Late Lyrics and Earlier, With Many Other Verses Part 16

"Sure, n.o.body meant her to poison herself in her haste, after all!"

The deacons will say as they carry me down and the night shadows fall, "Though the charges were true," they will add. "It's a case red as scarlet withal!"

I have never once minced it. Lived chaste I have not. Heaven knows it above! . . .

But past all the heavings of pa.s.sion--it's music has been my life- love! . . .

That tune did go well--this last playing! . . . I reckon they'll bury me here . . .

Not a soul from the seaport my birthplace--will come, or bestow me .

. . a tear.

FETCHING HER

An hour before the dawn, My friend, You lit your waiting bedside-lamp, Your breakfast-fire anon, And outing into the dark and damp You saddled, and set on.

Thuswise, before the day, My friend, You sought her on her surfy sh.o.r.e, To fetch her thence away Unto your own new-builded door For a staunch lifelong stay.

You said: "It seems to be, My friend, That I were bringing to my place The pure brine breeze, the sea, The mews--all her old sky and s.p.a.ce, In bringing her with me!"

--But time is prompt to expugn, My friend, Such magic-minted conjurings: The brought breeze fainted soon, And then the sense of seamews' wings, And the sh.o.r.e's sibilant tune.

So, it had been more due, My friend, Perhaps, had you not pulled this flower From the craggy nook it knew, And set it in an alien bower; But left it where it grew!

"COULD I BUT WILL"

(SONG: Verses 1, 3, key major; verse 2, key minor)

Could I but will, Will to my bent, I'd have afar ones near me still, And music of rare ravishment, In strains that move the toes and heels!

And when the sweethearts sat for rest The unbetrothed should foot with zest Ecstatic reels.

Could I be head, Head-G.o.d, "Come, now, Dear girl," I'd say, "whose flame is fled, Who liest with linen-banded brow, Stirred but by shakes from Earth's deep core--"

I'd say to her: "Unshroud and meet That Love who kissed and called thee Sweet! - Yea, come once more!"

Even half-G.o.d power In spinning dooms Had I, this frozen scene should flower, And sand-swept plains and Arctic glooms Should green them gay with waving leaves, Mid which old friends and I would walk With weightless feet and magic talk Uncounted eves.

SHE REVISITS ALONE THE CHURCH OF HER MARRIAGE

I have come to the church and chancel, Where all's the same!

- Brighter and larger in my dreams Truly it shaped than now, meseems, Is its substantial frame.

But, anyhow, I made my vow, Whether for praise or blame, Here in this church and chancel Where all's the same.

Where touched the check-floored chancel My knees and his?

The step looks shyly at the sun, And says, "'Twas here the thing was done, For bale or else for bliss!"

Of all those there I least was ware Would it be that or this When touched the check-floored chancel My knees and his!

Here in this fateful chancel Where all's the same, I thought the culminant crest of life Was reached when I went forth the wife I was not when I came.

Each commonplace one of my race, Some say, has such an aim - To go from a fateful chancel As not the same.

Here, through this h.o.a.ry chancel Where all's the same, A thrill, a gaiety even, ranged That morning when it seemed I changed My nature with my name.

Though now not fair, though gray my hair, He loved me, past proclaim, Here in this h.o.a.ry chancel, Where all's the same.

AT THE ENTERING OF THE NEW YEAR

I (OLD STYLE)

Our songs went up and out the chimney, And roused the home-gone husbandmen; Our allemands, our heys, poussettings, Our hands-across and back again, Sent rhythmic throbbings through the cas.e.m.e.nts On to the white highway, Where nighted farers paused and muttered, "Keep it up well, do they!"

The contraba.s.so's measured booming Sped at each bar to the parish bounds, To shepherds at their midnight lambings, To stealthy poachers on their rounds; And everybody caught full duly The notes of our delight, As Time unrobed the Youth of Promise Hailed by our sanguine sight.

II (NEW STYLE)

We stand in the dusk of a pine-tree limb, As if to give ear to the m.u.f.fled peal, Brought or withheld at the breeze's whim; But our truest heed is to words that steal From the mantled ghost that looms in the gray, And seems, so far as our sense can see, To feature bereaved Humanity, As it sighs to the imminent year its say:-

"O stay without, O stay without, Calm comely Youth, untasked, untired; Though stars irradiate thee about Thy entrance here is undesired.

Open the gate not, mystic one; Must we avow what we would close confine?

WITH THEE, GOOD FRIEND, WE WOULD HAVE CONVERSE NONE, Albeit the fault may not be thine."

December 31. During the War.

THEY WOULD NOT COME

I travelled to where in her lifetime She'd knelt at morning prayer, To call her up as if there; But she paid no heed to my suing, As though her old haunt could win not A thought from her spirit, or care.

I went where my friend had lectioned The prophets in high declaim, That my soul's ear the same Full tones should catch as aforetime; But silenced by gear of the Present Was the voice that once there came!

Where the ocean had sprayed our banquet I stood, to recall it as then: The same eluding again!

No vision. Shows contingent Affrighted it further from me Even than from my home-den.

When I found them no responders, But fugitives p.r.o.ne to flee From where they had used to be, It vouched I had been led hither As by night wisps in bogland, And bruised the heart of me!

AFTER A ROMANTIC DAY