Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses

I

II

III

But now, at last,
When our glory has passed,
And there is no smile
From her in the aisle,
But where it once shone
A marble, men say,
With her name thereon
Is discerned to-day;
And spiritless
In the wilderness
I shrink from sight
And desire the night,
(Though, as in old wise,
I might still arise,
Go forth, and stand
And prophesy in the land),
I feel the shake
Of wind and earthquake,
And consuming fire
Nigher and nigher,
And the voice catch clear,
“What doest thou here?”

The Spectator 1916.  During the War.

I idly cut a parsley stalk,
And blew therein towards the moon;
I had not thought what ghosts would walk
With shivering footsteps to my tune.

I went, and knelt, and scooped my hand
As if to drink, into the brook,
And a faint figure seemed to stand
Above me, with the bygone look.

I lipped rough rhymes of chance, not choice,
I thought not what my words might be;
There came into my ear a voice
That turned a tenderer verse for me.

Lalage’s coming:
Where is she now, O?
Turning to bow, O,
And smile, is she,
Just at parting,
Parting, parting,
As she is starting
To come to me?

Where is she now, O,
Now, and now, O,
Shadowing a bough, O,
Of hedge or tree
As she is rushing,
Rushing, rushing,
Gossamers brushing
To come to me?

Near is she now, O,
Now, and now, O;
Milk the rich cow, O,
Forward the tea;
Shake the down bed for her,
Linen sheets spread for her,
Drape round the head for her
Coming to me.

Lalage’s coming,
She’s nearer now, O,
End anyhow, O,
To-day’s husbandry!
Would a gilt chair were mine,
Slippers of vair were mine,
Brushes for hair were mine
Of ivory!

Lalage’s coming;
Where is she now, O?
Fain I’d avow, O,
Full honestly
Nought here’s enough for her,
All is too rough for her,
Even my love for her
Poor in degree.

She’s nearer now, O,
Still nearer now, O,
She ’tis, I vow, O,
Passing the lea.
Rush down to meet her there,
Call out and greet her there,
Never a sweeter there
Crossed to me!

Lalage’s come; aye,
Come is she now, O! . . .
Does Heaven allow, O,
A meeting to be?
Yes, she is here now,
Here now, here now,
Nothing to fear now,
Here’s Lalage!

When I walked roseless tracks and wide,
Ere dawned your date for meeting me,
O why did you not cry Halloo
Across the stretch between, and say:

“We move, while years as yet divide,
On closing lines which—though it be
You know me not nor I know you—
Will intersect and join some day!”

   Then well I had borne
   Each scraping thorn;
   But the winters froze,
   And grew no rose;
   No bridge bestrode
   The gap at all;
   No shape you showed,
   And I heard no call!

So zestfully canst thou sing?
And all this indignity,
With God’s consent, on thee!
Blinded ere yet a-wing
By the red-hot needle thou,
I stand and wonder how
So zestfully thou canst sing!

Resenting not such wrong,
Thy grievous pain forgot,
Eternal dark thy lot,
Groping thy whole life long;
After that stab of fire;
Enjailed in pitiless wire;
Resenting not such wrong!

Who hath charity?  This bird.
Who suffereth long and is kind,
Is not provoked, though blind
And alive ensepulchred?
Who hopeth, endureth all things?
Who thinketh no evil, but sings?
Who is divine?  This bird.

The wind blew words along the skies,
   And these it blew to me
Through the wide dusk: “Lift up your eyes,
   Behold this troubled tree,
Complaining as it sways and plies;
   It is a limb of thee.

“Yea, too, the creatures sheltering round—
   Dumb figures, wild and tame,
Yea, too, thy fellows who abound—
   Either of speech the same
Or far and strange—black, dwarfed, and browned,
   They are stuff of thy own frame.”

I moved on in a surging awe
   Of inarticulateness
At the pathetic Me I saw
   In all his huge distress,
Making self-slaughter of the law
   To kill, break, or suppress.

How was this I did not see
Such a look as here was shown
Ere its womanhood had blown
Past its first felicity?—
That I did not know you young,
   Faded Face,
      Know you young!

Why did Time so ill bestead
That I heard no voice of yours
Hail from out the curved contours
Of those lips when rosy red;
Weeted not the songs they sung,
   Faded Face,
      Songs they sung!

