Chapter 7

—“I am sorry last night to have failed you here, And now I have travelled all day; And it’s long rowing back to the West-Hoe Pier, So brief must be my stay.”

—“O man of mystery, why not say Out plain to me all you mean? Why you missed last night, and must now away Is—another has come between!”

—“O woman so mocking in mood and mien, So be it!” I replied: “And if I am due at a differing scene Before the dark has died,

“’Tis that, unresting, to wander wide Has ever been my plight, And at least I have met you at Cremyll side If not last eve, to-night.”

—“You get small rest—that read I quite; And so do I, maybe; Though there’s a rest hid safe from sight Elsewhere awaiting me!”

A mad star crossed the sky to the sea, Wasting in sparks as it streamed, And when I looked to where stood she She had changed, much changed, it seemed:

The sparks of the star in her pupils gleamed, She was vague as a vapour now, And ere of its meaning I had dreamed She’d vanished—I knew not how.

I stood on, long; each cliff-top bough, Like a cynic nodding there, Moved up and down, though no man’s brow But mine met the wayward air.

Still stood I, wholly unaware Of what had come to pass, Or had brought the secret of my new Fair To my old Love, alas!

I went down then by crag and grass To the boat wherein I had come. Said the man with the oars: “This news of the lass Of Edgcumbe, is sharp for some!

“Yes: found this daybreak, stiff and numb On the shore here, whither she’d sped To meet her lover last night in the glum, And he came not, ’tis said.

“And she leapt down, heart-hit. Pity she’s dead: So much for the faithful-bent!” . . . I looked, and again a star overhead Shot through the firmament.

SHE WHO SAW NOT

“DID you see something within the house That made me call you before the red sunsetting? Something that all this common scene endows With a richened impress there can be no forgetting?”

“—I have found nothing to see therein, O Sage, that should have made you urge me to enter, Nothing to fire the soul, or the sense to win: I rate you as a rare misrepresenter!”

“—Go anew, Lady,—in by the right . . . Well: why does your face not shine like the face of Moses?” “—I found no moving thing there save the light And shadow flung on the wall by the outside roses.”

“—Go yet once more, pray. Look on a seat.” “—I go . . . O Sage, it’s only a man that sits there With eyes on the sun. Mute,—average head to feet.” “—No more?”—“No more. Just one the place befits there,

“As the rays reach in through the open door, And he looks at his hand, and the sun glows through his fingers, While he’s thinking thoughts whose tenour is no more To me than the swaying rose-tree shade that lingers.”

No more. And years drew on and on Till no sun came, dank fogs the house enfolding; And she saw inside, when the form in the flesh had gone, As a vision what she had missed when the real beholding.

THE OLD WORKMAN

“WHY are you so bent down before your time, Old mason? Many have not left their prime So far behind at your age, and can still Stand full upright at will.”

He pointed to the mansion-front hard by, And to the stones of the quoin against the sky; “Those upper blocks,” he said, “that there you see, It was that ruined me.”

There stood in the air up to the parapet Crowning the corner height, the stones as set By him—ashlar whereon the gales might drum For centuries to come.

“I carried them up,” he said, “by a ladder there; The last was as big a load as I could bear; But on I heaved; and something in my back Moved, as ’twere with a crack.

“So I got crookt. I never lost that sprain; And those who live there, walled from wind and rain By freestone that I lifted, do not know That my life’s ache came so.

“They don’t know me, or even know my name, But good I think it, somehow, all the same To have kept ’em safe from harm, and right and tight, Though it has broke me quite.

“Yes; that I fixed it firm up there I am proud, Facing the hail and snow and sun and cloud, And to stand storms for ages, beating round When I lie underground.”

THE SAILOR’S MOTHER

“O WHENCE do you come, Figure in the night-fog that chills me numb?”

“I come to you across from my house up there, And I don’t mind the brine-mist clinging to me That blows from the quay, For I heard him in my chamber, and thought you unaware.”

“But what did you hear, That brought you blindly knocking in this middle-watch so drear?”

“My sailor son’s voice as ’twere calling at your door, And I don’t mind my bare feet clammy on the stones, And the blight to my bones, For he only knows of _this_ house I lived in before.”

“Nobody’s nigh, Woman like a skeleton, with socket-sunk eye.”

“Ah—nobody’s nigh! And my life is drearisome, And this is the old home we loved in many a day Before he went away; And the salt fog mops me. And nobody’s come!”

From “To Please his Wife.”

OUTSIDE THE CASEMENT (A REMINISCENCE OF THE WAR)

WE sat in the room And praised her whom We saw in the portico-shade outside: She could not hear What was said of her, But smiled, for its purport we did not hide.

Then in was brought That message, fraught With evil fortune for her out there, Whom we loved that day More than any could say, And would fain have fenced from a waft of care.

And the question pressed Like lead on each breast, Should we cloak the tidings, or call her and tell? It was too intense A choice for our sense, As we pondered and watched her we loved so well.

