Part 2

No word profaned the peace of that glad giving, But the warm dimness of the night stood still, Drawing all beauty to the point of living, There in the beech-tree's shadow on the hill. Spirit to spirit murmured; mingling will Made them one being; Time's decaying thought Fell from them like a rag; it was the soul they sought.

The moonlight found an opening in the boughs; It entered in, it filled that sacred place With consecration on the throbbing brows; It came with benediction and with grace. A whispering came from face to yearning face: "Beloved, will you wait for me?" "My own." "I shall be gone three years, you will be left alone;

"You'll trust and wait for me?" "Yes, yes," she sighed; She would wait any term of years, all time-- So faithful to first love these souls abide, Carrying a man's soul with them as they climb. Life was all flower to them; the church bells' chime Rang out the burning hour ere they had sealed Love's charter there below the June sky's starry field.

Sweetly the church bells' music reached the wood, Chiming an old slow tune of some old hymn, Calling them back to life from where they stood Under the moonlit beech-tree grey and dim. "Mary," he murmured; pressing close to him, Her kiss came on the gift he gave her there, A silken scarf that bore her name worked in his hair.

But still the two affixed their hands and seals To a life compact witnessed by the sky, Where the great planets drove their glittering wheels, Bringing conflicting fate, making men die. They loved, and she would wait, and he would try. "Oh, beauty of my love," "My lovely man." So beauty made them noble for their little span.

Time cannot pause, however dear the wooer; The moon declined, the sunrise came, the hours, Left to the lovers, dwindled swiftly fewer, Even as the seeds from dandelion-flowers Blow, one by one, until the bare stalk cowers, And the June grass grows over; even so Daffodil-picker Time took from their lives the glow,

Stole their last walk along the three green fields, Their latest hour together; he took, he stole The white contentment that a true love yields; He took the triumph out of Mary's soul. Now she must lie awake and blow the coal Of sorrow of heart. The parting hour came; They kissed their last good-bye, murmuring the other's name.

Then the flag waved, the engine snorted, then Slowly the couplings tautened, and the train Moved, bearing off from her her man of men; She looked towards its going blind with pain. Her father turned and drove her home again. It was a different home. Awhile she tried To cook the dinner there, but flung her down and cried.

Then in the dusk she wandered down the brook, Treading again the trackway trod of old, When she could hold her loved one in a look. The night was all unlike those nights of gold. Michael was gone, and all the April old, Withered and hidden. Life was full of ills; She flung her down and cried i' the withered daffodils

III

The steaming river loitered like old blood On which the tugboat bearing Michael beat, Past whitened horse bones sticking in the mud. The reed stems looked like metal in the heat. Then the banks fell away, and there were neat, Red herds of sullen cattle drifting slow. A fish leaped, making rings, making the dead blood flow.

Wormed hard-wood piles were driv'n in the river bank, The steamer threshed alongside with sick screws Churning the mud below her till it stank; Big gassy butcher-bubbles burst on the ooze. There Michael went ashore; as glad to lose One not a native there, the Gauchos flung His broken gear ashore, one waved, a bell was rung.

The bowfast was cast off, the screw revolved, Making a bloodier bubbling; rattling rope Fell to the hatch, the engine's tune resolved Into its steadier beat of rise and slope; The steamer went her way; and Michael's hope Died as she lessened; he was there alone. The lowing of the cattle made a gradual moan.

He thought of Mary, but the thought was dim; That was another life, lived long before. His mind was in new worlds which altered him. The startling present left no room for more. The sullen river lipped, the sky, the shore Were vaster than of old, and lonely, lonely. Sky and low hills of grass and moaning cattle only.

But for a hut bestrewn with skulls of beeves, Round which the flies danced, where an Indian girl Bleared at him from her eyes' ophthalmic eaves, Grinning a welcome; with a throaty skirl, She offered him herself; but he, the churl, Stared till she thought him fool; she turned, she sat, Scratched in her short, black hair, chewed a cigar-end, spat.