By these blanchings, blooms of old,
And the relics of your voice—
Leavings rare of rich and choice
From your early tone and mould—
Let me mourn,—aye, sorrow-wrung,
   Faded Face,
      Sorrow-wrung!

I

Stretching eyes west
Over the sea,
Wind foul or fair,
Always stood she
Prospect-impressed;
Solely out there
Did her gaze rest,
Never elsewhere
Seemed charm to be.

II

Always eyes east
Ponders she now—
As in devotion—
Hills of blank brow
Where no waves plough.
Never the least
Room for emotion
Drawn from the ocean
Does she allow.

      “I am here to time, you see;
The glade is well-screened—eh?—against alarm;
   Fit place to vindicate by my arm
   The honour of my spotless wife,
   Who scorns your libel upon her life
      In boasting intimacy!

      “‘All hush-offerings you’ll spurn,
My husband.  Two must come; one only go,’
   She said.  ‘That he’ll be you I know;
   To faith like ours Heaven will be just,
   And I shall abide in fullest trust
      Your speedy glad return.’”

   So stripped they there, and fought,
And the swords clicked and scraped, and the onsets sped;
   Till the husband fell; and his shirt was red
   With streams from his heart’s hot cistern.  Nought
   Could save him now; and the other, wrought
      Maybe to pity, said:

   “Why did you urge on this?
Your wife assured you; and ’t had better been
   That you had let things pass, serene
   In confidence of long-tried bliss,
   Holding there could be nought amiss
      In what my words might mean.”

   Then, seeing nor ruth nor rage
Could move his foeman more—now Death’s deaf thrall—
   He wiped his steel, and, with a call
   Like turtledove to dove, swift broke
   Into the copse, where under an oak
      His horse cropt, held by a page.

How could I be aware,
The opposite window eyeing
As I lay listless there,
That through its blinds was dying
One I had rated rare
Before I had set me sighing
For another more fair?

Had the house-front been glass,
My vision unobscuring,
Could aught have come to pass
More happiness-insuring
To her, loved as a lass
When spouseless, all-alluring?
I reckon not, alas!

So, the square window stood,
Steadily night-long shining
In my close neighbourhood,
Who looked forth undivining
That soon would go for good
One there in pain reclining,
Unpardoned, unadieu’d.

   Does he want you down there
   In the Nether Glooms where
The hours may be a dragging load upon him,
   As he hears the axle grind
      Round and round
   Of the great world, in the blind
      Still profound
Of the night-time?  He might liven at the sound
Of your string, revealing you had not forgone him.

   In the gallery west the nave,
   But a few yards from his grave,
Did you, tucked beneath his chin, to his bowing
   Guide the homely harmony
      Of the quire
   Who for long years strenuously—
      Son and sire—
Caught the strains that at his fingering low or higher
From your four thin threads and eff-holes came outflowing.

   Well, you can not, alas,
   The barrier overpass
That screens him in those Mournful Meads hereunder,
   Where no fiddling can be heard
      In the glades
   Of silentness, no bird
      Thrills the shades;
Where no viol is touched for songs or serenades,
No bowing wakes a congregation’s wonder.

1916.

   This statue of Liberty, busy man,
      Here erect in the city square,
I have watched while your scrubbings, this early morning,
         Strangely wistful,
         And half tristful,
      Have turned her from foul to fair;

   With your bucket of water, and mop, and brush,
      Bringing her out of the grime
That has smeared her during the smokes of winter
         With such glumness
         In her dumbness,
      And aged her before her time.

   Flows over the pavement to the road,
      And her shape looms pure as snow:
I read you are hired by the City guardians—
         May be yearly,
         Or once merely—
      To treat the statues so?

   “Oh, I’m not hired by the Councilmen
      To cleanse the statues here.
I do this one as a self-willed duty,
         Not as paid to,
         Or at all made to,
      But because the doing is dear.”

   Ah, then I hail you brother and friend!
      Liberty’s knight divine.
What you have done would have been my doing,
         Yea, most verily,
         Well, and thoroughly,
      Had but your courage been mine!

   “Memory it is that brings me to this—
      Of a daughter—my one sweet own.
She grew a famous carver’s model,
         One of the fairest
         And of the rarest:—
      She sat for the figure as shown.

