dress, +And we stayed, because of the pelting storm, +Within the hansom's dry recess, +Though the horse had stopped; yea, motionless + We sat on, snug and warm. + +Then the downpour ceased, to my sharp sad pain, +And the glass that had screened our forms before +Flew up, and out she sprang to her door: +I should have kissed her if the rain + Had lasted a minute more. + + + +THE TORN LETTER + + + +I + +I tore your letter into strips + No bigger than the airy feathers + That ducks preen out in changing weathers +Upon the shifting ripple-tips. + +II + +In darkness on my bed alone + I seemed to see you in a vision, + And hear you say: "Why this derision +Of one drawn to you, though unknown?" + +III + +Yes, eve's quick mood had run its course, + The night had cooled my hasty madness; + I suffered a regretful sadness +Which deepened into real remorse. + +IV + +I thought what pensive patient days + A soul must know of grain so tender, + How much of good must grace the sender +Of such sweet words in such bright phrase. + +V + +Uprising then, as things unpriced + I sought each fragment, patched and mended; + The midnight whitened ere I had ended +And gathered words I had sacrificed. + +VI + +But some, alas, of those I threw + Were past my search, destroyed for ever: + They were your name and place; and never +Did I regain those clues to you. + +VII + +I learnt I had missed, by rash unheed, + My track; that, so the Will decided, + In life, death, we should be divided, +And at the sense I ached indeed. + +VIII + +That ache for you, born long ago, + Throbs on; I never could outgrow it. + What a revenge, did you but know it! +But that, thank God, you do not know. + + + +BEYOND THE LAST LAMP +(Near Tooting Common) + + + +I + +While rain, with eve in partnership, +Descended darkly, drip, drip, drip, +Beyond the last lone lamp I passed + Walking slowly, whispering sadly, + Two linked loiterers, wan, downcast: +Some heavy thought constrained each face, +And blinded them to time and place. + +II + +The pair seemed lovers, yet absorbed +In mental scenes no longer orbed +By love's young rays. Each countenance + As it slowly, as it sadly + Caught the lamplight's yellow glance +Held in suspense a misery +At things which had been or might be. + +III + +When I retrod that watery way +Some hours beyond the droop of day, +Still I found pacing there the twain + Just as slowly, just as sadly, + Heedless of the night and rain. +One could but wonder who they were +And what wild woe detained them there. + +IV + +Though thirty years of blur and blot +Have slid since I beheld that spot, +And saw in curious converse there + Moving slowly, moving sadly + That mysterious tragic pair, +Its olden look may linger on - +All but the couple; they have gone. + +V + +Whither? Who knows, indeed . . . And yet +To me, when nights are weird and wet, +Without those comrades there at tryst + Creeping slowly, creeping sadly, + That lone lane does not exist. +There they seem brooding on their pain, +And will, while such a lane remain. + + + +THE FACE AT THE CASEMENT + + + + If ever joy leave +An abiding sting of sorrow, +So befell it on the morrow + Of that May eve . . . + + The travelled sun dropped +To the north-west, low and lower, +The pony's trot grew slower, + And then we stopped. + + "This cosy house just by +I must call at for a minute, +A sick man lies within it + Who soon will die. + + "He wished to marry me, +So I am bound, when I drive near him, +To inquire, if but to cheer him, + How he may be." + + A message was sent in, +And wordlessly we waited, +Till some one came and stated + The bulletin. + + And that the sufferer said, +For her call no words could thank her; +As his angel he must rank her + Till life's spark fled. + + Slowly we drove away, +When I turned my head, although not +Called; why so I turned I know not + Even to this day. + + And lo, there in my view +Pressed against an upper lattice +Was a white face, gazing at us + As we withdrew. + + And well did I divine +It to be the man's there dying, +Who but lately had been sighing + For her pledged mine. + + Then I deigned a deed of hell; +It was done before I knew it; +What devil made me do it + I cannot tell! + + Yes, while he gazed above, +I put my arm about her +That he might see, nor doubt her + My plighted Love. + + The pale face vanished quick, +As if blasted, from the casement, +And my shame and self-abasement + Began their prick. + + And they prick on, ceaselessly, +For that stab in Love's fierce fashion +Which, unfired by lover's passion, + Was foreign to me. + + She smiled at my caress, +But why came the soft embowment +Of her shoulder at that moment + She did not guess. + + Long long years has he lain +In thy garth, O sad Saint Cleather: +What tears there, bared to weather, + Will cleanse that stain! + + Love is long-suffering, brave, +Sweet, prompt, precious as a jewel; +But O, too, Love is cruel, + Cruel as the grave. + + + +LOST LOVE + + + +I play my sweet old airs - + The airs he knew + When our love was true - + But he does not balk + His determined walk, +And passes up the stairs. + +I sing my songs once more, + And presently hear + His footstep near + As if it would stay; + But he goes his way, +And shuts a distant door. + +So I wait for another morn + And another night + In this soul-sick blight; + And I wonder much + As I sit, why such +A woman as I was born! + + + +"MY SPIRIT WILL NOT HAUNT THE MOUND" + + + +My spirit will not haunt the mound + Above my breast, +But travel, memory-possessed, +To where my tremulous being found + Life largest, best. + +My phantom-footed shape will go + When nightfall grays +Hither and thither along the ways +I and another used to know + In backward days. + +And there you'll find me, if a jot + You still should care +For me, and for my curious air; +If otherwise, then I shall not, + For you, be there. + + + +WESSEX HEIGHTS (1896) + + + +There are some heights in Wessex, shaped as if by a kindly hand +For thinking, dreaming, dying on, and at crises when I stand, +Say, on Ingpen Beacon eastward, or on Wylls-Neck westwardly, +I seem where I was before my birth, and after death may be. + +In the lowlands I have no comrade, not even the lone man's friend - +Her who suffereth long and is kind; accepts what he is too weak to +mend: +Down there they are dubious and askance; there nobody thinks as I, +But mind-chains do not clank where one's next neighbour is the sky. + +In the towns I am tracked by phantoms having weird detective ways - +Shadows of beings who fellowed with myself of earlier days: +They hang about at places, and they say harsh heavy things - +Men with a frigid sneer, and women with tart disparagings. + +Down there I seem to be false to myself, my simple self that was, +And is not now, and I see him watching, wondering what crass cause +Can have merged him into such a strange continuator as this, +Who yet has something in common with himself, my chrysalis. + +I cannot go to the great grey Plain; there's a figure against the +moon, +Nobody sees it but I, and it makes my breast beat out of tune; +I cannot go to the tall-spired town, being barred by the forms now +passed +For everybody but me, in whose long vision they stand there fast. + +There's a ghost at Yell'ham Bottom chiding loud at the fall of the +night, +There's a ghost in Froom-side Vale, thin lipped and vague, in a +shroud of white, +There is one in the railway-train whenever I do not want it near, +I see its profile against the pane, saying what I would not hear. + +As for one rare fair woman, I am now but a thought of hers, +I enter her mind and another thought succeeds me that she prefers; +Yet my love for her in its fulness she herself even did not know; +Well, time cures hearts of tenderness, and now I can let her go. + +So I am found on Ingpen Beacon, or on Wylls-Neck to the west, +Or else on homely Bulbarrow, or little Pilsdon Crest, +Where men have never cared to haunt, nor women have walked with me, +And ghosts then keep their distance; and I know some liberty. + + + +IN DEATH DIVIDED + + + +I + + I shall rot here, with those whom in their day + You never knew, + And alien ones who, ere they chilled to clay, + Met not my view, +Will in your distant grave-place ever neighbour you. + +II + + No shade of pinnacle or tree or tower, + While earth endures, + Will fall on my mound and within the hour + Steal on to yours; +One robin never haunt our two green covertures. + +III + + Some organ may resound on Sunday noons + By where you lie, + Some other thrill the panes with other tunes + Where moulder I; +No selfsame chords compose our common lullaby. + +IV + + The simply-cut memorial at my head + Perhaps may take + A Gothic form, and that above your bed + Be Greek in make; +No linking symbol show thereon for our tale's sake. + +V + + And in the monotonous moils of strained, hard-run + Humanity, + The eternal tie which binds us twain in one + No eye will see +Stretching across the miles that sever you from me. + + + +THE PLACE ON THE MAP + + + +I + + I look upon the map that hangs by me - +Its shires and towns and rivers lined in varnished artistry - + And I mark a jutting height +Coloured purple, with a margin of blue sea. + +II + + --'Twas a day of latter summer, hot and dry; +Ay, even the waves seemed drying as we walked on, she and I, + By this spot where, calmly quite, +She informed me what would happen by and by. + +III + + This hanging map depicts the coast and place, +And resuscitates therewith our unexpected troublous case + All distinctly to my sight, +And her tension, and the aspect of her face. + +IV + + Weeks and weeks we had loved beneath that blazing blue, +Which had lost the art of raining, as her eyes to-day had too, + While she told what, as by sleight, +Shot our firmament with rays of ruddy hue. + +V + + For the wonder and the wormwood of the whole +Was that what in realms of reason would have joyed our double soul + Wore a torrid tragic light +Under order-keeping's rigorous control. + +VI + + So, the map revives her words, the spot, the time, +And the thing we found we had to face before the next year's prime; + The charted coast stares bright, +And its episode comes back in pantomime. + + + +WHERE THE PICNIC WAS + + + +Where we made the fire, +In the summer time, +Of branch and briar +On the hill to the sea +I slowly climb +Through winter mire, +And scan and trace +The forsaken place +Quite readily. + +Now a cold wind blows, +And the grass is gray, +But the spot still shows +As a burnt circle--aye, +And stick-ends, charred, +Still strew the sward +Whereon I stand, +Last relic of the band +Who came that day! + +Yes, I am here +Just as last year, +And the sea breathes brine +From its strange straight line +Up hither, the same +As when we four came. +- But two have wandered far +From this grassy rise +Into urban roar +Where no picnics are, +And one--has shut her eyes +For evermore. + + + +THE SCHRECKHORN +(With thoughts of Leslie Stephen) +(June 1897) + + + +Aloof, as if a thing of mood and whim; +Now that its spare and desolate figure gleams +Upon my nearing vision, less it seems +A looming Alp-height than a guise of him +Who scaled its horn with ventured life and limb, +Drawn on by vague imaginings, maybe, +Of semblance to his personality +In its quaint glooms, keen lights, and rugged trim. + +At his last change, when Life's dull coils unwind, +Will he, in old love, hitherward escape, +And the eternal essence of his mind +Enter this silent adamantine shape, +And his low voicing haunt its slipping snows +When dawn that calls the climber dyes them rose? + + + +A SINGER ASLEEP +(Algernon Charles Swinburne, 