Up, on the rise, the cattle bunched; the bulls Drew to the front with menace, pawing bold, Snatching the grass-roots out with sudden pulls, The distant cattle raised their heads; the wold Grew dusty at the top; a waggon rolled, Drawn by a bickering team of mules whose eyes Were yellow like their teeth and bared and full of vice.

Down to the jetty came the jingling team, An Irish cowboy driving, while a Greek Beside him urged the mules with blow and scream. They cheered the Indian girl and stopped to speak. Then lifting her aloft they kissed her cheek, Calling to Michael to be quick aboard, Or they (they said) would fall from virtue, by the Lord.

So Michael climbed aboard, and all day long He drove the cattle range, rise after rise, Dotted with limber shorthorns grazing strong, Cropping sweet-tasted pasture, switching flies; Dull trouble brooded in their smoky eyes. Some horsemen watched them. As the sun went down, The waggon reached the estancia builded like a town.

With wide corrales where the horses squealed, Biting and lashing out; some half-wild hounds Gnawed at the cowbones littered on the field, Or made the stallions stretch their picket bounds. Some hides were drying; horsemen came from rounds, Unsaddled stiff, and turned their mounts to feed, And then brewed bitter drink and sucked it through a reed.

The Irishman removed his pipe and spoke: "You take a fool's advice," he said. "Return. Go back where you belong before you're broke; You'll spoil more clothes at this job than you'll earn; It's living death, and when you die you'll burn: Body and soul it takes you. Quit it. No? Don't say I never told you, then. Amigos. Ho.

"Here comes a Gringo; make him pay his shot. Pay up your footing, Michael; rum's the word, It suits my genius, and I need a lot." So the great cauldron full was mixed and stirred. And all night long the startled cattle heard Shouting and shooting, and the moon beheld Mobs of dim, struggling men, who fired guns and yelled

That they were Abel Brown just come to town, Michael among them. By a bonfire some Betted on red and black for money down, Snatching their clinking winnings, eager, dumb. Some danced unclad, rubbing their heads with rum. The grey dawn, bringing beauty to the skies, Saw Michael stretched among them, far too drunk to rise.

His footing paid, he joined the living-shed, Lined with rude bunks and set with trestles: there He, like the other ranchers, slept and fed, Save when the staff encamped in open air, Rounding the herd for branding. Rude and bare That barrack was; men littered it about With saddles, blankets blue, old headstalls, many a clout

Torn off to wipe a knife or clean a gun, Tin dishes, sailors' hookpots, all the mess Made where the outdoor work is never done And every cleaning makes the sleeping less. Men came from work too tired to undress, And slept all standing like the trooper's horse; Then with the sun they rose to ride the burning course,

Whacking the shipment cattle into pen, Where, in the dust, among the stink of burning, The half-mad heifers bolted from the men, And tossing horns arose and hoofs were churning, A lover there had little time for yearning; But all day long, cursing the flies and heat, Michael was handling steers on horseback till his feet

Gave on dismounting. All day long he rode, Then, when the darkness came, his mates and he Entered dog-tired to the rude abode And ate their meat and sucked their bitter tea, And rolled themselves in rugs and slept. The sea Could not make men more drowsy; like the dead, They lay under the lamp while the mosquitoes fed.

There was no time to think of Mary, none; For when the work relaxed, the time for thought Was broken up by men demanding fun: Cards, or a well-kept ring while someone fought, Or songs and dancing; or a case was bought Of white Brazilian rum, and songs and cheers And shots and oaths rang loud upon the twitching ears

Of the hobbled horses hopping to their feed. So violent images displaced the rose In Michael's spirit; soon he took the lead; None was more apt than he for games or blows. Even as the battle-seeking bantam crows, So crowed the cockerel of his mind to feel Life's bonds removed and blood quick in him toe to heel.