   “But alas, she died in this distant place
      Before I was warned to betake
Myself to her side! . . . And in love of my darling,
         In love of the fame of her,
         And the good name of her,
      I do this for her sake.”

   Answer I gave not.  Of that form
      The carver was I at his side;
His child, my model, held so saintly,
         Grand in feature,
         Gross in nature,
      In the dens of vice had died.

I think of the slope where the rabbits fed,
   Of the periwinks’ rockwork lair,
Of the fuchsias ringing their bells of red—
   And the something else seen there.

Between the blooms where the sod basked bright,
   By the bobbing fuchsia trees,
Was another and yet more eyesome sight—
   The sight that richened these.

I shall seek those beauties in the spring,
   When the days are fit and fair,
But only as foils to the one more thing
   That also will flower there!

   Out of the past there rises a week—
      Who shall read the years O!—
   Out of the past there rises a week
      Enringed with a purple zone.
   Out of the past there rises a week
   When thoughts were strung too thick to speak,
And the magic of its lineaments remains with me alone.

   In that week there was heard a singing—
      Who shall spell the years, the years!—
   In that week there was heard a singing,
      And the white owl wondered why.
   In that week, yea, a voice was ringing,
   And forth from the casement were candles flinging
Radiance that fell on the deodar and lit up the path thereby.

   In a tedious trampling crowd yet later—
      Who shall bare the years, the years!—
   In a tedious trampling crowd yet later,
      When silvery singings were dumb;
   In a crowd uncaring what time might fate her,
   Mid murks of night I stood to await her,
And the twanging of iron wheels gave out the signal that she was come.

   She said with a travel-tired smile—
      Who shall lift the years O!—
   She said with a travel-tired smile,
      Half scared by scene so strange;
   She said, outworn by mile on mile,
   The blurred lamps wanning her face the while,
“O Love, I am here; I am with you!” . . . Ah, that there should have come a change!

Jan.-Feb. 1913.

   Sitting on the bridge
   Past the barracks, town and ridge,
At once the spirit seized us
To sing a song that pleased us—
As “The Fifth” were much in rumour;
It was “Whilst I’m in the humour,
   Take me, Paddy, will you now?”
   And a lancer soon drew nigh,
   And his Royal Irish eye
   Said, “Willing, faith, am I,
O, to take you anyhow, dears,
   To take you anyhow.”

Perhaps that soldier’s fighting
   In a land that’s far away,
Or he may be idly plighting
   Some foreign hussy gay;
Or perhaps his bones are whiting
   In the wind to their decay! . . .
   Ah!—does he mind him how
   The girls he saw that day
On the bridge, were sitting singing
At the time of curfew-ringing,
“Take me, Paddy; will you now, dear?
   Paddy, will you now?”

Grey’s Bridge.

When he lit the candles there,
And the light fell on his hand,
And it trembled as he scanned
Her and me, his vanquished air
Hinted that his dream was done,
And I saw he had begun
   To understand.

When Love’s viol was unstrung,
Sore I wished the hand that shook
Had been mine that shared her book
While that evening hymn was sung,
His the victor’s, as he lit
Candles where he had bidden us sit
   With vanquished look.

Now her dust lies listless there,
His afar from tending hand,
What avails the victory scanned?
Does he smile from upper air:
“Ah, my friend, your dream is done;
And ’tis you who have begun
   To understand!

I travel as a phantom now,
For people do not wish to see
In flesh and blood so bare a bough
   As Nature makes of me.

And thus I visit bodiless
Strange gloomy households often at odds,
And wonder if Man’s consciousness
   Was a mistake of God’s.

And next I meet you, and I pause,
And think that if mistake it were,
As some have said, O then it was
   One that I well can bear!

1915.

      Show me again the time
      When in the Junetide’s prime
   We flew by meads and mountains northerly!—
Yea, to such freshness, fairness, fulness, fineness, freeness,
      Love lures life on.

      Show me again the day
      When from the sandy bay
   We looked together upon the pestered sea!—
Yea, to such surging, swaying, sighing, swelling, shrinking,
      Love lures life on.

      Show me again just this:
      The moment of that kiss
   Away from the prancing folk, by the strawberry-tree!—
Yea, to such rashness, ratheness, rareness, ripeness, richness,
      Love lures life on.