1837-1909) + + + +I + +In this fair niche above the unslumbering sea, +That sentrys up and down all night, all day, +From cove to promontory, from ness to bay, + The Fates have fitly bidden that he should be Pillowed eternally. + +II + +- It was as though a garland of red roses +Had fallen about the hood of some smug nun +When irresponsibly dropped as from the sun, +In fulth of numbers freaked with musical closes, +Upon Victoria's formal middle time + His leaves of rhythm and rhyme. + +III + +O that far morning of a summer day +When, down a terraced street whose pavements lay +Glassing the sunshine into my bent eyes, +I walked and read with a quick glad surprise + New words, in classic guise, - + +IV + +The passionate pages of his earlier years, +Fraught with hot sighs, sad laughters, kisses, tears; +Fresh-fluted notes, yet from a minstrel who +Blew them not naively, but as one who knew + Full well why thus he blew. + +V + +I still can hear the brabble and the roar +At those thy tunes, O still one, now passed through +That fitful fire of tongues then entered new! +Their power is spent like spindrift on this shore; + Thine swells yet more and more. + +VI + +- His singing-mistress verily was no other +Than she the Lesbian, she the music-mother +Of all the tribe that feel in melodies; +Who leapt, love-anguished, from the Leucadian steep +Into the rambling world-encircling deep + Which hides her where none sees. + +VII + +And one can hold in thought that nightly here +His phantom may draw down to the water's brim, +And hers come up to meet it, as a dim +Lone shine upon the heaving hydrosphere, +And mariners wonder as they traverse near, + Unknowing of her and him. + +VIII + +One dreams him sighing to her spectral form: +"O teacher, where lies hid thy burning line; +Where are those songs, O poetess divine +Whose very arts are love incarnadine?" +And her smile back: "Disciple true and warm, + Sufficient now are thine." . . . + +IX + +So here, beneath the waking constellations, +Where the waves peal their everlasting strains, +And their dull subterrene reverberations +Shake him when storms make mountains of their plains - +Him once their peer in sad improvisations, +And deft as wind to cleave their frothy manes - +I leave him, while the daylight gleam declines + Upon the capes and chines. + +BONCHURCH, 1910. + + + +A PLAINT TO MAN + + + +When you 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 you +The 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-slide +Shown forth in the dark upon some dim sheet, +And by none but its showman vivified. + +"Such a forced device," you may say, "is meet +For easing a loaded heart at whiles: +Man needs to conceive of a mercy-seat + +Somewhere above the gloomy aisles +Of this wailful world, or he could not bear +The irk no local hope beguiles." + +- But since I was framed in your first despair +The doing without me has had no play +In the minds of men when shadows scare; + +And now that I dwindle day by day +Beneath the deicide eyes of seers +In 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 faced +That had best been faced in earlier years: + +The fact of life with dependence placed +On the human heart's resource alone, +In brotherhood bonded close and graced + +With loving-kindness fully blown, +And visioned help unsought, unknown. + +1909-10. + + + +GOD'S FUNERAL + + + +I + + I saw a slowly-stepping train - +Lined on the brows, scoop-eyed and bent and hoar - +Following in files across a twilit plain +A strange and mystic form the foremost bore. + +II + + And by contagious throbs of thought +Or latent knowledge that within me lay +And had already stirred me, I was wrought +To consciousness of sorrow even as they. + +III + + The fore-borne shape, to my blurred eyes, +At first seemed man-like, and anon to change +To an amorphous cloud of marvellous size, +At times endowed with wings of glorious range. + +IV + + And this phantasmal variousness +Ever possessed it as they drew along: +Yet throughout all it symboled none the less +Potency vast and loving-kindness strong. + +V + + Almost before I knew I bent +Towards 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 late +Imaged as we, thy knell who shall survive? +Whence came it we were tempted to create +One 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 dream +And 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 reality +Mangled 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 grope +Sadlier than those who wept in Babylon, +Whose Zion was a still abiding hope. + +XI + + "How sweet it was in years far hied +To start the wheels of day with trustful prayer, +To lie down liegely at the eventide +And feel a blest assurance he was there! + +XII + + "And who or what shall fill his place? +Whither will wanderers turn distracted eyes +For some fixed star to stimulate their pace +Towards 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 yet +Many I had known: with all I sympathized; +And though struck speechless, I did not forget +That what was mourned for, I, too, once had prized. + +XV + + Still, how to bear such loss I deemed +The insistent question for each animate mind, +And gazing, to my growing sight there seemed +A 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 whom +Some were right good, and many nigh the best . . . +Thus dazed and puzzled 'twixt the gleam and gloom +Mechanically I followed with the rest. + +1908-10. + + + +SPECTRES THAT GRIEVE + + + +"It is not death that harrows us," they lipped, +"The soundless cell is in itself relief, +For life is an unfenced flower, benumbed and nipped +At 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 shone +From 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 come +At each year's brink, and cry to History +To 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 expressed +On the scriptured page, our motives blurred, unknown." + +Then all these shaken slighted visitants sped +Into the vague, and left me musing there +On 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 GRAVE?" + + + +"Ah, are you digging on my grave + My loved one?--planting rue?" +- "No: yesterday he went to wed +One 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 loose + Her spirit from Death's gin.'" + +"But some one digs upon my grave? + My enemy?--prodding sly?" +- "Nay: when she heard you had passed the Gate +That 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 here + Have not disturbed your rest?" + +"Ah, yes! YOU dig upon my grave . . . + Why flashed it not on me +That one true heart was left behind! +What feeling do we ever find +To equal among human kind + A dog's fidelity!" + +"Mistress, I dug upon your grave + To bury a bone, in case +I should be hungry near this spot +When passing on my daily trot. +I am sorry, but I quite forgot + It was your resting-place." + + + + +SATIRES OF CIRCUMSTANCES +IN FIFTEEN GLIMPSES + + + + +I--AT TEA + + + +The kettle 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 own +Her 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 know +That the woman beside her was first his choice, +Till the fates ordained it could not be so . . . +Betraying nothing in look or voice +The guest sits smiling and sips her tea, +And he throws her a stray glance yearningly. + + + +II--IN CHURCH + + + +"And now 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 smile +And re-enact at the vestry-glass +Each pulpit gesture in deft dumb-show +That had moved the congregation so. + + + +III--BY HER AUNT'S GRAVE + + + +"Sixpence a week," says the girl to her lover, +"Aunt used to bring me, for she could confide +In me alone, she vowed. 'Twas to cover +The 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 was SO slow +In 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. + + + +IV--IN THE ROOM OF THE BRIDE-ELECT + + + +"Would it had been the man of our wish!" +Sighs her mother. To whom with vehemence she +In the wedding-dress--the wife to be - +"Then why were you so mollyish +As 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 find +That 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!" + + + +V--AT A WATERING-PLACE + + + +They sit and smoke on the esplanade, +The man and his friend, and regard the bay +Where 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 thinks +That dozens of days and nights on end +I have stroked her neck, unhooked the links +Of her sleeve to get at her upper arm . . . +Well, bliss is in ignorance: what's the harm!" + + + +VI --IN THE CEMETERY + + + +"You see 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 flowers +And put your own on this grave of ours!' +But all their children were laid therein +At 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 foss +With hundreds more. But their folks don't know, +And as well cry over a new-laid drain +As anything else, to ease your pain!" + + + +VII--OUTSIDE THE WINDOW + + + +"My stick!" he says, and turns in the lane +To the house just left, whence a vixen voice +Comes out with the firelight through the pane, +And he sees within that the girl of his choice +Stands rating her mother with eyes aglare +For 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. + + + +VIII--IN THE STUDY + + + +He enters, and mute on the edge of a chair +Sits a thin-faced lady, a stranger there, +A type of decayed gentility; +And by some small signs he well can guess +That she comes to him almost breakfastless. + +"I have called--I hope I do not err - +I am looking for a purchaser +Of some score volumes of the works +Of eminent divines I own, - +Left by my father--though it irks +My patience to offer them." And she smiles +As if necessity were unknown; +"But the truth of it is that oftenwhiles +I 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 indeed +To her not vinegar and gall, +But fresh and honey-like; and Need +No household skeleton at all. + + + +IX--AT THE ALTAR-RAIL + + + +"My bride is not coming, alas!" says the groom, +And the telegram shakes in his hand. "I own +It was hurried! We met at a dancing-room +When 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 ways +Of 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.'" + + + +X--IN THE NUPTIAL CHAMBER + + + +"O that mastering tune?" And up in the bed +Like 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 compliment +Because of our marriage, my Innocent." + +"O but you don't know! 'Tis the passionate air +To which my old Love waltzed with me, +And I swore as we spun that none should share +My home, my kisses, till death, save he! +And he dominates me and thrills me through, +And it's he I embrace while embracing you!" + + + +XI--IN THE RESTAURANT + + + +"But hear. 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 scorn +Will 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 alarms +Lest 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." + + + +XII--AT THE DRAPER'S + + + +"I stood at the back of the shop, my dear, + But you did not perceive me. +Well, when they deliver what you were shown + _I_ shall 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 left + That you should not notice I'd been there. + +"You were viewing some lovely things. 