Chapter 6

Where touched the check-floored chancel My knees and his? The step looks shyly at the sun, And says, “’Twas here the thing was done, For bale or else for bliss!” Of all those there I least was ware Would it be that or this When touched the check-floored chancel My knees and his!

Here in this fateful chancel Where all’s the same, I thought the culminant crest of life Was reached when I went forth the wife I was not when I came. Each commonplace one of my race, Some say, has such an aim— To go from a fateful chancel As not the same.

Here, through this hoary chancel Where all’s the same, A thrill, a gaiety even, ranged That morning when it seemed I changed My nature with my name. Though now not fair, though gray my hair, He loved me, past proclaim, Here in this hoary chancel, Where all’s the same.

AT THE ENTERING OF THE NEW YEAR

I (OLD STYLE)

OUR songs went up and out the chimney, And roused the home-gone husbandmen; Our allemands, our heys, poussettings, Our hands-across and back again, Sent rhythmic throbbings through the casements On to the white highway, Where nighted farers paused and muttered, “Keep it up well, do they!”

The contrabasso’s measured booming Sped at each bar to the parish bounds, To shepherds at their midnight lambings, To stealthy poachers on their rounds; And everybody caught full duly The notes of our delight, As Time unrobed the Youth of Promise Hailed by our sanguine sight.

II (NEW STYLE)

WE stand in the dusk of a pine-tree limb, As if to give ear to the muffled peal, Brought or withheld at the breeze’s whim; But our truest heed is to words that steal From the mantled ghost that looms in the gray, And seems, so far as our sense can see, To feature bereaved Humanity, As it sighs to the imminent year its say:—

“O stay without, O stay without, Calm comely Youth, untasked, untired; Though stars irradiate thee about Thy entrance here is undesired. Open the gate not, mystic one; Must we avow what we would close confine? _With thee_, _good friend_, _we would have converse none_, Albeit the fault may not be thine.”

_December_ 31. _During the War_.

THEY WOULD NOT COME

I TRAVELLED to where in her lifetime She’d knelt at morning prayer, To call her up as if there; But she paid no heed to my suing, As though her old haunt could win not A thought from her spirit, or care.

I went where my friend had lectioned The prophets in high declaim, That my soul’s ear the same Full tones should catch as aforetime; But silenced by gear of the Present Was the voice that once there came!

Where the ocean had sprayed our banquet I stood, to recall it as then: The same eluding again! No vision. Shows contingent Affrighted it further from me Even than from my home-den.

When I found them no responders, But fugitives prone to flee From where they had used to be, It vouched I had been led hither As by night wisps in bogland, And bruised the heart of me!

AFTER A ROMANTIC DAY

THE railway bore him through An earthen cutting out from a city: There was no scope for view, Though the frail light shed by a slim young moon Fell like a friendly tune.

Fell like a liquid ditty, And the blank lack of any charm Of landscape did no harm. The bald steep cutting, rigid, rough, And moon-lit, was enough For poetry of place: its weathered face Formed a convenient sheet whereon The visions of his mind were drawn.

THE TWO WIVES (SMOKER’S CLUB-STORY)

I WAITED at home all the while they were boating together— My wife and my near neighbour’s wife: Till there entered a woman I loved more than life, And we sat and sat on, and beheld the uprising dark weather, With a sense that some mischief was rife.

Tidings came that the boat had capsized, and that one of the ladies Was drowned—which of them was unknown: And I marvelled—my friend’s wife?—or was it my own Who had gone in such wise to the land where the sun as the shade is? —We learnt it was _his_ had so gone.

Then I cried in unrest: “He is free! But no good is releasing To him as it would be to me!” “—But it is,” said the woman I loved, quietly. “How?” I asked her. “—Because he has long loved me too without ceasing, And it’s just the same thing, don’t you see.”

“I KNEW A LADY” (CLUB SONG)

I KNEW a lady when the days Grew long, and evenings goldened; But I was not emboldened By her prompt eyes and winning ways.