But sometimes when her letters came to him, Full of wise tenderness and maiden mind, He felt that he had let his clearness dim; The riot with the cowboys seemed unkind To that far faithful heart; he could not find Peace in the thought of her; he found no spur To instant upright action in his love for her.

She faded to the memory of a kiss, There in the rough life among foreign faces; Love cannot live where leisure never is; He could not write to her from savage places, Where drunken mates were betting on the aces, And rum went round and smutty songs were lifted. He would not raise her banner against that; he drifted,

Ceasing, in time, to write, ceasing to think, But happy in the wild life to the bone; The riding in vast space, the songs, the drink, Some careless heart beside him like his own, The racing and the fights, the ease unknown In older, soberer lands; his young blood thrilled. The pampas seemed his own, his cup of joy was filled.

And one day, riding far after strayed horses, He rode beyond the ranges to a land Broken and made most green by watercourses, Which served as strayline to the neighbouring brand. A house stood near the brook; he stayed his hand, Seeing a woman there, whose great eyes burned, So that he could not choose but follow when she turned.

After that day he often rode to see That woman at the peach farm near the brook, And passionate love between them came to be Ere many days. Their fill of love they took; And even as the blank leaves of a book The days went over Mary, day by day, Blank as the last, was turned, endured, passed, turned away.

Spring came again greening the hawthorn buds; The shaking flowers, new-blossomed, seemed the same, And April put her riot in young bloods; The jays flapped in the larch clump like blue flame. She did not care; his letter never came. Silent she went, nursing the grief that kills, And Lion watched her pass among the daffodils.

IV

Time passed, but still no letter came; she ceased, Almost, to hope, but never to expect. The June moon came which had beheld love's feast, Then waned, like it; the meadow-grass was flecked With moon-daisies, which died; little she recked Of change in outward things, she did not change; Her heart still knew one star, one hope, it did not range,

Like to the watery hearts of tidal men, Swayed by all moons of beauty; she was firm, When most convinced of misery firmest then. She held a light not subject to the worm. The pageant of the summer ran its term, The last stack came to staddle from the wain; The snow fell, the snow thawed, the year began again.

With the wet glistening gold of celandines, And snowdrops pushing from the withered grass, Before the bud upon the hawthorn greens, Or blackbirds go to building; but, alas! No spring within her bosom came to pass. "You're going like a ghost," her father said; "Now put him out of mind, and be my prudent maid."

It was an April morning brisk with wind, She wandered out along the brook sick-hearted, Picking the daffodils where the water dinned, While overhead the first-come swallow darted. There, at the place where all the passion started, Where love first knocked about her maiden heart, Young Lion Occleve hailed her, calling her apart

To see his tulips at The Roughs, and take A spray of flowering currant; so she went. It is a bitter moment, when hearts ache, To see the loved unhappy; his intent Was but to try to comfort her; he meant To show her that he knew her heart's despair, And that his own heart bled to see her wretched there.

So, as they talked, he asked her, had she heard From Michael lately? No, she had not; she Had been a great while now, without a word. "No news is always good news," answered he. "You know," he said, "how much you mean to me; You've always been the queen. Oh, if I could Do anything to help, my dear, you know I would."

"Nothing," she said, much touched. "But you believe-- You still believe in him?" "Why, yes," he said. Lie though it was he did not dare deceive The all too cruel faith within the maid. "That ranching is a wild and lonely trade, Far from all posts; it may be hard to send; All puzzling things like this prove simple in the end.

"We should have heard if he were ill or dead. Keep a good heart. Now come"; he led the way Beyond the barton to the calving-shed, Where, on a strawy litter topped with hay, A double-pedigree prize bull-calf lay. "Near three weeks old," he said, "the Wrekin's pet; Come up, now, son, come up; you haven't seen him yet.

"We have done well," he added, "with the stock, But this one, if he lives, will make a name." The bull-calf gambolled with his tail acock, Then shyly nosed towards them, scared but tame; His troublous eyes were sulky with blue flame. Softly he tip-toed, shying at a touch; He nosed, his breath came sweet, his pale tongue curled to clutch.