'Soon required + For a widow, of latest fashion'; +And I knew 'twould upset you to meet the man + Who 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." + + + +XIII--ON THE DEATH-BED + + + +"I'll tell--being past all praying for - +Then promptly die . . . He was out at the war, +And got some scent of the intimacy +That was under way between her and me; +And he stole back home, and appeared like a ghost +One night, at the very time almost +That 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 revealed +He was one of the slain; though, lying alone + And 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." + + + +XIV--OVER THE COFFIN + + + +They stand confronting, the coffin between, +His wife of old, and his wife of late, +And the dead man whose they both had been +Seems 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." + + + +XV--IN THE MOONLIGHT + + + +"O lonely workman, standing there +In a dream, why do you stare and stare +At her grave, as no other grave there were? + +"If your great gaunt eyes so importune +Her soul by the shine of this corpse-cold moon, +Maybe you'll raise her phantom soon!" + +"Why, fool, it is what I would rather see +Than 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." + + + + +LYRICS AND REVERIES +(continued) + + + + +SELF-UNCONSCIOUS + + + + Along the way + He walked that day, +Watching shapes that reveries limn, + And seldom he + Had eyes to see +The moment that encompassed him. + + Bright yellowhammers + Made mirthful clamours, +And billed long straws with a bustling air, + And bearing their load + Flew up the road +That he followed, alone, without interest there. + + From bank to ground + And over and round +They sidled along the adjoining hedge; + Sometimes to the gutter + Their yellow flutter +Would dip from the nearest slatestone ledge. + + The smooth sea-line + With a metal shine, +And flashes of white, and a sail thereon, + He would also descry + With a half-wrapt eye +Between the projects he mused upon. + + Yes, round him were these + Earth's artistries, +But specious plans that came to his call + Did most engage + His pilgrimage, +While himself he did not see at all. + + Dead now as sherds + Are the yellow birds, +And all that mattered has passed away; + Yet God, the Elf, + Now shows him that self +As he was, and should have been shown, that day. + + O it would have been good + Could he then have stood +At a focussed distance, and conned the whole, + But now such vision + Is mere derision, +Nor soothes his body nor saves his soul. + + Not much, some may + Incline to say, +To see therein, had it all been seen. + Nay! he is aware + A thing was there +That loomed with an immortal mien. + + + +THE DISCOVERY + + + + I wandered to a crude coast + Like a ghost; + Upon the hills I saw fires - + Funeral pyres + Seemingly--and heard breaking +Waves like distant cannonades that set the land shaking. + + And so I never once guessed + A Love-nest, + Bowered and candle-lit, lay + In my way, + Till I found a hid hollow, +Where I burst on her my heart could not but follow. + + + +TOLERANCE + + + +"It is 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 surmise +That if I had acted otherwise +I might have saved me many sighs. + +But now the only happiness +In looking back that I possess - +Whose lack would leave me comfortless - + +Is to remember I refrained +From masteries I might have gained, +And for my tolerance was disdained; + +For see, a tomb. And if it were +I had bent and broke, I should not dare +To linger in the shadows there. + + + +BEFORE AND AFTER SUMMER + + + +I + +Looking forward to the spring +One 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 blind +Riddled by rays from sun behind. + +II + +Shadows of the October pine +Reach 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. + + + +AT DAY-CLOSE IN NOVEMBER + + + +The ten 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 here + Conceive that there never has been +A time when no tall trees grew here, + A time when none will be seen. + + + +THE YEAR'S AWAKENING + + + +How do you know that the pilgrim track +Along the belting zodiac +Swept by the sun in his seeming rounds +Is traced by now to the Fishes' bounds +And into the Ram, when weeks of cloud +Have wrapt the sky in a clammy shroud, +And never as yet a tinct of spring +Has 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? + +February 1910. + + + +UNDER THE WATERFALL + + + +"Whenever I plunge my arm, like this, +In a basin of water, I never miss +The sweet sharp sense of a fugitive day +Fetched back from its thickening shroud of gray. + Hence the only prime + And real love-rhyme + That I know by heart, + And that leaves no smart, +Is the purl of a little valley fall +About three spans wide and two spans tall +Over a table of solid rock, +And into a scoop of the self-same block; +The purl of a runlet that never ceases +In stir of kingdoms, in wars, in peaces; +With a hollow boiling voice it speaks +And has spoken since hills were turfless peaks." + +"And why gives this the only prime +Idea to you of a real love-rhyme? +And why does plunging your arm in a bowl +Full 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 pass + My lover and I + Walked under a sky +Of 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 wine +By 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 abyss +With long bared arms. There the glass still is. +And, as said, if I thrust my arm below +Cold water in basin or bowl, a throe +From 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 edge +The hard smooth face of the brook-side ledge, +And the leafy pattern of china-ware +The 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 love +Persistently sung by the fall above. +No lip has touched it since his and mine +In turns therefrom sipped lovers' wine." + + + +THE SPELL OF THE ROSE + + + + "I mean to 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 rose + That bears the flower of love, + Though other flowers throve +A frost-wind moved our souls to sever + Since 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, called + Before my rose-bush grew; + And would that now I knew +What feels he of the tree I planted, + And whether, after I was called + To be a ghost, he, as of old, + Gave me his heart anew! + + Perhaps now blooms that queen of trees + I 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 trees + He sees me as I was, though sees + Too late to tell me so! + + + +ST. LAUNCE'S REVISITED + + + + Slip back, Time! +Yet again I am nearing +Castle and keep, uprearing + Gray, as in my prime. + + At the inn +Smiling close, why is it +Not as on my visit + When hope and I were twin? + + Groom and jade +Whom I found here, moulder; +Strange the tavern-holder, + Strange the tap-maid. + + Here I hired +Horse and man for bearing +Me on my wayfaring + To the door desired. + + Evening gloomed +As I journeyed forward +To the faces shoreward, + Till their dwelling loomed. + + If again +Towards the Atlantic sea there +I should speed, they'd be there + Surely now as then? . . . + + Why waste thought, +When I know them vanished +Under earth; yea, banished + Ever into nought. + + + + +POEMS OF 1912-13 +Veteris vestigia flammae + + + + +THE GOING + + + +Why did you give no hint that night +That quickly after the morrow's dawn, +And calmly, as if indifferent quite, +You would close your term here, up and be gone + Where I could not follow + With wing of swallow +To 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 I +Saw morning harden upon the wall, + Unmoved, unknowing + That your great going +Had place that moment, and altered all. + +Why do you make me leave the house +And think for a breath it is you I see +At the end of the alley of bending boughs +Where so often at dusk you used to be; + Till in darkening dankness + The yawning blankness +Of the perspective sickens me! + + You were she who abode + By those red-veined rocks far West, +You were the swan-necked one who rode +Along 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 seek +That time's renewal? We might have said, + "In this bright spring weather + We'll visit together +Those places that once we visited." + + Well, well! All's past amend, + Unchangeable. It must go. +I seem but a dead man held on end +To sink down soon . . . O you could not know + That such swift fleeing + No soul foreseeing - +Not even I--would undo me so! + +December 1912. + + + +YOUR LAST DRIVE + + + +Here by the moorway you returned, +And saw the borough lights ahead +That lit your face--all undiscerned +To be in a week the face of the dead, +And you told of the charm of that haloed view +That never again would beam on you. + +And on your left you passed the spot +Where eight days later you were to lie, +And be spoken of as one who was not; +Beholding it with a cursory eye +As alien from you, though under its tree +You soon would halt everlastingly. + +I drove not with you . . . Yet had I sat +At your side that eve I should not have seen +That the countenance I was glancing at +Had 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 know +How many times you visit me there, +Or what your thoughts are, or if you go +There never at all. And I shall not care. +Should you censure me I shall take no heed +And 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 find +The thought "What profit?" move me much +Yet the fact indeed remains the same, +You are past love, praise, indifference, blame. + +December 1912. + + + +THE WALK + + + + You did not walk with me + Of late to the hill-top tree + By 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-day + Just in the former way: + Surveyed around + The familiar ground + By myself again: + What difference, then? +Only that underlying sense +Of the look of a room on returning thence. + + + +RAIN ON A GRAVE + + + +Clouds spout upon her + Their waters amain + In ruthless disdain, - +Her who but lately + Had shivered with pain +As at touch of dishonour +If there had lit on her +So coldly, so straightly + Such arrows of rain. + +She who to shelter + Her delicate head +Would quicken and quicken + Each tentative tread +If drops chanced to pelt her + That summertime spills + In dust-paven rills +When thunder-clouds thicken + And birds close their bills. + +Would that I lay there + And she were housed here! +Or better, together +Were folded away there +Exposed to one weather +We both,--who would stray there +When sunny the day there, + Or evening was clear + At the prime of the year. + +Soon will be growing + Green blades from her mound, +And daises be showing + Like stars on the ground, +Till she form part of them - +Ay--the sweet heart of them, +Loved beyond measure +With a child's pleasure + All her life's round. + +Jan. 31, 1913. + + + +"I FOUND HER OUT THERE" + + + +I found her out there +On a slope few see, +That falls westwardly +To the salt-edged air, +Where the ocean breaks +On the purple strand, +And the hurricane shakes +The solid land. + +I brought her here, +And have laid her to rest +In a noiseless nest +No sea beats near. +She will never be stirred +In her loamy cell +By the waves long heard +And loved so well. + +So she does not sleep +By those haunted heights +The Atlantic smites +And the blind gales sweep, +Whence she often would gaze +At Dundagel's far head, +While the dipping blaze +Dyed her face fire-red; + +And would sigh at the tale +Of sunk Lyonnesse, +As a wind-tugged tress +Flapped her cheek like a flail; +Or listen at whiles +With a thought-bound brow +To the murmuring miles +She is far from now. + +Yet her shade, maybe, +Will creep underground +Till it catch the sound +Of that western sea +As it swells and sobs +Where she once domiciled, +And joy in its throbs +With the heart of a child. + + + +WITHOUT CEREMONY + + + +It was your way, my dear, +To be gone without a word +When callers, friends, or kin +Had left, and I hastened in +To rejoin you, as I inferred. + +And when you'd a mind to career +Off anywhere--say to town - +You were all on a sudden gone +Before I had thought thereon, +Or noticed your trunks were down. + +So, now that you disappear +For ever in that swift style, +Your meaning