And when old Winter nipt the haws, “Another’s wife I’ll be, And then you’ll care for me,” She said, “and think how sweet I was!”

And soon she shone as another’s wife: As such I often met her, And sighed, “How I regret her! My folly cuts me like a knife!”

And then, to-day, her husband came, And moaned, “Why did you flout her? Well could I do without her! For both our burdens you are to blame!”

A HOUSE WITH A HISTORY

THERE is a house in a city street Some past ones made their own; Its floors were criss-crossed by their feet, And their babblings beat From ceiling to white hearth-stone.

And who are peopling its parlours now? Who talk across its floor? Mere freshlings are they, blank of brow, Who read not how Its prime had passed before

Their raw equipments, scenes, and says Afflicted its memoried face, That had seen every larger phase Of human ways Before these filled the place.

To them that house’s tale is theirs, No former voices call Aloud therein. Its aspect bears Their joys and cares Alone, from wall to wall.

A PROCESSION OF DEAD DAYS

I SEE the ghost of a perished day; I know his face, and the feel of his dawn: ’Twas he who took me far away To a spot strange and gray: Look at me, Day, and then pass on, But come again: yes, come anon!

Enters another into view; His features are not cold or white, But rosy as a vein seen through: Too soon he smiles adieu. Adieu, O ghost-day of delight; But come and grace my dying sight.

Enters the day that brought the kiss: He brought it in his foggy hand To where the mumbling river is, And the high clematis; It lent new colour to the land, And all the boy within me manned.

Ah, this one. Yes, I know his name, He is the day that wrought a shine Even on a precinct common and tame, As ’twere of purposed aim. He shows him as a rainbow sign Of promise made to me and mine.

The next stands forth in his morning clothes, And yet, despite their misty blue, They mark no sombre custom-growths That joyous living loathes, But a meteor act, that left in its queue A train of sparks my lifetime through.

I almost tremble at his nod— This next in train—who looks at me As I were slave, and he were god Wielding an iron rod. I close my eyes; yet still is he In front there, looking mastery.

In the similitude of a nurse The phantom of the next one comes: I did not know what better or worse Chancings might bless or curse When his original glossed the thrums Of ivy, bringing that which numbs.

Yes; trees were turning in their sleep Upon their windy pillows of gray When he stole in. Silent his creep On the grassed eastern steep . . . I shall not soon forget that day, And what his third hour took away!

HE FOLLOWS HIMSELF

IN a heavy time I dogged myself Along a louring way, Till my leading self to my following self Said: “Why do you hang on me So harassingly?”

“I have watched you, Heart of mine,” I cried, “So often going astray And leaving me, that I have pursued, Feeling such truancy Ought not to be.”

He said no more, and I dogged him on From noon to the dun of day By prowling paths, until anew He begged: “Please turn and flee!— What do you see?”

“Methinks I see a man,” said I, “Dimming his hours to gray. I will not leave him while I know Part of myself is he Who dreams such dree!”

“I go to my old friend’s house,” he urged, “So do not watch me, pray!” “Well, I will leave you in peace,” said I, “Though of this poignancy You should fight free:

“Your friend, O other me, is dead; You know not what you say.” —“That do I! And at his green-grassed door By night’s bright galaxy I bend a knee.”

—The yew-plumes moved like mockers’ beards, Though only boughs were they, And I seemed to go; yet still was there, And am, and there haunt we Thus bootlessly.

THE SINGING WOMAN

THERE was a singing woman Came riding across the mead At the time of the mild May weather, Tameless, tireless; This song she sung: “I am fair, I am young!” And many turned to heed.

And the same singing woman Sat crooning in her need At the time of the winter weather; Friendless, fireless, She sang this song: “Life, thou’rt too long!” And there was none to heed.

WITHOUT, NOT WITHIN HER

IT was what you bore with you, Woman, Not inly were, That throned you from all else human, However fair!

It was that strange freshness you carried Into a soul Whereon no thought of yours tarried Two moments at all.