Begun November 1898.

“Qui deridetur ab amico suo sicut ego.”—Job.

In the seventies I was bearing in my breast,
         Penned tight,
Certain starry thoughts that threw a magic light
On the worktimes and the soundless hours of rest
In the seventies; aye, I bore them in my breast
         Penned tight.

In the seventies when my neighbours—even my friend—
         Saw me pass,
Heads were shaken, and I heard the words, “Alas,
For his onward years and name unless he mend!”
In the seventies, when my neighbours and my friend
      Saw me pass.

In the seventies nought could darken or destroy it,
      Locked in me,
Though as delicate as lamp-worm’s lucency;
Neither mist nor murk could weaken or alloy it
In the seventies!—could not darken or destroy it,
      Locked in me.

I

         I bent in the deep of night
      Over a pedigree the chronicler gave
      As mine; and as I bent there, half-unrobed,
The uncurtained panes of my window-square let in the watery light
         Of the moon in its old age:
And green-rheumed clouds were hurrying past where mute and cold it globed
   Like a drifting dolphin’s eye seen through a lapping wave.

II

III

         It was a mirror now,
      And in it a long perspective I could trace
   Of my begetters, dwindling backward each past each
         All with the kindred look,
      Whose names had since been inked down in their place
         On the recorder’s book,
Generation and generation of my mien, and build, and brow.

IV

V

         Said I then, sunk in tone,
   “I am merest mimicker and counterfeit!—
         Though thinking, I am I,
   And what I do I do myself alone.”
   —The cynic twist of the page thereat unknit
Back to its normal figure, having wrought its purport wry,
   The Mage’s mirror left the window-square,
And the stained moon and drift retook their places there.

1916.

   At midnight, in the room where he lay dead
   Whom in his life I had never clearly read,
I thought if I could peer into that citadel
   His heart, I should at last know full and well

   What hereto had been known to him alone,
   Despite our long sit-out of years foreflown,
“And if,” I said, “I do this for his memory’s sake,
   It would not wound him, even if he could wake.”

   So I bent over him.  He seemed to smile
   With a calm confidence the whole long while
That I, withdrawing his heart, held it and, bit by bit,
   Perused the unguessed things found written on it.

   Yes, there at last, eyes opened, did I see
   His whole sincere symmetric history;
There were his truth, his simple singlemindedness,
   Strained, maybe, by time’s storms, but there no less.

   There were the daily deeds from sun to sun
   In blindness, but good faith, that he had done;
There were regrets, at instances wherein he swerved
   (As he conceived) from cherishings I had deserved.

   There were old hours all figured down as bliss—
   Those spent with me—(how little had I thought this!)
There those when, at my absence, whether he slept or waked,
   (Though I knew not ’twas so!) his spirit ached.

   I put it back, and left him as he lay
   While pierced the morning pink and then the gray
Into each dreary room and corridor around,
   Where I shall wait, but his step will not sound.

   Dishevelled leaves creep down
   Upon that bank to-day,
Some green, some yellow, and some pale brown;
   The wet bents bob and sway;
The once warm slippery turf is sodden
   Where we laughingly sat or lay.

   The summerhouse is gone,
   Leaving a weedy space;
The bushes that veiled it once have grown
   Gaunt trees that interlace,
Through whose lank limbs I see too clearly
   The nakedness of the place.

   And where were hills of blue,
   Blind drifts of vapour blow,
And the names of former dwellers few,
   If any, people know,
And instead of a voice that called, “Come in, Dears,”
   Time calls, “Pass below!”

When the cloud shut down on the morning shine,
   And darkened the sun,
I said, “So ended that joy of mine
   Years back begun.”

But day continued its lustrous roll
   In upper air;
And did my late irradiate soul
   Live on somewhere?

Rambling I looked for an old abode
Where, years back, one had lived I knew;
Its site a dwelling duly showed,
   But it was new.

I went where, not so long ago,
The sod had riven two breasts asunder;
Daisies throve gaily there, as though
   No grave were under.

I walked along a terrace where
Loud children gambolled in the sun;
The figure that had once sat there
   Was missed by none.

Life laughed and moved on unsubdued,
I saw that Old succumbed to Young:
’Twas well.  My too regretful mood
   Died on my tongue.