seems to me +Just as it used to be: +"Good-bye is not worth while!" + + + +LAMENT + + + +How she would have loved +A party to-day! - +Bright-hatted and gloved, +With table and tray +And chairs on the lawn +Her smiles would have shone +With welcomings . . . But +She is shut, she is shut + From friendship's spell + In the jailing shell + Of her tiny cell. + +Or she would have reigned +At a dinner to-night +With ardours unfeigned, +And a generous delight; +All in her abode +She'd have freely bestowed +On her guests . . . But alas, +She is shut under grass + Where no cups flow, + Powerless to know + That it might be so. + +And she would have sought +With a child's eager glance +The shy snowdrops brought +By the new year's advance, +And peered in the rime +Of Candlemas-time +For crocuses . . . chanced +It that she were not tranced + From sights she loved best; + Wholly possessed + By an infinite rest! + +And we are here staying +Amid these stale things +Who care not for gaying, +And those junketings +That used so to joy her, +And never to cloy her +As us they cloy! . . . But +She is shut, she is shut + From the cheer of them, dead + To all done and said + In a yew-arched bed. + + + +THE HAUNTER + + + +He does not think that I haunt here nightly: + How shall I let him know +That whither his fancy sets him wandering + I, too, alertly go? - +Hover and hover a few feet from him + Just 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 know +How I would like to join in his journeys + Seldom he wished to go. +Now that he goes and wants me with him + More than he used to do, +Never he sees my faithful phantom + Though he speaks thereto. + +Yes, I accompany him to places + Only 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 know +If he but sigh since my loss befell him + Straight to his side I go. +Tell him a faithful one is doing + All that love can do +Still that his path may be worth pursuing, + And to bring peace thereto. + + + +THE VOICE + + + +Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me, +Saying that now you are not as you were +When 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 town +Where 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 listlessness +Travelling 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 norward + And the woman calling. + +December 1912. + + + +HIS VISITOR + + + +I come across from Mellstock while the moon wastes weaker +To 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 door + As 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 tea + As 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 song + Float 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 manifold + Souls of old. + +1913. + + + +A CIRCULAR + + + +As "legal representative" +I read a missive not my own, +On new designs the senders give + For 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 shout +Of Fashion, hails what lady proud? +Her who before last year was out + Was costumed in a shroud. + + + +A DREAM OR NO + + + +Why go to Saint-Juliot? What's Juliot to me? + I was but made fancy + By some necromancy +That much of my life claims the spot as its key. + +Yes. I have had dreams of that place in the West, + And a maiden abiding + Thereat 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 me + To 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 Valley + With stream and leafed alley, +Or Beeny, or Bos with its flounce flinging mist? + +February 1913. + + + +AFTER A JOURNEY + + + +Hereto I 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 well + With us twain, you tell? +But all's closed now, despite Time's derision. + +I see what you are doing: you are leading me on + To the spots we knew when we haunted here together, +The waterfall, above which the mist-bow shone + At the then fair hour in the then fair weather, +And the cave just under, with a voice still so hollow + That 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 when +Our days were a joy, and our paths through flowers. + +PENTARGAN BAY. + + + +A DEATH-DAY RECALLED + + + +Beeny did not quiver, + Juliot grew not gray, +Thin Valency's river + Held its wonted way. +Bos seemed not to utter + Dimmest note of dirge, +Targan mouth a mutter + To its creamy surge. + +Yet though these, unheeding, + Listless, passed the hour +Of her spirit's speeding, + She had, in her flower, +Sought and loved the places - + Much and often pined +For their lonely faces + When in towns confined. + +Why did not Valency + In his purl deplore +One whose haunts were whence he + Drew his limpid store? +Why did Bos not thunder, + Targan apprehend +Body and breath were sunder + Of their former friend? + + + +BEENY CLIFF +March 1870--March 1913 + + + +I + +O the opal 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 away +In 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. + + + +AT CASTLE BOTEREL + + + +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 benighted + In dry March weather. We climb the road +Beside a chaise. We had just alighted + To ease the sturdy pony's load + When he sighed and slowed. + +What we did as we climbed, and what we talked of + Matters not much, nor to what it led, - +Something that life will not be balked of + Without rude reason till hope is dead, + And feeling fled. + +It filled but a minute. But was there ever + A 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 cast + Is--that we two passed. + +And to me, though Time's unflinching rigour, + In mindless rote, has ruled from sight +The substance now, one phantom figure + Remains on the slope, as when that night + Saw us alight. + +I look and see it there, shrinking, shrinking, + I look back at it amid the rain +For the very last time; for my sand is sinking, + And I shall traverse old love's domain + Never again. + +March 1913. + + + +PLACES + + + +Nobody says: Ah, that is the place +Where 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 so + On that day long past. + +Nobody thinks: There, there she lay +In 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 play +The quaint Old Hundred-and-Thirteenth tune + In Saint Andrew's tower + Night, morn, and noon. + +Nobody calls to mind that here +Upon Boterel Hill, where the carters skid, +With cheeks whose airy flush outbid +Fresh 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 clack + But a vapid tale. + +PLYMOUTH, March 1913. + + + +THE PHANTOM HORSEWOMAN + + + +I + +Queer are the ways of a man I know: + He comes and stands + In a careworn craze, + And looks at the sands + And the seaward haze, + With moveless hands + And face and gaze, + Then turns to go . . . +And what does he see when he gazes so? + +II + +They say he sees as an instant thing + More clear than to-day, + A sweet soft scene + That once was in play + By that briny green; + Yes, notes alway + Warm, 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 there + Does he see this sight, + But everywhere + In his brain--day, night, + As if on the air + It were drawn rose bright - + Yea, far from that shore +Does 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 gaily + In his rapt thought + On that shagged and shaly + Atlantic spot, + And as when first eyed +Draws rein and sings to the swing of the tide. + + + + +MISCELLANEOUS PIECES + + + + +THE WISTFUL LADY + + + +'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 sort + As I came riding home. +Perhaps she was some dame the Fates constrain +By 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 time + I have seen her, lending ear +To 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 hand + As I came into sight +At 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 she +Was waning wan, that she would hover round +And show herself after her passing day +To any newer Love I might have found, + But show her not to me. + + + +THE WOMAN IN THE RYE + + + +"Why do 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 one +Whom 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 skies +That blow reproach, the while I see +The rooks sheer off to where he lies +Wrapt in a peace withheld from me." + + + +THE CHEVAL-GLASS + + + +Why do you harbour that great cheval-glass + Filling 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 knew +Misery of a cast undreamt of - + More than, indeed, my due! + +"Then far rumours of her ill-usage + Came, like a chilling breath + When 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 old +Stood 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 expands +Often I see her pale-faced form there + Brushing her hair's bright bands. + +"There, too, at pallid midnight moments + Quick she will come to my call, + Smile from the frame withal +Ponderingly, as she used to regard me + Passing her father's wall. + +"So that it was for its revelations + I brought it oversea, + And drag it about with me . . . +Anon I shall break it and bury its fragments + Where my grave is to be." + + + +THE RE-ENACTMENT + + + + Between the folding sea-downs, + In the gloom + Of a wailful wintry nightfall, + When the boom +Of the ocean, like a hammering in a hollow tomb, + + Throbbed up the copse-clothed valley + From the shore + To the chamber where I darkled, + Sunk and sore +With gray ponderings why my Loved one had not come before + + To salute me in the dwelling + That of late + I had hired to waste a while in - + Vague of date, +Quaint, and remote--wherein I now expectant sate; + + On the solitude, unsignalled, + Broke a man + Who, in air as if at home there, + Seemed to scan +Every fire-flecked nook of the apartment span by span. + + A stranger's and no lover's + Eyes were these, + Eyes of a man who measures + What he sees +But vaguely, as if wrapt in filmy phantasies. + + Yea, his bearing was so absent + As he stood, + It bespoke a chord so plaintive + In 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 Madeira + Flashes red!" +(There was no wine, no food, no supper-table spread.) + + "You will forgive my coming, + Lady fair? + I see you as at that time + Rising there, +The self-same curious querying in your eyes and air. + + "Yet no. How so? You wear not + The 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 doing + Unto me? +YOU dwell here, unknown woman? . . . Whereabouts, then, is she? + + "And the house--things are much shifted. - + Put them where + They stood on this night's fellow; + Shift her chair: +Here was the couch: and the piano should be there." + + I indulged him, verily nerve-strained + Being 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 table + Where, meek-eyed, +She makes attempt with matron-manners to preside. + + "She serves me: now she rises, + Goes to play . . . + But you obstruct her, fill her + With dismay, +And embarrassed, scared, she vanishes away!" + + And, as 'twere useless longer + To persist, + He sighed, and sought the entry + Ere I wist, +And retreated, disappearing soundless in the mist. + + That here some mighty passion + Once 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 chamber + Dimmed our flame, - +An emanation, making our due words fall tame, + + As if the intenser drama + Shown me there + Of what the walls had witnessed + Filled the air, +And left no room for later passion anywhere. + + So came it that our fervours + Did quite fail + Of future consummation - + Being made quail +By the weird witchery of the parlour's hidden tale, + + Which I, as years passed, faintly + Learnt to trace, - + One of sad love, born full-winged + In that place +Where the predestined sorrowers first stood face to face. + + And as that month of winter + Circles round, + And the evening of the date-day + Grows embrowned, +I am conscious of those