And out from his spirit flew death, And bale, and ban, Like the corn-chaff under the breath Of the winnowing-fan.

“O I WON’T LEAD A HOMELY LIFE” (_To an old air_)

“O I won’t lead a homely life As father’s Jack and mother’s Jill, But I will be a fiddler’s wife, With music mine at will! Just a little tune, Another one soon, As I merrily fling my fill!”

And she became a fiddler’s Dear, And merry all day she strove to be; And he played and played afar and near, But never at home played he Any little tune Or late or soon; And sunk and sad was she!

IN THE SMALL HOURS

I LAY in my bed and fiddled With a dreamland viol and bow, And the tunes flew back to my fingers I had melodied years ago. It was two or three in the morning When I fancy-fiddled so Long reels and country-dances, And hornpipes swift and slow.

And soon anon came crossing The chamber in the gray Figures of jigging fieldfolk— Saviours of corn and hay— To the air of “Haste to the Wedding,” As after a wedding-day; Yea, up and down the middle In windless whirls went they!

There danced the bride and bridegroom, And couples in a train, Gay partners time and travail Had longwhiles stilled amain! . . . It seemed a thing for weeping To find, at slumber’s wane And morning’s sly increeping, That Now, not Then, held reign.

THE LITTLE OLD TABLE

CREAK, little wood thing, creak, When I touch you with elbow or knee; That is the way you speak Of one who gave you to me!

You, little table, she brought— Brought me with her own hand, As she looked at me with a thought That I did not understand.

—Whoever owns it anon, And hears it, will never know What a history hangs upon This creak from long ago.

VAGG HOLLOW

Vagg Hollow is a marshy spot on the old Roman Road near Ilchester, where “things” are seen. Merchandise was formerly fetched inland from the canal-boats at Load-Bridge by waggons this way.

“WHAT do you see in Vagg Hollow, Little boy, when you go In the morning at five on your lonely drive?” “—I see men’s souls, who follow Till we’ve passed where the road lies low, When they vanish at our creaking!

“They are like white faces speaking Beside and behind the waggon— One just as father’s was when here. The waggoner drinks from his flagon, (Or he’d flinch when the Hollow is near) But he does not give me any.

“Sometimes the faces are many; But I walk along by the horses, He asleep on the straw as we jog; And I hear the loud water-courses, And the drops from the trees in the fog, And watch till the day is breaking.

“And the wind out by Tintinhull waking; I hear in it father’s call As he called when I saw him dying, And he sat by the fire last Fall, And mother stood by sighing; But I’m not afraid at all!”

THE DREAM IS—WHICH?

I AM laughing by the brook with her, Splashed in its tumbling stir; And then it is a blankness looms As if I walked not there, Nor she, but found me in haggard rooms, And treading a lonely stair.

With radiant cheeks and rapid eyes We sit where none espies; Till a harsh change comes edging in As no such scene were there, But winter, and I were bent and thin, And cinder-gray my hair.

We dance in heys around the hall, Weightless as thistleball; And then a curtain drops between, As if I danced not there, But wandered through a mounded green To find her, I knew where.

_March_ 1913.

THE COUNTRY WEDDING (A FIDDLER’S STORY)

LITTLE fogs were gathered in every hollow, But the purple hillocks enjoyed fine weather As we marched with our fiddles over the heather —How it comes back!—to their wedding that day.

Our getting there brought our neighbours and all, O! Till, two and two, the couples stood ready. And her father said: “Souls, for God’s sake, be steady!” And we strung up our fiddles, and sounded out “A.”

The groomsman he stared, and said, “You must follow!” But we’d gone to fiddle in front of the party, (Our feelings as friends being true and hearty) And fiddle in front we did—all the way.

Yes, from their door by Mill-tail-Shallow, And up Styles-Lane, and by Front-Street houses, Where stood maids, bachelors, and spouses, Who cheered the songs that we knew how to play.