Yea, spirit failed us At what assailed 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 PASSER-BY (L. H. RECALLS HER ROMANCE)

He used to pass, 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 pass 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 passes by no more, That youth I loved too true! I grieve should he, as here of yore, Pass 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 pass 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 passing 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.

HER APOTHEOSIS “Secretum meum mihi” (FADED WOMAN’S SONG)

THERE was a spell of leisure, No record vouches when; With honours, praises, pleasure To womankind from men.

But no such lures bewitched me, No hand was stretched to raise, No gracious gifts enriched me, No voices sang my praise.

Yet an iris at that season Amid the accustomed slight From denseness, dull unreason, Ringed me with living light.

“SACRED TO THE MEMORY” (MARY H.)

THAT “Sacred to the Memory” Is clearly carven there I own, And all may think that on the stone The words have been inscribed by me In bare conventionality.

They know not and will never know That my full script is not confined To that stone space, but stands deep lined Upon the landscape high and low Wherein she made such worthy show.

TO A WELL-NAMED DWELLING

GLAD old house of lichened stonework, What I owed you in my lone work, Noon and night! Whensoever faint or ailing, Letting go my grasp and failing, You lent light.

How by that fair title came you? Did some forward eye so name you Knowing that one, Sauntering down his century blindly, Would remark your sound, so kindly, And be won?

Smile in sunlight, sleep in moonlight, Bask in April, May, and June-light, Zephyr-fanned; Let your chambers show no sorrow, Blanching day, or stuporing morrow, While they stand.

THE WHIPPER-IN

MY father was the whipper-in,— Is still—if I’m not misled? And now I see, where the hedge is thin, A little spot of red; Surely it is my father Going to the kennel-shed!

“I cursed and fought my father—aye, And sailed to a foreign land; And feeling sorry, I’m back, to stay, Please God, as his helping hand. Surely it is my father Near where the kennels stand?”

“—True. Whipper-in he used to be For twenty years or more; And you did go away to sea As youths have done before. Yes, oddly enough that red there Is the very coat he wore.

“But he—he’s dead; was thrown somehow, And gave his back a crick, And though that is his coat, ’tis now The scarecrow of a rick; You’ll see when you get nearer— ’Tis spread out on a stick.

“You see, when all had settled down Your mother’s things were sold, And she went back to her own town, And the coat, ate out with mould, Is now used by the farmer For scaring, as ’tis old.”

A MILITARY APPOINTMENT (SCHERZANDO)

“SO back you have come from the town, Nan, dear! And have you seen him there, or near— That soldier of mine— Who long since promised to meet me here?”

“—O yes, Nell: from the town I come, And have seen your lover on sick-leave home— That soldier of yours— Who swore to meet you, or Strike-him-dumb;

“But has kept himself of late away; Yet,—in short, he’s coming, I heard him say— That lover of yours— To this very spot on this very day.”

“—Then I’ll wait, I’ll wait, through wet or dry! I’ll give him a goblet brimming high— This lover of mine— And not of complaint one word or sigh!”

“—Nell, him I have chanced so much to see, That—he has grown the lover of me!— That lover of yours— And it’s here our meeting is planned to be.”

THE MILESTONE BY THE RABBIT-BURROW (ON YELL’HAM HILL)

IN my loamy nook As I dig my hole I observe men look At a stone, and sigh As they pass it by To some far goal.

Something it says To their glancing eyes That must distress The frail and lame, And the strong of frame Gladden or surprise.

Do signs on its face Declare how far Feet have to trace Before they gain Some blest champaign Where no gins are?

THE LAMENT OF THE LOOKING-GLASS

WORDS from the mirror softly pass To the curtains with a sigh: “Why should I trouble again to glass These smileless things hard by, Since she I pleasured once, alas, Is now no longer nigh!”

“I’ve imaged shadows of coursing cloud, And of the plying limb On the pensive pine when the air is loud With its aerial hymn; But never do they make me proud To catch them within my rim!

“I flash back phantoms of the night That sometimes flit by me, I echo roses red and white— The loveliest blooms that be— But now I never hold to sight So sweet a flower as she.”

CROSS-CURRENTS

THEY parted—a pallid, trembling I pair, And rushing down the lane He left her lonely near me there; —I asked her of their pain.

“It is for ever,” at length she said, “His friends have schemed it so, That the long-purposed day to wed Never shall we two know.”

“In such a cruel case,” said I, “Love will contrive a course?” “—Well, no . . . A thing may underlie, Which robs that of its force;

“A thing I could not tell him of, Though all the year I have tried; This: never could I have given him love, Even had I been his bride.

“So, when his kinsfolk stop the way Point-blank, there could not be A happening in the world to-day More opportune for me!

“Yet hear—no doubt to your surprise— I am sorry, for his sake, That I have escaped the sacrifice I was prepared to make!”