presences, and sit spellbound. + + There, often--lone, forsaken - + Queries breed + Within me; whether a phantom + Had my heed +On that strange night, or was it some wrecked heart indeed? + + + +HER SECRET + + + +That love's dull smart distressed my heart + He shrewdly learnt to see, +But that I was in love with a dead man + Never suspected he. + +He searched for the trace of a pictured face, + He watched each missive come, +And a note that seemed like a love-line + Made him look frozen and glum. + +He dogged my feet to the city street, + He followed me to the sea, +But not to the neighbouring churchyard + Did he dream of following me. + + + +"SHE CHARGED ME" + + + +She charged me with having said this and that +To another woman long years before, +In the very parlour where we sat, - + +Sat on a night when the endless pour +Of rain on the roof and the road below +Bent the spring of the spirit more and more . . . + +- So charged she me; and the Cupid's bow +Of her mouth was hard, and her eyes, and her face, +And her white forefinger lifted slow. + +Had she done it gently, or shown a trace +That not too curiously would she view +A folly passed ere her reign had place, + +A kiss might have ended it. But I knew +From the fall of each word, and the pause between, +That the curtain would drop upon us two +Ere long, in our play of slave and queen. + + + +THE NEWCOMER'S WIFE + + + +He paused on the sill of a door ajar +That screened a lively liquor-bar, +For the name had reached him through the door +Of 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 blent +Of all that's fresh and innocent, +Nor dreams how many a love-campaign +She had enjoyed before his reign!" + +That night there was the splash of a fall +Over the slimy harbour-wall: +They searched, and at the deepest place +Found him with crabs upon his face. + + + +A CONVERSATION AT DAWN + + + +He lay awake, with a harassed air, +And she, in her cloud of loose lank hair, + Seemed trouble-tried +As the dawn drew in on their faces there. + +The chamber looked far over the sea +From a white hotel on a white-stoned quay, + And stepping a stride +He parted the window-drapery. + +Above the level horizon spread +The sunrise, firing them foot to head + From its smouldering lair, +And painting their pillows with dyes of red. + +"What strange disquiets have stirred you, dear, +This dragging night, with starts in fear + Of 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 matched +In 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 assures + The 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 be + In the hap of things +Of 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 bride + Ere the tour be out +In an air so loth can be justified? + +"Ah--had you a male friend once loved well, +Upon whose suit disaster fell + And frustrance swift? +Honest you are, and may care to tell." + +She lay impassive, and nothing broke +The stillness other than, stroke by stroke, + The lazy lift +Of the tide below them; till she spoke: + +"I once had a friend--a Love, if you will - +Whose wife forsook him, and sank until + She was made a thrall +In a prison-cell for a deed of ill . . . + +"He remained alone; and we met--to love, +But barring legitimate joy thereof + Stood 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 me +In my lover's absence, hurriedly, + And much distrest, +I took you . . . Ah, that such could be! . . . + +"Now, saw you when crossing from yonder shore +At yesternoon, that the packet bore + On a white-wreathed bier +A coffined body towards the fore? + +"Well, while you stood at the other end, +The loungers talked, and I could but lend + A 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 days +Alone, and not as he dreamt erstwhile!" + +"--So you've lost a sprucer spouse than I!" +She held her peace, as if fain deny + She would indeed +For his pleasure's sake, but could lip no lie. + +"One far less formal and plain and slow!" +She let the laconic assertion go + As if of need +She held the conviction that it was so. + +"Regard me as his he always should, +He had said, and wed me he vowed he would + In his prime or sere +Most 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-streak +That I might go to him--say for a week - + And afford you right +To put me away, and your vows unspeak. + +"To be sure you have said, as of dim intent, +That marriage is a plain event + Of black and white, +Without any ghost of sentiment, + +"And my heart has quailed.--But deny it true +That you will never this lock undo! + No God intends +To thwart the yearning He's father to!" + +The husband hemmed, then blandly bowed +In 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 true +That I will never this lock undo + For so depraved +A 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 saved +The pain of learning there's more to know." + +"More? What may that be? Gad, I think +You have told me enough to make me blink! + Yet if more remain +Then own it to me. I will not shrink!" + +"Well, it is this. As we could not see +That a legal marriage could ever be, + To end our pain +We united ourselves informally; + +"And vowed at a chancel-altar nigh, +With book and ring, a lifelong tie; + A contract vain +To 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 gave +My 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 feared +There might be fruit of my tie with him; + +"And to cloak it by marriage I'm not the first, +Though, maybe, morally most accurst + Through your unpeered +And strict uprightness. That's the worst! + +"While yesterday his worn contours +Convinced me that love like his endures, + And that my troth-plight +Had been his, in fact, and not truly yours." + +"So, my lady, you raise the veil by degrees . . . +I own this last is enough to freeze + The warmest wight! +Now hear the other side, if you please: + +"I did say once, though without intent, +That marriage is a plain event + Of black and white, +Whatever may be its sentiment. + +"I'll act accordingly, none the less +That you soiled the contract in time of stress, + Thereto induced +By 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 loosed +For such an episode, don't suppose! + +"No: I'll not free you. And if it appear +There was too good ground for your first fear + From your amorous tricks, +I'll father the child. Yes, by God, my dear. + +"Even should you fly to his arms, I'll damn +Opinion, and fetch you; treat as sham + Your mutinous kicks, +And whip you home. That's the sort I am!" + +She whitened. "Enough . . . Since you disapprove +I'll yield in silence, and never move + Till my last pulse ticks +A 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 pine + With 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 again +Is a lesson I'll teach you in future years." + +She answered not, but lay listlessly +With her dark dry eyes on the coppery sea, + That now and then +Flung its lazy flounce at the neighbouring quay. + +1910. + + + +A KING'S SOLILOQUY +ON THE NIGHT OF HIS FUNERAL + + + +From the slow march and muffled drum + And crowds distrest, +And book and bell, at length I have come + To my full rest. + +A ten years' rule beneath the sun + Is wound up here, +And what I have done, what left undone, + Figures out clear. + +Yet in the estimate of such + It grieves me more +That I by some was loved so much + Than that I bore, + +From others, judgment of that hue + Which over-hope +Breeds from a theoretic view + Of regal scope. + +For kingly opportunities + Right many have sighed; +How best to bear its devilries + Those learn who have tried! + +I have eaten the fat and drunk the sweet, + Lived the life out +From the first greeting glad drum-beat + To the last shout. + +What pleasure earth affords to kings + I have enjoyed +Through its long vivid pulse-stirrings + Even till it cloyed. + +What days of drudgery, nights of stress + Can cark a throne, +Even one maintained in peacefulness, + I too have known. + +And so, I think, could I step back + To life again, +I should prefer the average track + Of average men, + +Since, as with them, what kingship would + It cannot do, +Nor to first thoughts however good + Hold itself true. + +Something binds hard the royal hand, + As all that be, +And it is That has shaped, has planned + My acts and me. + +May 1910. + + + +THE CORONATION + + + +At Westminster, 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 sees +Adorning 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 sound +That 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. + + + +AQUAE SULIS + + + +The chimes called midnight, just at interlune, +And the daytime talk of the Roman investigations +Was checked by silence, save for the husky tune +The 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 pile +Of the God with the baldachined altar overhead: +"And what did you get by raising this nave and aisle +Close on the site of the temple I tenanted? + +"The notes of your organ have thrilled down out of view +To the earth-clogged wrecks of my edifice many a year, +Though stately and shining once--ay, long ere you +Had 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. + + + +SEVENTY-FOUR AND TWENTY + + + +Here goes a man of seventy-four, +Who sees not what life means for him, +And here another in years a score +Who reads its very figure and trim. + +The one who shall walk to-day with me +Is not the youth who gazes far, +But the breezy wight who cannot see +What Earth's ingrained conditions are. + + + +THE ELOPEMENT + + + +"A woman never 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 kind +Is 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 ken +We washed all off in her chamber and restored her youth again. + +How many years ago it was! Some fifty can it be +Since 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. + + + +"I ROSE UP AS MY CUSTOM IS" + + + +I rose up as my custom is + On the eve of All-Souls' day, +And left my grave for an hour or so +To call on those I used to know + Before I passed away. + +I visited my former Love + As she lay by her husband's side; +I asked her if life pleased her, now +She was rid of a poet wrung in brow, + And crazed with the ills he eyed; + +Who used to drag her here and there + Wherever his fancies led, +And point out pale phantasmal things, +And talk of vain vague purposings + That 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 sex + A poet is the worst; +Women are practical, and they +Crave the wherewith to pay their way, + And slake their social thirst. + +"You were a poet--quite the ideal + That 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 know +What 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 stalls +The vampires screeched, the harpies flew, +And under the dim dawn I withdrew + To Death's inviolate halls. + + + +A WEEK + + + +On Monday 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 trace +Something beyond mere commonplace +In your ideas, and heart, and face. + +On Wednesday I did not opine +Your 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 dwell +Not far apart, whatever befell. + +On Friday it was with a thrill +In gazing towards your distant vill +I owned you were my dear one still. + +I saw you wholly to my mind +On Saturday--even one who shrined +All that was best of womankind. + +As wing-clipt sea-gull for the sea +On Sunday night I longed for thee, +Without whom life were waste to me! + + + +HAD YOU WEPT + + + +Had you 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 clinging +Possessed your soul to overthrow reserve when I came near; +Ay, though you suffer as much as I from storms the hours are +bringing +Upon 