I bowed the treble before her father, Michael the tenor in front of the lady, The bass-viol Reub—and right well played he!— The serpent Jim; ay, to church and back.

I thought the bridegroom was flurried rather, As we kept up the tune outside the chancel, While they were swearing things none can cancel Inside the walls to our drumstick’s whack.

“Too gay!” she pleaded. “Clouds may gather, And sorrow come.” But she gave in, laughing, And by supper-time when we’d got to the quaffing Her fears were forgot, and her smiles weren’t slack.

A grand wedding ’twas! And what would follow We never thought. Or that we should have buried her On the same day with the man that married her, A day like the first, half hazy, half clear.

Yes: little fogs were in every hollow, Though the purple hillocks enjoyed fine weather, When we went to play ’em to church together, And carried ’em there in an after year.

FIRST OR LAST (SONG)

IF grief come early Joy comes late, If joy come early Grief will wait; Aye, my dear and tender!

Wise ones joy them early While the cheeks are red, Banish grief till surly Time has dulled their dread.

And joy being ours Ere youth has flown, The later hours May find us gone; Aye, my dear and tender!

LONELY DAYS

LONELY her fate was, Environed from sight In the house where the gate was Past finding at night. None there to share it, No one to tell: Long she’d to bear it, And bore it well.

Elsewhere just so she Spent many a day; Wishing to go she Continued to stay. And people without Basked warm in the air, But none sought her out, Or knew she was there. Even birthdays were passed so, Sunny and shady: Years did it last so For this sad lady. Never declaring it, No one to tell, Still she kept bearing it— Bore it well.

The days grew chillier, And then she went To a city, familiar In years forespent, When she walked gaily Far to and fro, But now, moving frailly, Could nowhere go. The cheerful colour Of houses she’d known Had died to a duller And dingier tone. Streets were now noisy Where once had rolled A few quiet coaches, Or citizens strolled. Through the party-wall Of the memoried spot They danced at a ball Who recalled her not. Tramlines lay crossing Once gravelled slopes, Metal rods clanked, And electric ropes. So she endured it all, Thin, thinner wrought, Until time cured it all, And she knew nought.

Versified from a Diary.

“WHAT DID IT MEAN?”

What did it mean that noontide, when You bade me pluck the flower Within the other woman’s bower, Whom I knew nought of then?

I thought the flower blushed deeplier—aye, And as I drew its stalk to me It seemed to breathe: “I am, I see, Made use of in a human play.”

And while I plucked, upstarted sheer As phantom from the pane thereby A corpse-like countenance, with eye That iced me by its baleful peer— Silent, as from a bier . . .

When I came back your face had changed, It was no face for me; O did it speak of hearts estranged, And deadly rivalry

In times before I darked your door, To seise me of Mere second love, Which still the haunting first deranged?

AT THE DINNER-TABLE

I SAT at dinner in my prime, And glimpsed my face in the sideboard-glass, And started as if I had seen a crime, And prayed the ghastly show might pass.

Wrenched wrinkled features met my sight, Grinning back to me as my own; I well-nigh fainted with affright At finding me a haggard crone.

My husband laughed. He had slily set A warping mirror there, in whim To startle me. My eyes grew wet; I spoke not all the eve to him.

He was sorry, he said, for what he had done, And took away the distorting glass, Uncovering the accustomed one; And so it ended? No, alas,

Fifty years later, when he died, I sat me in the selfsame chair, Thinking of him. Till, weary-eyed, I saw the sideboard facing there;

And from its mirror looked the lean Thing I’d become, each wrinkle and score The image of me that I had seen In jest there fifty years before.

THE MARBLE TABLET

THERE it stands, though alas, what a little of her Shows in its cold white look! Not her glance, glide, or smile; not a tittle of her Voice like the purl of a brook; Not her thoughts, that you read like a book.

It may stand for her once in November When first she breathed, witless of all; Or in heavy years she would remember When circumstance held her in thrall; Or at last, when she answered her call!

