Chimneysmoke Part 11

TO YOU, REMEMBERING THE PAST

When we were parted, sweet, and darkness came, I used to strike a match, and hold the flame Before your picture and would breathless mark The answering glimmer of the tiny spark That brought to life the magic of your eyes, Their wistful tenderness, their glad surprise.

Holding that mimic torch before your shrine I used to light your eyes and make them mine; Watch them like stars set in a lonely sky, Whisper my heart out, yearning for reply; Summon your lips from far across the sea Bidding them live a twilight hour with me.

Then, when the match was shrivelled into gloom, Lo--you were with me in the darkened room.

CHARLES AND MARY

(December 27, 1834.)

Lamb died just before I left town, and Mr. Ryle of the E. India House, one of his extors., notified it to me....

He said Miss L. was resigned and composed at the event, but it was from her malady, then in mild type, so that when she saw her brother dead, she observed on his beauty when asleep and apprehended nothing further.

--Letter of John Rickman, 24 January, 1835.

I hear their voices still: the stammering one Struggling with some absurdity of jest; Her quiet words that puzzle and protest Against the latest outrage of his fun.

So wise, so simple--has she never guessed That through his laughter, love and terror run?

For when her trouble came, and darkness pressed, He smiled, and fought her madness with a pun.

Through all those years it was his task to keep Her gentle heart serenely mystified.

If Fate's an artist, this should be his pride-- When, in that Christmas season, he lay dead, She innocently looked. "I always said That Charles is really handsome when asleep."

TO A GRANDMOTHER

At six o'clock in the evening, The time for lullabies, My son lay on my mother's lap With sleepy, sleepy eyes!

(_O drowsy little manny boy,_ _With sleepy, sleepy eyes!_)

I heard her sing, and rock him, And the creak of the swaying chair, And the old dear cadence of the words Came softly down the stair.

And all the years had vanished, All folly, greed, and stain-- The old, old song, the creaking chair, The dearest arms again!

(_O lucky little manny boy,_ _To feel those arms again!_)

DIARISTS

They catalogue their minutes: Now, now, now, Is Actual, amid the fugitive; Take ink and pen (they say) for that is how We snare this flying life, and make it live.

So to their little pictures, and they sieve Their happinesses: fields turned by the plough, The afterglow that summer sunsets give, The razor concave of a great s.h.i.+p's bow.

O gallant instinct, folly for men's mirth!

Type cannot burn and sparkle on the page.

No glittering ink can make this written word s.h.i.+ne clear enough to speak the n.o.ble rage And instancy of life. All sonnets blurred The sudden mood of truth that gave them birth.

THE LAST SONNET

Suppose one knew that never more might one Put pen to sonnet, well loved task; that now These fourteen lines were all he could allow To say his message, be forever done; How he would scan the word, the line, the rhyme, Intent to sum in dearly chosen phrase The windy trees, the beauty of his days, Life's pride and pathos in one verse sublime.

How bitter then would be regret and pang For former rhymes he dallied to refine, For every verse that was not crystalline....

And if belike this last one feebly rang, Honor and pride would cast it to the floor Facing the judge with what was done before.

THE SAVAGE

Civilization causes me Alternate fits: disgust and glee.

Buried in piles of gla.s.s and stone My private spirit moves alone,

Where every day from eight to six I keep alive by hasty tricks.

But I am simple in my soul; My mind is sullen to control.

At dusk I smell the scent of earth, And I am dumb--too glad for mirth.

I know the savors night can give, And then, and then, I live, I live!

No man is wholly pure and free, For that is not his destiny,

But though I bend, I will not break: And still be savage, for Truth's sake.

G.o.d d.a.m.ns the easily convinced (Like Pilate, when his hands he rinsed).

ST. PAUL'S AND WOOLWORTH