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. + + + +BEREFT, SHE THINKS SHE DREAMS + + + +I dream that the dearest I ever knew + Has died and been entombed. +I am sure it's a dream that cannot be true, + But I am so overgloomed +By its persistence, that I would gladly + Have quick death take me, +Rather than longer think thus sadly; + So wake me, wake me! + +It has lasted days, but minute and hour + I expect to get aroused +And find him as usual in the bower + Where 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! + + + +IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM + + + +"What do you see in that time-touched stone, + When nothing is there +But ashen blankness, although you give it + A rigid stare? + +"You look not quite as if you saw, + But as if you heard, +Parting your lips, and treading softly + As mouse or bird. + +"It is only the base of a pillar, they'll tell you, + That came to us +From a far old hill men used to name + Areopagus." + +- "I know no art, and I only view + A stone from a wall, +But I am thinking that stone has echoed + The voice of Paul, + +"Paul as he stood and preached beside it + Facing the crowd, +A small gaunt figure with wasted features, + Calling out loud + +"Words that in all their intimate accents + Pattered upon +That 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 echoed + The voice of Paul." + + + +IN THE SERVANTS' QUARTERS + + + +"Man, you too, aren't you, one of these rough followers of the +criminal? +All hanging hereabout to gather how he's going to bear +Examination in the hall." She flung disdainful glances on +The 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 afar +Here on his way from northern parts, engrossed in humble marketings, +Come in and rest awhile, although judicial doings are + Afoot by morning star?" + +"O, come, come!" laughed the constables. "Why, man, you speak the +dialect +He 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 +syllables +Are 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 +yourself +Unless you hold your tongue, or go away and keep you clear + When 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. + + + +THE OBLITERATE TOMB + + + + "More than half my life long +Did they weigh me falsely, to my bitter wrong, +But they all have shrunk away into the silence + Like a lost song. + + "And the day has dawned and come +For forgiveness, when the past may hold it dumb +On the once reverberate words of hatred uttered + Half in delirium . . . + + "With folded lips and hands +They lie and wait what next the Will commands, +And doubtless think, if think they can: 'Let discord + Sink with Life's sands!' + + "By these late years their names, +Their virtues, their hereditary claims, +May be as near defacement at their grave-place + As are their fames." + + --Such thoughts bechanced to seize +A traveller's mind--a man of memories - +As he set foot within the western city + Where had died these + + Who in their lifetime deemed +Him their chief enemy--one whose brain had schemed +To get their dingy greatness deeplier dingied + And disesteemed. + + So, sojourning in their town, +He mused on them and on their once renown, +And said, "I'll seek their resting-place to-morrow + Ere I lie down, + + "And end, lest I forget, +Those ires of many years that I regret, +Renew their names, that men may see some liegeness + Is left them yet." + + Duly next day he went +And sought the church he had known them to frequent, +And wandered in the precincts, set on eyeing + Where they lay pent, + + Till by remembrance led +He stood at length beside their slighted bed, +Above which, truly, scarce a line or letter + Could now be read. + + "Thus years obliterate +Their graven worth, their chronicle, their date! +At once I'll garnish and revive the record + Of their past state, + + "That still the sage may say +In pensive progress here where they decay, +'This stone records a luminous line whose talents + Told 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 view +That 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 coast +I have vowed for long that relics of my forbears + I'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 them + Each letter and line." + + "Such magnanimity +Is now not needed, sir; for you will see +That since I am here, a thing like this is, plainly, + Best done by me." + + The other bowed, and left, +Crestfallen in sentiment, as one bereft +Of some fair object he had been moved to cherish, + By hands more deft. + + And as he slept that night +The phantoms of the ensepulchred stood up-right +Before him, trembling that he had set him seeking + Their charnel-site. + + And, as unknowing his ruth, +Asked as with terrors founded not on truth +Why he should want them. "Ha," they hollowly hackered, + "You come, forsooth, + + "By stealth to obliterate +Our graven worth, our chronicle, our date, +That our descendant may not gild the record + Of our past state, + + "And that no sage may say +In pensive progress near where we decay: +'This stone records a luminous line whose talents + Told in their day.'" + + Upon the morrow he went +And to that town and churchyard never bent +His ageing footsteps till, some twelvemonths onward, + An accident + + Once more detained him there; +And, stirred by hauntings, he must needs repair +To where the tomb was. Lo, it stood still wasting + In no man's care. + + "The travelled man you met +The last time," said the sexton, "has not yet +Appeared again, though wealth he had in plenty. + --Can he forget? + + "The architect was hired +And came here on smart summons as desired, +But never the descendant came to tell him + What he required." + + And so the tomb remained +Untouched, untended, crumbling, weather-stained, +And though the one-time foe was fain to right it + He still refrained. + + "I'll set about it when +I am sure he'll come no more. Best wait till then." +But so it was that never the stranger entered + That city again. + + And the well-meaner died +While waiting tremulously unsatisfied +That no return of the family's foreign scion + Would still betide. + + And many years slid by, +And active church-restorers cast their eye +Upon the ancient garth and hoary building + The 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 tombstone +Pertaining 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-paving + Distributed. + + Over it and about +Men's footsteps beat, and wind and water-spout, +Until the names, aforetime gnawed by weathers, + Were quite worn out. + + So that no sage can say +In pensive progress near where they decay, +"This stone records a luminous line whose talents + Told in their day." + + + +"REGRET NOT ME" + + + + Regret not me; + Beneath the sunny tree +I lie uncaring, slumbering peacefully. + + Swift as the light + I flew my faery flight; +Ecstatically I moved, and feared no night. + + I did not know + That heydays fade and go, +But deemed that what was would be always so. + + I skipped at morn + Between the yellowing corn, +Thinking it good and glorious to be born. + + I ran at eves + Among the piled-up sheaves, +Dreaming, "I grieve not, therefore nothing grieves." + + Now soon will come + The apple, pear, and plum +And hinds will sing, and autumn insects hum. + + Again you will fare + To cider-makings rare, +And junketings; but I shall not be there. + + Yet gaily sing + Until the pewter ring +Those songs we sang when we went gipsying. + + And lightly dance + Some triple-timed romance +In coupled figures, and forget mischance; + + And mourn not me + Beneath the yellowing tree; +For I shall mind not, slumbering peacefully. + + + +THE RECALCITRANTS + + + +Let us off and search, and find a place +Where yours and mine can be natural lives, +Where no one comes who dissects and dives +And proclaims that ours is a curious case, +That its touch of romance can scarcely grace. + +You would think it strange at first, but then +Everything has been strange in its time. +When some one said on a day of the prime +He would bow to no brazen god again +He doubtless dazed the mass of men. + +None will recognize us as a pair whose claims +To righteous judgment we care not making; +Who have doubted if breath be worth the taking, +And have no respect for the current fames +Whence 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 given +The brunt thereof we have long sustained. +Well, let us away, scorned unexplained. + + + +STARLINGS ON THE ROOF + + + +"No smoke 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 different +From the well-known ones of those who went." + +"Why did they go? Their tones so bland +Were 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 range +Wherever they may, they will get no change. + +"They will drag their house-gear ever so far +In 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 bivouac +Till they move perforce--no time to pack!" + + + +THE MOON LOOKS IN + + + +I + +I have risen again, +And awhile survey +By my chilly ray +Through your window-pane +Your upturned face, +As you think, "Ah-she +Now dreams of me +In her distant place!" + +II + +I pierce her blind +In 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!" + + + +THE SWEET HUSSY + + + +In his early days he was quite surprised +When she told him she was compromised +By meetings and lingerings at his whim, +And thinking not of herself but him; +While she lifted orbs aggrieved and round +That scandal should so soon abound, +(As she had raised them to nine or ten +Of 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 understood +That she was the wicked one--he the good. + + + +THE TELEGRAM + + + +"O he's suffering--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 aware + That she lives no more a maid, + +But has vowed and wived herself to one who blessed the ground she +trod +To and from his scene of ministry, and thought her history known +In 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 honeymoon + At this idle watering-place . . . + +What now I see before me is a long lane overhung +With 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. + + + +THE MOTH-SIGNAL +(On Egdon Heath) + + + +"What are you still, still thinking," + He asked in vague surmise, +"That stare at the wick unblinking + With those great lost luminous eyes?" + +"O, I see a poor moth burning + In the candle-flame," said she, +Its wings and legs are turning + To 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 nightly + May be visible now no more." + +She rose, and, little heeding, + Her husband then went on +With his attentive reading + In the annals of ages gone. + +Outside the house a figure + Came from the tumulus near, +And speedily waxed bigger, + And clasped and called her Dear. + +"I saw the pale-winged token + You sent through the crack," sighed she. +"That moth is burnt and broken + With which you lured out me. + +"And were I as the moth is + It might be better far +For one whose marriage troth is + Shattered as potsherds are!" + +Then grinned the Ancient Briton + From the tumulus treed with pine: +"So, hearts are thwartly smitten + In these days as in mine!" + + + +SEEN BY THE WAITS + + + +Through snowy woods and shady + We went to play a tune +To the lonely manor-lady + By the light of the Christmas moon. + +We violed till, upward glancing + To 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 gloaming + We thought, but never said. + + + +THE TWO SOLDIERS + + + +Just at the corner of the wall + We met--yes, he and I - +Who had not faced in camp or hall + Since we bade home good-bye, +And what once happened came back--all - + Out of those years gone by. + +And that strange woman whom we knew + And loved--long dead and