Poems Part 12

VIOLET.

I will not cope with you in compliment.

I'll give you tears, and pity, and true thoughts; If you are desolate, my heart is open; I know 'tis little worth, but any hut, However poor, unto a homeless man, Is welcomer than mists or nipping winds.

But if you conquer Fame----

WALTER.

With eager hands I'll bend the awful thing into a crown, And you shall wear it.

VIOLET.

Oh, no, no!

Lay it upon _her_ grave. [_Another silence._

ARTHUR.

Run out again!

We should he jovial as the feasting G.o.ds, We're silent as a synod of the stars!

The night is out at elbows. Laughter's dead.

To the rescue, Violet! A song! a song!

VIOLET _sings._

Upon my knee a modern minstrel's tales, Full as a choir with music, lies unread; My impatient shallop flaps its silken sails To rouse me, but I cannot lift my head.

I see a wretched isle, that ghost-like stands, Wrapt in its mist-shroud in the wint'ry main; And now a cheerless gleam of red-ploughed lands, O'er which a crow flies heavy in the rain.

I've neither heart nor voice!

[_Rises and draws the curtain._ You've sat the night out, Masters! See, the moon Lies stranded on the pallid coast of morn.

ARTHUR.

Methinks our merriment lies stranded, too.

Draw the long table for a game of bowls.

You will be captain, Edward,--G.o.ds! he yawns.

[_To_ WALTER.

Your thunder, Jove, has soured these cream-pots all.

MR. WILMOTT.

To bed! To bed!

SCENE IX.

_A Lawn_--_Sunset_--WALTER _lying at_ VIOLET'S _feet._

VIOLET.

You loved, then, very much, this friend of thine?

WALTER.

The sound of his voice did warm my heart like wine.

He's long since dead; but if there is a heaven, He's in its heart of bliss.

VIOLET.

How did you live?

WALTER.

We read and wrote together, slept together; We dwelt on slopes against the morning sun, We dwelt in crowded streets, and loved to walk While Labour slept; for, in the ghastly dawn, The wildered city seemed a demon's brain, The children of the night its evil thoughts.

Sometimes we sat whole afternoons, and watched The sunset build a city frail as dream, With bridges, streets of splendour, towers; and saw The fabrics crumble into rosy ruins, And then grow grey as heath. But our chief joy Was to draw images from everything; And images lay thick upon our talk, As sh.e.l.ls on ocean sands.

VIOLET.

From everything!

Here is the sunset, yonder grows the moon, What image would you draw from these?

WALTER.

Why, this.

The sun is dying like a cloven king In his own blood; the while the distant moon, Like a pale prophetess, whom he has wronged, Leans eager forward, with most hungry eyes, Watching him bleed to death, and, as he faints, She brightens and dilates; revenge complete, She walks in lonely triumph through the night.

VIOLET.

Give not such hateful pa.s.sion to the orb That cools the heated lands; that ripes the fields, While sleep the husbandmen, then hastes away Ere the first step of dawn, doing all good In secret and the night. 'Tis very wrong.

Would I had known your friend!

WALTER.

Iconoclast!

'Tis better as it is.

VIOLET.

Why is it so?

WALTER.

Because you would have loved him, and then I Would have to wander outside of all joy, Like Neptune in the cold. [_A pause._

VIOLET.

Do you remember You promised yesterday you'd paint for me Three pictures from your life?

WALTER.