It was but a little thing,
Yet I knew it meant to me
Ease from what had given a sting
To the very birdsinging
   Latterly.

But I would not welcome it;
And for all I then declined
O the regrettings infinite
When the night-processions flit
   Through the mind!

Something tapped on the pane of my room
   When there was never a trace
Of wind or rain, and I saw in the gloom
   My weary Belovéd’s face.

“O I am tired of waiting,” she said,
   “Night, morn, noon, afternoon;
So cold it is in my lonely bed,
   And I thought you would join me soon!”

I rose and neared the window-glass,
   But vanished thence had she:
Only a pallid moth, alas,
   Tapped at the pane for me.

August 1913.

I climbed to the crest,
   And, fog-festooned,
The sun lay west
   Like a crimson wound:

Like that wound of mine
   Of which none knew,
For I’d given no sign
   That it pierced me through.

“I will get a new string for my fiddle,
   And call to the neighbours to come,
And partners shall dance down the middle
   Until the old pewter-wares hum:
   And we’ll sip the mead, cyder, and rum!”

From the night came the oddest of answers:
   A hollow wind, like a bassoon,
And headstones all ranged up as dancers,
   And cypresses droning a croon,
   And gurgoyles that mouthed to the tune.

I said and sang her excellence:
   They called it laud undue.
      (Have your way, my heart, O!)
Yet what was homage far above
The plain deserts of my olden Love
   Proved verity of my new.

“She moves a sylph in picture-land,
   Where nothing frosts the air:”
      (Have your way, my heart, O!)
“To all winged pipers overhead
She is known by shape and song,” I said,
   Conscious of licence there.

I sang of her in a dim old hall
   Dream-built too fancifully,
      (Have your way, my heart, O!)
But lo, the ripe months chanced to lead
My feet to such a hall indeed,
   Where stood the very She.

By Rushy-Pond.

The rain smites more and more,
The east wind snarls and sneezes;
Through the joints of the quivering door
   The water wheezes.

The tip of each ivy-shoot
Writhes on its neighbour’s face;
There is some hid dread afoot
   That we cannot trace.

Is it the spirit astray
Of the man at the house below
Whose coffin they took in to-day?
   We do not know.

By a wall the stranger now calls his,
Was born of old a particular kiss,
Without forethought in its genesis;
Which in a trice took wing on the air.
And where that spot is nothing shows:
   There ivy calmly grows,
   And no one knows
   What a birth was there!

That kiss is gone where none can tell—
Not even those who felt its spell:
It cannot have died; that know we well.
Somewhere it pursues its flight,
One of a long procession of sounds
   Travelling aethereal rounds
   Far from earth’s bounds
   In the infinite.

They came, the brothers, and took two chairs
   In their usual quiet way;
And for a time we did not think
      They had much to say.

And they began and talked awhile
   Of ordinary things,
Till spread that silence in the room
      A pent thought brings.

And then they said: “The end has come.
   Yes: it has come at last.”
And we looked down, and knew that day
      A spirit had passed.

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
   “Now they are all on their knees,”
An elder said as we sat in a flock
   By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where
   They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
   To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave
   In these years!  Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
   “Come; see the oxen kneel

“In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
   Our childhood used to know,”
I should go with him in the gloom,
   Hoping it might be so.

1915.

   “When the air was damp
It made my curls hang slack
As they kissed my neck and back
While I footed the salt-aired track
   I loved to tramp.

   “When it was dry
They would roll up crisp and tight
As I went on in the light
Of the sun, which my own sprite
   Seemed to outvie.

   “Now I am old;
And have not one gay curl
As I had when a girl
For dampness to unfurl
   Or sun uphold!”

The flame crept up the portrait line by line
As it lay on the coals in the silence of night’s profound,
   And over the arm’s incline,
And along the marge of the silkwork superfine,
And gnawed at the delicate bosom’s defenceless round.

Then I vented a cry of hurt, and averted my eyes;
The spectacle was one that I could not bear,
   To my deep and sad surprise;
But, compelled to heed, I again looked furtive-wise
Till the flame had eaten her breasts, and mouth, and hair.