gone, +Whose poor half-perished residue, + Tombless and trod, lay yon! +But at this moment to our view + Rose like a phantom wan. + +And in his fixed face I could see, + Lit by a lurid shine, +The drama re-enact which she + Had dyed incarnadine +For us, and more. And doubtless he + Beheld it too in mine. + +A start, as at one slightly known, + And with an indifferent air +We passed, without a sign being shown + That, as it real were, +A memory-acted scene had thrown + Its tragic shadow there. + + + +THE DEATH OF REGRET + + + +I opened my shutter at sunrise, + And looked at the hill hard by, +And I heartily grieved for the comrade + Who 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 turned +Did I call back his last departure + By 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 shutter + In the same blank bald routine, +He scarcely once rose to remembrance + Through a month of my facing the scene. + +And ah, seldom now do I ponder + At the window as heretofore +On the long valued one who died yonder, + And wastes by the sycamore. + + + +IN THE DAYS OF CRINOLINE + + + +A plain tilt-bonnet on her head +She 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 beneath +Unpinned and drew as from a sheath + An ostrich-feathered hat. + +And where the hat had hung she now +Concealed and pinned the dowdy hood, +And set the hat upon her brow, +And thus emerging from the wood + Tripped on in jaunty mood. + +The sun was low and crimson-faced +As two came that way from the town, +And plunged into the wood untraced . . . +When separately therefrom they paced + The sun had quite gone down. + +The hat and feather disappeared, +The dowdy hood again was donned, +And in the gloom the fair one neared +Her home and husband dour, who conned + Calmly his blue-eyed blonde. + +"To-day," he said, "you have shown good sense, +A dress so modest and so meek +Should always deck your goings hence +Alone." And as a recompense + He kissed her on the cheek. + + + +THE ROMAN GRAVEMOUNDS + + + +By Rome'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 shard +Left by those who are held in such memory. + +But no; in his basket, see, he has brought +A 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 Caesar's warriors lie? - +But my little white cat was my only friend! +Could she but live, might the record die +Of Caesar, his legions, his aims, his end!" + +Well, Rome's long rule here is oft and again +A 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. + +November 1910. + + + +THE WORKBOX + + + +"See, here's the workbox, little wife, + That I made of polished oak." +He was a joiner, of village life; + She came of borough folk. + +He holds the present up to her +As with a smile she nears +And answers to the profferer, +"'Twill last all my sewing years!" + +"I warrant it will. And longer too. +'Tis a scantling that I got +Off poor John Wayward's coffin, who +Died of they knew not what. + +"The shingled pattern that seems to cease +Against your box's rim +Continues right on in the piece +That's underground with him. + +"And while I worked it made me think +Of timber's varied doom; +One inch where people eat and drink, +The next inch in a tomb. + +"But why do you look so white, my dear, +And turn aside your face? +You knew not that good lad, I fear, +Though he came from your native place?" + +"How could I know that good young man, +Though he came from my native town, +When he must have left there earlier than +I was a woman grown?" + +"Ah no. I should have understood! +It shocked you that I gave +To you one end of a piece of wood +Whose other is in a grave?" + +"Don't, dear, despise my intellect, +Mere accidental things +Of that sort never have effect +On my imaginings." + +Yet still her lips were limp and wan, +Her face still held aside, +As if she had known not only John, +But known of what he died. + + + +THE SACRILEGE +A BALLAD-TRAGEDY +(Circa 182-) + + + +PART I + +"I have a Love I love too well +Where Dunkery frowns on Exon Moor; +I have a Love I love too well, + To whom, ere she was mine, +'Such is my love for you,' I said, +'That you shall have to hood your head +A silken kerchief crimson-red, + Wove finest of the fine.' + +"And since this Love, for one mad moon, +On Exon Wild by Dunkery Tor, +Since this my Love for one mad moon + Did clasp me as her king, +I snatched a silk-piece red and rare +From off a stall at Priddy Fair, +For handkerchief to hood her hair + When we went gallanting. + +"Full soon the four weeks neared their end +Where Dunkery frowns on Exon Moor; +And when the four weeks neared their end, + And their swift sweets outwore, +I said, 'What shall I do to own +Those beauties bright as tulips blown, +And keep you here with me alone + As mine for evermore?' + +"And as she drowsed within my van +On Exon Wild by Dunkery Tor - +And as she drowsed within my van, + And dawning turned to day, +She heavily raised her sloe-black eyes +And murmured back in softest wise, +'One more thing, and the charms you prize + Are yours henceforth for aye. + +"'And swear I will I'll never go +While Dunkery frowns on Exon Moor +To meet the Cornish Wrestler Joe + For dance and dallyings. +If you'll to yon cathedral shrine, +And finger from the chest divine +Treasure to buy me ear-drops fine, + And richly jewelled rings.' + +"I said: 'I am one who has gathered gear +From Marlbury Downs to Dunkery Tor, +Who has gathered gear for many a year + From mansion, mart and fair; +But at God's house I've stayed my hand, +Hearing within me some command - +Curbed by a law not of the land + From doing damage there.' + +"Whereat she pouts, this Love of mine, +As Dunkery frowns on Exon Moor, +And still she pouts, this Love of mine, + So cityward I go. +But ere I start to do the thing, +And speed my soul's imperilling +For one who is my ravishing + And all the joy I know, + +"I come to lay this charge on thee - +On Exon Wild by Dunkery Tor - +I come to lay this charge on thee + With solemn speech and sign: +Should things go ill, and my life pay +For botchery in this rash assay, +You are to take hers likewise--yea, + The month the law takes mine. + +"For should my rival, Wrestler Joe, +Where Dunkery frowns on Exon Moor - +My reckless rival, Wrestler Joe, + My Love's possessor be, +My tortured spirit would not rest, +But wander weary and distrest +Throughout the world in wild protest: + The thought nigh maddens me!" + +PART II + +Thus did he speak--this brother of mine - +On Exon Wild by Dunkery Tor, +Born at my birth of mother of mine, + And forthwith went his way +To dare the deed some coming night . . . +I kept the watch with shaking sight, +The moon at moments breaking bright, + At others glooming gray. + +For three full days I heard no sound +Where Dunkery frowns on Exon Moor, +I heard no sound at all around + Whether his fay prevailed, +Or one malign the master were, +Till some afoot did tidings bear +How that, for all his practised care, + He had been caught and jailed. + +They had heard a crash when twelve had chimed +By Mendip east of Dunkery Tor, +When twelve had chimed and moonlight climbed; + They watched, and he was tracked +By arch and aisle and saint and knight +Of sculptured stonework sheeted white +In the cathedral's ghostly light, + And captured in the act. + +Yes; for this Love he loved too well +Where Dunkery sights the Severn shore, +All for this Love he loved too well + He burst the holy bars, +Seized golden vessels from the chest +To buy her ornaments of the best, +At her ill-witchery's request + And lure of eyes like stars . . . + +When blustering March confused the sky +In Toneborough Town by Exon Moor, +When blustering March confused the sky + They stretched him; and he died. +Down in the crowd where I, to see +The end of him, stood silently, +With a set face he lipped to me - + "Remember." "Ay!" I cried. + +By night and day I shadowed her +From Toneborough Deane to Dunkery Tor, +I shadowed her asleep, astir, + And yet I could not bear - +Till Wrestler Joe anon began +To figure as her chosen man, +And took her to his shining van - + To doom a form so fair! + +He made it handsome for her sake - +And Dunkery smiled to Exon Moor - +He made it handsome for her sake, + Painting it out and in; +And on the door of apple-green +A bright brass knocker soon was seen, +And window-curtains white and clean + For her to sit within. + +And all could see she clave to him +As cleaves a cloud to Dunkery Tor, +Yea, all could see she clave to him, + And every day I said, +"A pity it seems to part those two +That hourly grow to love more true: +Yet she's the wanton woman who + Sent one to swing till dead!" + +That blew to blazing all my hate, +While Dunkery frowned on Exon Moor, +And when the river swelled, her fate + Came to her pitilessly . . . +I dogged her, crying: "Across that plank +They use as bridge to reach yon bank +A coat and hat lie limp and dank; + Your goodman's, can they be?" + +She paled, and went, I close behind - +And Exon frowned to Dunkery Tor, +She went, and I came up behind + And tipped the plank that bore +Her, fleetly flitting across to eye +What such might bode. She slid awry; +And from the current came a cry, + A gurgle; and no more. + +How that befell no mortal knew +From Marlbury Downs to Exon Moor; +No mortal knew that deed undue + But he who schemed the crime, +Which night still covers . . . But in dream +Those ropes of hair upon the stream +He sees, and he will hear that scream + Until his judgment-time. + + + +THE ABBEY MASON +(Inventor of the "Perpendicular" Style of Gothic Architecture) + + + +The new-vamped Abbey shaped apace +In the fourteenth century of grace; + +(The church which, at an after date, +Acquired cathedral rank and state.) + +Panel and circumscribing wall +Of latest feature, trim and tall, + +Rose roundabout the Norman core +In prouder pose than theretofore, + +Encasing magically the old +With parpend ashlars manifold. + +The trowels rang out, and tracery +Appeared where blanks had used to be. + +Men toiled for pleasure more than pay, +And all went smoothly day by day, + +Till, in due course, the transept part +Engrossed the master-mason's art. + +- Home-coming thence he tossed and turned +Throughout the night till the new sun burned. + +"What fearful visions have inspired +These gaingivings?" his wife inquired; + +"As if your tools were in your hand +You have hammered, fitted, muttered, planned; + +"You have thumped as you were working hard: +I might have found me bruised and scarred. + +"What then's amiss. What eating care +Looms nigh, whereof I am unaware?" + +He answered not, but churchward went, +Viewing his draughts with discontent; + +And fumbled there the livelong day +Till, hollow-eyed, he came away. + +- 'Twas said, "The master-mason's ill!" +And all the abbey works stood still. + +Quoth Abbot Wygmore: "Why, O why +Distress yourself? You'll surely die!" + +The mason answered, trouble-torn, +"This long-vogued style is quite outworn! + +"The upper archmould nohow serves +To meet the lower tracery curves: + +"The ogees bend too far away +To give the flexures interplay. + +"This it is causes my distress . . . +So it will ever be unless + +"New forms be found to supersede +The circle when occasions need. + +"To carry it out I have tried and toiled, +And now perforce must own me foiled! + +"Jeerers will say: 'Here was a man +Who could not end what he began!'" + +- So passed that day, the next, the next; +The abbot scanned the task, perplexed; + +The townsmen mustered all their wit +To fathom how to compass it, + +But no raw artistries availed +Where practice in the craft had failed . . . + +- One night he tossed, all open-eyed, +And early left his