Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with Miscellaneous Pieces

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.