She was a woman long hid amid packs of years,
She might have been living or dead; she was lost to my sight,
   And the deed that had nigh drawn tears
Was done in a casual clearance of life’s arrears;
But I felt as if I had put her to death that night! . . .

* * *

—Well; she knew nothing thereof did she survive,
And suffered nothing if numbered among the dead;
   Yet—yet—if on earth alive
Did she feel a smart, and with vague strange anguish strive?
If in heaven, did she smile at me sadly and shake her head?

I could hear a gown-skirt rustling
   Before I could see her shape,
Rustling through the heather
   That wove the common’s drape,
On that evening of dark weather
   When I hearkened, lips agape.

And the town-shine in the distance
   Did but baffle here the sight,
And then a voice flew forward:
   “Dear, is’t you?  I fear the night!”
And the herons flapped to norward
   In the firs upon my right.

There was another looming
   Whose life we did not see;
There was one stilly blooming
   Full nigh to where walked we;
There was a shade entombing
   All that was bright of me.

It was at the very date to which we have come,
   In the month of the matching name,
When, at a like minute, the sun had upswum,
   Its couch-time at night being the same.
And the same path stretched here that people now follow,
   And the same stile crossed their way,
And beyond the same green hillock and hollow
   The same horizon lay;
And the same man pilgrims now hereby who pilgrimed here that day.

Kingston-Maurward Ewelease.

      By the Runic Stone
   They sat, where the grass sloped down,
And chattered, he white-hatted, she in brown,
      Pink-faced, breeze-blown.

      Rapt there alone
   In the transport of talking so
In such a place, there was nothing to let them know
      What hours had flown.

      And the die thrown
   By them heedlessly there, the dent
It was to cut in their encompassment,
      Were, too, unknown.

      It might have strown
   Their zest with qualms to see,
As in a glass, Time toss their history
      From zone to zone!

“O my pretty pink frock,
I sha’n’t be able to wear it!
Why is he dying just now?
   I hardly can bear it!

“He might have contrived to live on;
But they say there’s no hope whatever:
And must I shut myself up,
   And go out never?

“O my pretty pink frock,
Puff-sleeved and accordion-pleated!
He might have passed in July,
   And not so cheated!”

Portion of this yew
Is a man my grandsire knew,
Bosomed here at its foot:
This branch may be his wife,
A ruddy human life
Now turned to a green shoot.

These grasses must be made
Of her who often prayed,
Last century, for repose;
And the fair girl long ago
Whom I often tried to know
May be entering this rose.

So, they are not underground,
But as nerves and veins abound
In the growths of upper air,
And they feel the sun and rain,
And the energy again
That made them what they were!

Her house looked cold from the foggy lea,
And the square of each window a dull black blur
      Where showed no stir:
Yes, her gloom within at the lack of me
Seemed matching mine at the lack of her.

The black squares grew to be squares of light
As the eyeshade swathed the house and lawn,
      And viols gave tone;
There was glee within.  And I found that night
The gloom of severance mine alone.

Kingston-Maurward Park.

   Silently I footed by an uphill road
   That led from my abode to a spot yew-boughed;
Yellowly the sun sloped low down to westward,
      And dark was the east with cloud.

   Then, amid the shadow of that livid sad east,
   Where the light was least, and a gate stood wide,
Something flashed the fire of the sun that was facing it,
      Like a brief blaze on that side.

   To take his last journey forth—he who in his prime
   Trudged so many a time from that gate athwart the land!
Thus a farewell to me he signalled on his grave-way,
      As with a wave of his hand.

Winterborne-Came Path.

   “That is a quiet place—
That house in the trees with the shady lawn.”
“—If, child, you knew what there goes on
You would not call it a quiet place.
Why, a phantom abides there, the last of its race,
   And a brain spins there till dawn.”

   “But I see nobody there,—
Nobody moves about the green,
Or wanders the heavy trees between.”
“—Ah, that’s because you do not bear
The visioning powers of souls who dare
   To pierce the material screen.

   “Morning, noon, and night,
Mid those funereal shades that seem
The uncanny scenery of a dream,
Figures dance to a mind with sight,
And music and laughter like floods of light
   Make all the precincts gleam.

Sweet cyder is a great thing,
   A great thing to me,
Spinning down to Weymouth town
   By Ridgway thirstily,
And maid and mistress summoning
   Who tend the hostelry:
O cyder is a great thing,
   A great thing to me!

