Late Lyrics and Earlier, With Many Other Verses Part 22

Yea, spirit failed us At what a.s.sailed us; How long, while seeing what soon must come, Should we counterfeit No knowledge of it, And stay the stroke that would blanch and numb?

And thus, before For evermore Joy left her, we practised to beguile Her innocence when She now and again Looked in, and smiled us another smile.

THE Pa.s.sER-BY (L. H. RECALLS HER ROMANCE)

He used to pa.s.s, well-trimmed and brushed, My window every day, And when I smiled on him he blushed, That youth, quite as a girl might; aye, In the shyest way.

Thus often did he pa.s.s hereby, That youth of bounding gait, Until the one who blushed was I, And he became, as here I sate, My joy, my fate.

And now he pa.s.ses by no more, That youth I loved too true!

I grieve should he, as here of yore, Pa.s.s elsewhere, seated in his view, Some maiden new!

If such should be, alas for her!

He'll make her feel him dear, Become her daily comforter, Then tire him of her beauteous gear, And disappear!

"I WAS THE MIDMOST"

I was the midmost of my world When first I frisked me free, For though within its circuit gleamed But a small company, And I was immature, they seemed To bend their looks on me.

She was the midmost of my world When I went further forth, And hence it was that, whether I turned To south, east, west, or north, Beams of an all-day Polestar burned From that new axe of earth.

Where now is midmost in my world?

I trace it not at all: No midmost shows it here, or there, When wistful voices call "We are fain! We are fain!" from everywhere On Earth's bewildering ball!

A SOUND IN THE NIGHT (WOODSFORD CASTLE: 17-)

"What do I catch upon the night-wind, husband? - What is it sounds in this house so eerily?

It seems to be a woman's voice: each little while I hear it, And it much troubles me!"

"'Tis but the eaves dripping down upon the plinth-slopes: Letting fancies worry thee!--sure 'tis a foolish thing, When we were on'y coupled half-an-hour before the noontide, And now it's but evening."

"Yet seems it still a woman's voice outside the castle, husband, And 'tis cold to-night, and rain beats, and this is a lonely place.

Didst thou fathom much of womankind in travel or adventure Ere ever thou sawest my face?"

"It may be a tree, bride, that rubs his arms acrosswise, If it is not the eaves-drip upon the lower slopes, Or the river at the bend, where it whirls about the hatches Like a creature that sighs and mopes."

"Yet it still seems to me like the crying of a woman, And it saddens me much that so piteous a sound On this my bridal night when I would get agone from sorrow Should so ghost-like wander round!"

"To satisfy thee, Love, I will strike the flint-and-steel, then, And set the rush-candle up, and undo the door, And take the new horn-lantern that we bought upon our journey, And throw the light over the moor."

He struck a light, and breeched and booted in the further chamber, And lit the new horn-lantern and went from her sight, And vanished down the turret; and she heard him pa.s.s the postern, And go out into the night.

She listened as she lay, till she heard his step returning, And his voice as he unclothed him: "'Twas nothing, as I said, But the nor'-west wind a-blowing from the moor ath'art the river, And the tree that taps the gurgoyle-head."

"Nay, husband, you perplex me; for if the noise I heard here, Awaking me from sleep so, were but as you avow, The rain-fall, and the wind, and the tree-bough, and the river, Why is it silent now?

"And why is thy hand and thy clasping arm so shaking, And thy sleeve and tags of hair so muddy and so wet, And why feel I thy heart a-thumping every time thou kissest me, And thy breath as if hard to get?"

He lay there in silence for a while, still quickly breathing, Then started up and walked about the room resentfully: "O woman, witch, whom I, in sooth, against my will have wedded, Why castedst thou thy spells on me?

"There was one I loved once: the cry you heard was her cry: She came to me to-night, and her plight was pa.s.sing sore, As no woman . . . Yea, and it was e'en the cry you heard, wife, But she will cry no more!

"And now I can't abide thee: this place, it hath a curse on't, This farmstead once a castle: I'll get me straight away!"

He dressed this time in darkness, unspeaking, as she listened, And went ere the dawn turned day.

They found a woman's body at a spot called Rocky Shallow, Where the Froom stream curves amid the moorland, washed aground, And they searched about for him, the yeoman, who had darkly known her, But he could not be found.

And the bride left for good-and-all the farmstead once a castle, And in a county far away lives, mourns, and sleeps alone, And thinks in windy weather that she hears a woman crying, And sometimes an infant's moan.

ON A DISCOVERED CURL OF HAIR

When your soft welcomings were said, This curl was waving on your head, And when we walked where breakers dinned It sported in the sun and wind, And when I had won your words of grace It brushed and clung about my face.

Then, to abate the misery Of absentness, you gave it me.

Where are its fellows now? Ah, they For brightest brown have donned a gray, And gone into a caverned ark, Ever unopened, always dark!

Yet this one curl, untouched of time, Beams with live brown as in its prime, So that it seems I even could now Restore it to the living brow By bearing down the western road Till I had reached your old abode.

February 1913.

AN OLD LIKENESS (RECALLING R. T.)

Who would have thought That, not having missed her Talks, tears, laughter In absence, or sought To recall for so long Her gamut of song; Or ever to waft her Signal of aught That she, fancy-fanned, Would well understand, I should have kissed her Picture when scanned Yawning years after!

Yet, seeing her poor Dim-outlined form Chancewise at night-time, Some old allure Came on me, warm, Fresh, pleadful, pure, As in that bright time At a far season Of love and unreason, And took me by storm Here in this blight-time!

And thus it arose That, yawning years after Our early flows Of wit and laughter, And framing of rhymes At idle times, At sight of her painting, Though she lies cold In churchyard mould, I took its feinting As real, and kissed it, As if I had wist it Herself of old.