Chapter 3

“IN THE SEVENTIES”

“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 those who met me did not know Of the vision That immuned me from the chillings of mis-prision And the damps that choked my goings to and fro In the seventies; yea, those nodders did not know Of the vision.

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.

THE PEDIGREE

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

So, scanning my sire-sown tree, And the hieroglyphs of this spouse tied to that, With offspring mapped below in lineage, Till the tangles troubled me, The branches seemed to twist into a seared and cynic face Which winked and tokened towards the window like a Mage Enchanting me to gaze again thereat.

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

And then did I divine That every heave and coil and move I made Within my brain, and in my mood and speech, Was in the glass portrayed As long forestalled by their so making it; The first of them, the primest fuglemen of my line, Being fogged in far antiqueness past surmise and reason’s reach.

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.

THIS HEART A WOMAN’S DREAM

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.

It was inscribed like a terrestrial sphere With quaint vermiculations close and clear— His graving. Had I known, would I have risked the stroke Its reading brought, and my own heart nigh broke!

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.

There that when we were severed, how day dulled Till time joined us anew, was chronicled: And arguments and battlings in defence of me That heart recorded clearly and ruddily.

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.

WHERE THEY LIVED

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!”

THE OCCULTATION

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?

LIFE LAUGHS ONWARD

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.

THE PEACE-OFFERING

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”

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.

THE WOUND

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.

A MERRYMAKING IN QUESTION

“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” (_Fickle Lover’s Song_)

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.

Strange, startling, was it then to learn I had glanced down unborn time, (Have your way, my heart, O!) And prophesied, whereby I knew That which the years had planned to do In warranty of my rhyme.

BY RUSHY-POND.

A JANUARY NIGHT (1879)

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.

A KISS

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.

THE ANNOUNCEMENT

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.

THE OXEN

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.

THE TRESSES

“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 PHOTOGRAPH

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.

“Thank God, she is out of it now!” I said at last, In a great relief of heart when the thing was done That had set my soul aghast, And nothing was left of the picture unsheathed from the past But the ashen ghost of the card it had figured on.

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?

ON A HEATH

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.

AN ANNIVERSARY

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.

Let so much be said of the date-day’s sameness; But the tree that neighbours the track, And stoops like a pedlar afflicted with lameness, Knew of no sogged wound or windcrack. And the joints of that wall were not enshrouded With mosses of many tones, And the garth up afar was not overcrowded With a multitude of white stones, And the man’s eyes then were not so sunk that you saw the socket-bones.

KINGSTON-MAURWARD EWELEASE.

“BY THE RUNIC STONE” (_Two who became a story_)

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!

THE PINK FROCK

“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!”

TRANSFORMATIONS

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!

IN HER PRECINCTS

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.

THE LAST SIGNAL (_Oct._ 11, 1886) A MEMORY OF WILLIAM BARNES

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.

Looking hard and harder I knew what it meant— The sudden shine sent from the livid east scene; It meant the west mirrored by the coffin of my friend there, Turning to the road from his green,

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.

THE HOUSE OF SILENCE

“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.

“It is a poet’s bower, Through which there pass, in fleet arrays, Long teams of all the years and days, Of joys and sorrows, of earth and heaven, That meet mankind in its ages seven, An aion in an hour.”

GREAT THINGS

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!

Love is, yea, a great thing, A great thing to me, When, having drawn across the lawn In darkness silently, A figure flits like one a-wing Out from the nearest tree: O love is, yes, 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!

THE CHIMES

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.

THE FIGURE IN THE SCENE

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”

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_.

CONJECTURE

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!

THE BLOW

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

Time’s finger should have stretched to show No aimful author’s was the blow That swept us prone, But the Immanent Doer’s That doth not know,

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

LOVE THE MONOPOLIST (_Young Lover’s Reverie_)

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!

“A troubled soughing in the breeze And the sky overhead Let yourself feel; and shadeful trees, Ripe corn, and apples red, Read as things barren and distasteful While we are separated!

“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_—

AT MIDDLE-FIELD GATE IN FEBRUARY

THE bars are thick with drops that show As they gather themselves from the fog Like silver buttons ranged in a row, And as evenly spaced as if measured, although They fall at the feeblest jog.