Nothing more. The still marble, date-graven, Gives all that it can, tersely lined; That one has at length found the haven Which every one other will find; With silence on what shone behind.

ST. JULIOT: _September_ 8, 1916.

THE MASTER AND THE LEAVES

I

WE are budding, Master, budding, We of your favourite tree; March drought and April flooding Arouse us merrily, Our stemlets newly studding; And yet you do not see!

II

We are fully woven for summer In stuff of limpest green, The twitterer and the hummer Here rest of nights, unseen, While like a long-roll drummer The nightjar thrills the treen.

III

We are turning yellow, Master, And next we are turning red, And faster then and faster Shall seek our rooty bed, All wasted in disaster! But you lift not your head.

IV

—“I mark your early going, And that you’ll soon be clay, I have seen your summer showing As in my youthful day; But why I seem unknowing Is too sunk in to say!”

1917.

LAST WORDS TO A DUMB FRIEND

PET was never mourned as you, Purrer of the spotless hue, Plumy tail, and wistful gaze While you humoured our queer ways, Or outshrilled your morning call Up the stairs and through the hall— Foot suspended in its fall— While, expectant, you would stand Arched, to meet the stroking hand; Till your way you chose to wend Yonder, to your tragic end.

Never another pet for me! Let your place all vacant be; Better blankness day by day Than companion torn away. Better bid his memory fade, Better blot each mark he made, Selfishly escape distress By contrived forgetfulness, Than preserve his prints to make Every morn and eve an ache.

From the chair whereon he sat Sweep his fur, nor wince thereat; Rake his little pathways out Mid the bushes roundabout; Smooth away his talons’ mark From the claw-worn pine-tree bark, Where he climbed as dusk embrowned, Waiting us who loitered round.

Strange it is this speechless thing, Subject to our mastering, Subject for his life and food To our gift, and time, and mood; Timid pensioner of us Powers, His existence ruled by ours, Should—by crossing at a breath Into safe and shielded death, By the merely taking hence Of his insignificance— Loom as largened to the sense, Shape as part, above man’s will, Of the Imperturbable.

As a prisoner, flight debarred, Exercising in a yard, Still retain I, troubled, shaken, Mean estate, by him forsaken; And this home, which scarcely took Impress from his little look, By his faring to the Dim Grows all eloquent of him.

Housemate, I can think you still Bounding to the window-sill, Over which I vaguely see Your small mound beneath the tree, Showing in the autumn shade That you moulder where you played.

_October_ 2, 1904.

A DRIZZLING EASTER MORNING

AND he is risen? Well, be it so . . . And still the pensive lands complain, And dead men wait as long ago, As if, much doubting, they would know What they are ransomed from, before They pass again their sheltering door.

I stand amid them in the rain, While blusters vex the yew and vane; And on the road the weary wain Plods forward, laden heavily; And toilers with their aches are fain For endless rest—though risen is he.

ON ONE WHO LIVED AND DIED WHERE HE WAS BORN

WHEN a night in November Blew forth its bleared airs An infant descended His birth-chamber stairs For the very first time, At the still, midnight chime; All unapprehended His mission, his aim.— Thus, first, one November, An infant descended The stairs.

On a night in November Of weariful cares, A frail aged figure Ascended those stairs For the very last time: All gone his life’s prime, All vanished his vigour, And fine, forceful frame: Thus, last, one November Ascended that figure Upstairs.

On those nights in November— Apart eighty years— The babe and the bent one Who traversed those stairs From the early first time To the last feeble climb— That fresh and that spent one— Were even the same: Yea, who passed in November As infant, as bent one, Those stairs.

Wise child of November! From birth to blanched hairs Descending, ascending, Wealth-wantless, those stairs; Who saw quick in time As a vain pantomime Life’s tending, its ending, The worth of its fame. Wise child of November, Descending, ascending Those stairs!

THE SECOND NIGHT (BALLAD)

I MISSED one night, but the next I went; It was gusty above, and clear; She was there, with the look of one ill-content, And said: “Do not come near!”