THE OLD NEIGHBOUR AND THE NEW

’TWAS to greet the new rector I called I here, But in the arm-chair I see My old friend, for long years installed here, Who palely nods to me.

The new man explains what he’s planning In a smart and cheerful tone, And I listen, the while that I’m scanning The figure behind his own.

The newcomer urges things on me; I return a vague smile thereto, The olden face gazing upon me Just as it used to do!

And on leaving I scarcely remember Which neighbour to-day I have seen, The one carried out in September, Or him who but entered yestreen.

THE CHOSEN

“Ατιυά ἐστιν ἀλληγορούμενα

“A WOMAN for whom great gods might strive!” I said, and kissed her there: And then I thought of the other five, And of how charms outwear.

I thought of the first with her eating eyes, And I thought of the second with hers, green-gray, And I thought of the third, experienced, wise, And I thought of the fourth who sang all day.

And I thought of the fifth, whom I’d called a jade, And I thought of them all, tear-fraught; And that each had shown her a passable maid, Yet not of the favour sought.

So I traced these words on the bark of a beech, Just at the falling of the mast: “After scanning five; yes, each and each, I’ve found the woman desired—at last!”

“—I feel a strange benumbing spell, As one ill-wished!” said she. And soon it seemed that something fell Was starving her love for me.

“I feel some curse. O, _five_ were there?” And wanly she swerved, and went away. I followed sick: night numbed the air, And dark the mournful moorland lay.

I cried: “O darling, turn your head!” But never her face I viewed; “O turn, O turn!” again I said, And miserably pursued.

At length I came to a Christ-cross stone Which she had passed without discern; And I knelt upon the leaves there strown, And prayed aloud that she might turn.

I rose, and looked; and turn she did; I cried, “My heart revives!” “Look more,” she said. I looked as bid; Her face was all the five’s.

All the five women, clear come back, I saw in her—with her made one, The while she drooped upon the track, And her frail term seemed well-nigh run.

She’d half forgot me in her change; “Who are you? Won’t you say Who you may be, you man so strange, Following since yesterday?”

I took the composite form she was, And carried her to an arbour small, Not passion-moved, but even because In one I could atone to all.

And there she lies, and there I tend, Till my life’s threads unwind, A various womanhood in blend— Not one, but all combined.

THE INSCRIPTION (A TALE)

SIR JOHN was entombed, and the crypt was closed, and she, Like a soul that could meet no more the sight of the sun, Inclined her in weepings and prayings continually, As his widowed one.

And to pleasure her in her sorrow, and fix his name As a memory Time’s fierce frost should never kill, She caused to be richly chased a brass to his fame, Which should link them still;

For she bonded her name with his own on the brazen page, As if dead and interred there with him, and cold, and numb, (Omitting the day of her dying and year of her age Till her end should come;)

And implored good people to pray “Of their Charytie For these twaine Soules,”—yea, she who did last remain Forgoing Heaven’s bliss if ever with spouse should she Again have lain.

Even there, as it first was set, you may see it now, Writ in quaint Church text, with the date of her death left bare, In the aged Estminster aisle, where the folk yet bow Themselves in prayer.

Thereafter some years slid, till there came a day When it slowly began to be marked of the standers-by That she would regard the brass, and would bend away With a drooping sigh.

Now the lady was fair as any the eye might scan Through a summer day of roving—a type at whose lip Despite her maturing seasons, no meet man Would be loth to sip.

And her heart was stirred with a lightning love to its pith For a newcomer who, while less in years, was one Full eager and able to make her his own forthwith, Restrained of none.

But she answered Nay, death-white; and still as he urged She adversely spake, overmuch as she loved the while, Till he pressed for why, and she led with the face of one scourged To the neighbouring aisle,

And showed him the words, ever gleaming upon her pew, Memorizing her there as the knight’s eternal wife, Or falsing such, debarred inheritance due Of celestial life.

He blenched, and reproached her that one yet undeceased Should bury her future—that future which none can spell; And she wept, and purposed anon to inquire of the priest If the price were hell

Of her wedding in face of the record. Her lover agreed, And they parted before the brass with a shudderful kiss, For it seemed to flash out on their impulse of passionate need, “Mock ye not this!”

Well, the priest, whom more perceptions moved than one, Said she erred at the first to have written as if she were dead Her name and adjuration; but since it was done Nought could be said

Save that she must abide by the pledge, for the peace of her soul, And so, by her life, maintain the apostrophe good, If she wished anon to reach the coveted goal Of beatitude.

To erase from the consecrate text her prayer as there prayed Would aver that, since earth’s joys most drew her, past doubt, Friends’ prayers for her joy above by Jesu’s aid Could be done without.

Moreover she thought of the laughter, the shrug, the jibe That would rise at her back in the nave when she should pass As another’s avowed by the words she had chosen to inscribe On the changeless brass.