The dance it is a great thing,
   A great thing to me,
With candles lit and partners fit
   For night-long revelry;
And going home when day-dawning
   Peeps pale upon the lea:
O dancing is a great thing,
   A great thing to me!

Will these be always great things,
   Great things to me? . . .
Let it befall that One will call,
   “Soul, I have need of thee:”
What then?  Joy-jaunts, impassioned flings,
   Love, and its ecstasy,
Will always have been great things,
   Great things to me!

That morning when I trod the town
The twitching chimes of long renown
   Played out to me
The sweet Sicilian sailors’ tune,
And I knew not if late or soon
   My day would be:

A day of sunshine beryl-bright
And windless; yea, think as I might,
   I could not say,
Even to within years’ measure, when
One would be at my side who then
   Was far away.

When hard utilitarian times
Had stilled the sweet Saint-Peter’s chimes
   I learnt to see
That bale may spring where blisses are,
And one desired might be afar
   Though near to me.

   It pleased her to step in front and sit
      Where the cragged slope was green,
While I stood back that I might pencil it
      With her amid the scene;
         Till it gloomed and rained;
But I kept on, despite the drifting wet
         That fell and stained
My draught, leaving for curious quizzings yet
         The blots engrained.

   And thus I drew her there alone,
      Seated amid the gauze
Of moisture, hooded, only her outline shown,
      With rainfall marked across.
         —Soon passed our stay;
Yet her rainy form is the Genius still of the spot,
         Immutable, yea,
Though the place now knows her no more, and has known her not
         Ever since that day.

From an old note.

Why did I sketch an upland green,
   And put the figure in
   Of one on the spot with me?—
For now that one has ceased to be seen
   The picture waxes akin
   To a wordless irony.

If you go drawing on down or cliff
   Let no soft curves intrude
   Of a woman’s silhouette,
But show the escarpments stark and stiff
   As in utter solitude;
   So shall you half forget.

Let me sooner pass from sight of the sky
   Than again on a thoughtless day
   Limn, laugh, and sing, and rhyme
With a woman sitting near, whom I
   Paint in for love, and who may
   Be called hence in my time!

From an old note.

If there were in my kalendar
   No Emma, Florence, Mary,
What would be my existence now—
   A hermit’s?—wanderer’s weary?—
      How should I live, and how
      Near would be death, or far?

Could it have been that other eyes
   Might have uplit my highway?
That fond, sad, retrospective sight
   Would catch from this dim byway
      Prized figures different quite
      From those that now arise?

With how strange aspect would there creep
   The dawn, the night, the daytime,
If memory were not what it is
   In song-time, toil, or pray-time.—
      O were it else than this,
      I’d pass to pulseless sleep!

That no man schemed it is my hope—
Yea, that it fell by will and scope
   Of That Which some enthrone,
And for whose meaning myriads grope.

For I would not that of my kind
There should, of his unbiassed mind,
   Have been one known
Who such a stroke could have designed;

Since it would augur works and ways
Below the lowest that man assays
   To have hurled that stone
Into the sunshine of our days!

And if it prove that no man did,
And that the Inscrutable, the Hid,
   Was cause alone
Of this foul crash our lives amid,

I’ll go in due time, and forget
In some deep graveyard’s oubliette
   The thing whereof I groan,
And cease from troubling; thankful yet

Which in some age unguessed of us
May lift Its blinding incubus,
   And see, and own:
“It grieves me I did thus and thus!”

The train draws forth from the station-yard,
   And with it carries me.
I rise, and stretch out, and regard
   The platform left, and see
An airy slim blue form there standing,
   And know that it is she.

While with strained vision I watch on,
   The figure turns round quite
To greet friends gaily; then is gone . . .
   The import may be slight,
But why remained she not hard gazing
   Till I was out of sight?

“O do not chat with others there,”
   I brood.  “They are not I.
O strain your thoughts as if they were
   Gold bands between us; eye
All neighbour scenes as so much blankness
   Till I again am by!

“When I come back uncloak your gloom,
   And let in lovely day;
Then the long dark as of the tomb
   Can well be thrust away
With sweet things I shall have to practise,
   And you will have to say!”

Begun 1871: finished—