Late Lyrics and Earlier, With Many Other Verses Part 21

- "O man of mystery, why not say Out plain to me all you mean?

Why you missed last night, and must now away Is--another has come between!"

- " O woman so mocking in mood and mien, So be it!" I replied: "And if I am due at a differing scene Before the dark has died,

"'Tis that, unresting, to wander wide Has ever been my plight, And at least I have met you at Cremyll side If not last eve, to-night."

- "You get small rest--that read I quite; And so do I, maybe; Though there's a rest hid safe from sight Elsewhere awaiting me!"

A mad star crossed the sky to the sea, Wasting in sparks as it streamed, And when I looked to where stood she She had changed, much changed, it seemed:

The sparks of the star in her pupils gleamed, She was vague as a vapour now, And ere of its meaning I had dreamed She'd vanished--I knew not how.

I stood on, long; each cliff-top bough, Like a cynic nodding there, Moved up and down, though no man's brow But mine met the wayward air.

Still stood I, wholly unaware Of what had come to pa.s.s, Or had brought the secret of my new Fair To my old Love, alas!

I went down then by crag and gra.s.s To the boat wherein I had come.

Said the man with the oars: "This news of the la.s.s Of Edgc.u.mbe, is sharp for some!

"Yes: found this daybreak, stiff and numb On the sh.o.r.e here, whither she'd sped To meet her lover last night in the glum, And he came not, 'tis said.

"And she leapt down, heart-hit. Pity she's dead: So much for the faithful-bent!" . . .

I looked, and again a star overhead Shot through the firmament.

SHE WHO SAW NOT

"Did you see something within the house That made me call you before the red sunsetting?

Something that all this common scene endows With a richened impress there can be no forgetting?"

"--I have found nothing to see therein, O Sage, that should have made you urge me to enter, Nothing to fire the soul, or the sense to win: I rate you as a rare misrepresenter!"

"--Go anew, Lady,--in by the right . . .

Well: why does your face not s.h.i.+ne like the face of Moses?"

"--I found no moving thing there save the light And shadow flung on the wall by the outside roses."

"--Go yet once more, pray. Look on a seat."

"--I go . . . O Sage, it's only a man that sits there With eyes on the sun. Mute,--average head to feet."

"--No more?"--"No more. Just one the place befits there,

"As the rays reach in through the open door, And he looks at his hand, and the sun glows through his fingers, While he's thinking thoughts whose tenour is no more To me than the swaying rose-tree shade that lingers."

No more. And years drew on and on Till no sun came, dank fogs the house enfolding; And she saw inside, when the form in the flesh had gone, As a vision what she had missed when the real beholding.

THE OLD WORKMAN

"Why are you so bent down before your time, Old mason? Many have not left their prime So far behind at your age, and can still Stand full upright at will."

He pointed to the mansion-front hard by, And to the stones of the quoin against the sky; "Those upper blocks," he said, "that there you see, It was that ruined me."

There stood in the air up to the parapet Crowning the corner height, the stones as set By him--ashlar whereon the gales might drum For centuries to come.

"I carried them up," he said, "by a ladder there; The last was as big a load as I could bear; But on I heaved; and something in my back Moved, as 'twere with a crack.

"So I got crookt. I never lost that sprain; And those who live there, walled from wind and rain By freestone that I lifted, do not know That my life's ache came so.

"They don't know me, or even know my name, But good I think it, somehow, all the same To have kept 'em safe from harm, and right and tight, Though it has broke me quite.

"Yes; that I fixed it firm up there I am proud, Facing the hail and snow and sun and cloud, And to stand storms for ages, beating round When I lie underground."

THE SAILOR'S MOTHER

"O whence do you come, Figure in the night-fog that chills me numb?"

"I come to you across from my house up there, And I don't mind the brine-mist clinging to me That blows from the quay, For I heard him in my chamber, and thought you unaware."

"But what did you hear, That brought you blindly knocking in this middle-watch so drear?"

"My sailor son's voice as 'twere calling at your door, And I don't mind my bare feet clammy on the stones, And the blight to my bones, For he only knows of THIS house I lived in before."

"n.o.body's nigh, Woman like a skeleton, with socket-sunk eye."

"Ah--n.o.body's nigh! And my life is drearisome, And this is the old home we loved in many a day Before he went away; And the salt fog mops me. And n.o.body's come!"

From "To Please his Wife."

OUTSIDE THE CAs.e.m.e.nT (A REMINISCENCE OF THE WAR)

We sat in the room And praised her whom We saw in the portico-shade outside: She could not hear What was said of her, But smiled, for its purport we did not hide.

Then in was brought That message, fraught With evil fortune for her out there, Whom we loved that day More than any could say, And would fain have fenced from a waft of care.

And the question pressed Like lead on each breast, Should we cloak the tidings, or call her and tell?

It was too intense A choice for our sense, As we pondered and watched her we loved so well.