helpmeet's side. + +Scattering the rushes of the floor +He wandered from the chamber door + +And sought the sizing pile, whereon +Struck dimly a cadaverous dawn + +Through freezing rain, that drenched the board +Of diagram-lines he last had scored - + +Chalked phantasies in vain begot +To knife the architectural knot - + +In front of which he dully stood, +Regarding them in hopeless mood. + +He closelier looked; then looked again: +The chalk-scratched draught-board faced the rain, + +Whose icicled drops deformed the lines +Innumerous of his lame designs, + +So that they streamed in small white threads +From the upper segments to the heads + +Of arcs below, uniting them +Each by a stalactitic stem. + +- At once, with eyes that struck out sparks, +He adds accessory cusping-marks, + +Then laughs aloud. The thing was done +So long assayed from sun to sun . . . + +- Now in his joy he grew aware +Of one behind him standing there, + +And, turning, saw the abbot, who +The weather's whim was watching too. + +Onward to Prime the abbot went, +Tacit upon the incident. + +- Men now discerned as days revolved +The ogive riddle had been solved; + +Templates were cut, fresh lines were chalked +Where lines had been defaced and balked, + +And the work swelled and mounted higher, +Achievement distancing desire; + +Here jambs with transoms fixed between, +Where never the like before had been - + +There little mullions thinly sawn +Where meeting circles once were drawn. + +"We knew," men said, "the thing would go +After his craft-wit got aglow, + +"And, once fulfilled what he has designed, +We'll honour him and his great mind!" + +When matters stood thus poised awhile, +And all surroundings shed a smile, + +The master-mason on an eve +Homed to his wife and seemed to grieve . . . + +- "The abbot spoke to me to-day: +He hangs about the works alway. + +"He knows the source as well as I +Of the new style men magnify. + +"He said: 'You pride yourself too much +On your creation. Is it such? + +"'Surely the hand of God it is +That conjured so, and only His! - + +"'Disclosing by the frost and rain +Forms your invention chased in vain; + +"'Hence the devices deemed so great +You copied, and did not create.' + +"I feel the abbot's words are just, +And that all thanks renounce I must. + +"Can a man welcome praise and pelf +For hatching art that hatched itself? . . . + +"So, I shall own the deft design +Is Heaven's outshaping, and not mine." + +"What!" said she. "Praise your works ensure +To throw away, and quite obscure + +"Your beaming and beneficent star? +Better you leave things as they are! + +"Why, think awhile. Had not your zest +In your loved craft curtailed your rest - + +"Had you not gone there ere the day +The sun had melted all away!" + +- But, though his good wife argued so, +The mason let the people know + +That not unaided sprang the thought +Whereby the glorious fane was wrought, + +But that by frost when dawn was dim +The method was disclosed to him. + +"Yet," said the townspeople thereat, +"'Tis your own doing, even with that!" + +But he--chafed, childlike, in extremes - +The temperament of men of dreams - + +Aloofly scrupled to admit +That he did aught but borrow it, + +And diffidently made request +That with the abbot all should rest. + +- As none could doubt the abbot's word, +Or question what the church averred, + +The mason was at length believed +Of no more count than he conceived, + +And soon began to lose the fame +That late had gathered round his name . . . + +- Time passed, and like a living thing +The pile went on embodying, + +And workmen died, and young ones grew, +And the old mason sank from view + +And Abbots Wygmore and Staunton went +And Horton sped the embellishment. + +But not till years had far progressed +Chanced it that, one day, much impressed, + +Standing within the well-graced aisle, +He asked who first conceived the style; + +And some decrepit sage detailed +How, when invention nought availed, + +The cloud-cast waters in their whim +Came down, and gave the hint to him + +Who struck each arc, and made each mould; +And how the abbot would not hold + +As sole begetter him who applied +Forms the Almighty sent as guide; + +And how the master lost renown, +And wore in death no artist's crown. + +- Then Horton, who in inner thought +Had more perceptions than he taught, + +Replied: "Nay; art can but transmute; +Invention is not absolute; + +"Things fail to spring from nought at call, +And art-beginnings most of all. + +"He did but what all artists do, +Wait upon Nature for his cue." + +- "Had you been here to tell them so +Lord Abbot, sixty years ago, + +"The mason, now long underground, +Doubtless a different fate had found. + +"He passed into oblivion dim, +And none knew what became of him! + +"His name? 'Twas of some common kind +And now has faded out of mind." + +The Abbot: "It shall not be hid! +I'll trace it." . . . But he never did. + +- When longer yet dank death had wormed +The brain wherein the style had germed + +From Gloucester church it flew afar - +The style called Perpendicular. - + +To Winton and to Westminster +It ranged, and grew still beautifuller: + +From Solway Frith to Dover Strand +Its fascinations starred the land, + +Not only on cathedral walls +But upon courts and castle halls, + +Till every edifice in the isle +Was patterned to no other style, + +And till, long having played its part, +The curtain fell on Gothic art. + +- Well: when in Wessex on your rounds, +Take a brief step beyond its bounds, + +And enter Gloucester: seek the quoin +Where choir and transept interjoin, + +And, gazing at the forms there flung +Against the sky by one unsung - + +The ogee arches transom-topped, +The tracery-stalks by spandrels stopped, + +Petrified lacework--lightly lined +On ancient massiveness behind - + +Muse that some minds so modest be +As to renounce fame's fairest fee, + +(Like him who crystallized on this spot +His visionings, but lies forgot, + +And many a mediaeval one +Whose symmetries salute the sun) + +While others boom a baseless claim, +And upon nothing rear a name. + + + +THE JUBILEE OF A MAGAZINE +(To the Editor) + + + +Yes; your up-dated modern page - +All flower-fresh, as it appears - +Can claim a time-tried lineage, + +That reaches backward fifty years +(Which, if but short for sleepy squires, +Is much in magazines' careers). + +- Here, on your cover, never tires +The sower, reaper, thresher, while +As through the seasons of our sires + +Each wills to work in ancient style +With seedlip, sickle, share and flail, +Though modes have since moved many a mile! + +The steel-roped plough now rips the vale, +With cog and tooth the sheaves are won, +Wired wheels drum out the wheat like hail; + +But if we ask, what has been done +To unify the mortal lot +Since your bright leaves first saw the sun, + +Beyond mechanic furtherance--what +Advance can rightness, candour, claim? +Truth bends abashed, and answers not. + +Despite your volumes' gentle aim +To straighten visions wry and wrong, +Events jar onward much the same! + +- Had custom tended to prolong, +As on your golden page engrained, +Old processes of blade and prong, + +And best invention been retained +For high crusades to lessen tears +Throughout the race, the world had gained! . . . +But too much, this, for fifty years. + + + +THE SATIN SHOES + + + +"If ever I walk to church to wed, + As other maidens use, +And face the gathered eyes," she said, + "I'll go in satin shoes!" + +She was as fair as early day + Shining on meads unmown, +And her sweet syllables seemed to play + Like flute-notes softly blown. + +The time arrived when it was meet + That she should be a bride; +The satin shoes were on her feet, + Her father was at her side. + +They stood within the dairy door, + And gazed across the green; +The church loomed on the distant moor, + But rain was thick between. + +"The grass-path hardly can be stepped, + The lane is like a pool!" - +Her dream is shown to be inept, + Her wish they overrule. + +"To go forth shod in satin soft + A coach would be required!" +For thickest boots the shoes were doffed - + Those shoes her soul desired . . . + +All day the bride, as overborne, + Was seen to brood apart, +And that the shoes had not been worn + Sat heavy on her heart. + +From her wrecked dream, as months flew on, + Her thought seemed not to range. +What ails the wife?" they said anon, + "That she should be so strange?" . . . + +Ah--what coach comes with furtive glide - + A coach of closed-up kind? +It comes to fetch the last year's bride, + Who wanders in her mind. + +She strove with them, and fearfully ran + Stairward with one low scream: +"Nay--coax her," said the madhouse man, + "With some old household theme." + +"If you will go, dear, you must fain + Put on those shoes--the pair +Meant for your marriage, which the rain + Forbade you then to wear." + +She clapped her hands, flushed joyous hues; + "O yes--I'll up and ride +If I am to wear my satin shoes + And be a proper bride!" + +Out then her little foot held she, + As to depart with speed; +The madhouse man smiled pleasantly + To see the wile succeed. + +She turned to him when all was done, + And gave him her thin hand, +Exclaiming like an enraptured one, + "This time it will be grand!" + +She mounted with a face elate, + Shut was the carriage door; +They drove her to the madhouse gate, + And she was seen no more . . . + +Yet she was fair as early day + Shining on meads unmown, +And her sweet syllables seemed to play + Like flute-notes softly blown. + + + +EXEUNT OMNES + + + +I + + Everybody else, then, going, +And I still left where the fair was? . . . +Much have I seen of neighbour loungers + Making a lusty showing, + Each now past all knowing. + +II + + There is an air of blankness +In the street and the littered spaces; +Thoroughfare, steeple, bridge and highway + Wizen themselves to lankness; + Kennels dribble dankness. + +III + + Folk all fade. And whither, +As I wait alone where the fair was? +Into the clammy and numbing night-fog + Whence they entered hither. + Soon do I follow thither! + +June 2, 1913. + + + +A POET + + + +Attentive eyes, fantastic heed, +Assessing minds, he does not need, +Nor urgent writs to sup or dine, +Nor pledges in the roseate wine. + +For loud acclaim he does not care +By the august or rich or fair, +Nor for smart pilgrims from afar, +Curious on where his hauntings are. + +But soon or later, when you hear +That he has doffed this wrinkled gear, +Some evening, at the first star-ray, +Come to his graveside, pause and say: + +"Whatever the message his to tell, +Two bright-souled women loved him well." +Stand and say that amid the dim: +It will be praise enough for him. + +July 1914. + + + +POSTSCRIPT +"MEN WHO MARCH AWAY" +(SONG OF THE SOLDIERS) + + + +What of the faith and fire within us + Men who march away + Ere the barn-cocks say + Night is growing gray, +To hazards whence no tears can win us; +What of the faith and fire within us + Men who march away? + +Is it a purblind prank, O think you, + Friend with the musing eye, + Who watch us stepping by + With 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 believing + Victory crowns the just, + And that braggarts must + Surely bite the dust, +Press we to the field ungrieving, +In our heart of hearts believing + Victory crowns the just. + +Hence the faith and fire within us + Men who march away + Ere the barn-cocks say + Night is growing gray, +To hazards whence no tears can win us: +Hence the faith and fire within us + Men who march away. + +September 5, 1914. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext of Satires of Circumstance etc. by Hardy + |