They rubbed his head, and Mary went her way, Counting the dreary time, the dreary beat Of dreary minutes dragging through the day; Time crawled across her life with leaden feet; There still remained a year before her sweet Would come to claim her; surely he would come; Meanwhile there was the year, her weakening father, home.

Home with its deadly round, with all its setting, Things, rooms, and fields and flowers to sting, to burn With memories of the love time past forgetting Ere absence made her very being yearn. "My love, be quick," she moaned, "return, return; Come when the three years end, oh, my dear soul, It's bitter, wanting you." The lonely nights took toll,

Putting a sadness where the beauty was, Taking a lustre from the hair; the days Saw each a sadder image in the glass. And when December came, fouling the ways, And ashless beech-logs made a Christmas blaze, Some talk of Michael came; a rumour ran, Someone had called him "wild" to some returning mail,

Who, travelling through that cattle-range, had heard Nothing more sure than this; but this he told At second-hand upon a cowboy's word. It struck on Mary's heart and turned her cold. That winter was an age which made her old. "But soon," she thought, "soon the third year will end; March, April, May, and June, then I shall see my friend.

"He promised he would come; he will not fail. Oh, Michael, my beloved man, come soon; Stay not to make a home for me, but sail. Love and the hour will put the world in tune. You in my life for always is the boon I ask from life--we two, together, lovers." So leaden time went by who eats things and discovers.

Then, in the winds of March, her father rode, Hunting the Welland country on Black Ned; The tenor cry gave tongue past Clencher's Lode, And on he galloped, giving the nag his head; Then, at the brook, he fell, was picked up dead. Hounds were whipped off; men muttered with one breath, "We knew that hard-mouthed brute would some day be his death."

They bore his body on a hurdle home; Then came the burial, then the sadder day When the peaked lawyer entered like a gnome, With word to quit and lists of debts to pay. There was a sale; the Foxholes passed away To strangers, who discussed the points of cows, Where love had put such glory on the lovers' brows.

Kind Lion Occleve helped the maid's affairs. Her sorrow brought him much beside her; he Caused her to settle, having stilled her cares, In the long cottage under Spital Gree. He had no hope that she would love him; she Still waited for her lover, but her eyes Thanked Lion to the soul; he made the look suffice.

By this the yearling bull-calf had so grown That all men talked of him; mighty he grew, Huge-shouldered, scaled above a hundred stone, With deep chest many-wrinkled with great thew, Plain-loined and playful-eyed; the Occleves knew That he surpassed his pasture; breeders came From far to see this bull; he brought the Occleves fame.

Till a meat-breeding rancher on the plains Where Michael wasted, sent to buy the beast, Meaning to cross his cows with heavier strains Until his yield of meat and bone increased. He paid a mighty price; the yearling ceased To be the wonder of the countryside. He sailed in Lion's charge, south, to the Plate's red tide.

There Lion landed with the bull, and there The great beast raised his head and bellowed loud, Challenging that expanse and that new air; Trembling, but full of wrath and thunder-browed, Far from the daffodil fields and friends, but proud, His wild eye kindled at the great expanse. Two scraps of Shropshire life they stood there; their advance

Was slow along the well-grassed cattle land, But at the last an end was made; the brute Ate his last bread crust from his master's hand, And snuffed the foreign herd and stamped his foot; Steers on the swelling ranges gave salute. The great bull bellowed back and Lion turned; His task was now to find where Michael lived; he learned

The farm's direction, and with heavy mind, Thinking of Mary and her sorrow, rode, Leaving the offspring of his fields behind. A last time in his ears the great bull lowed. Then, shaking up his horse, the young man glowed To see the unfenced pampas opening out Grass that makes old earth sing and all the valleys shout.

At sunset on the second day he came To that white cabin in the peach-tree plot Where Michael lived; they met, the Shropshire name Rang trebly dear in that outlandish spot. Old memories swam up dear, old joys forgot, Old friends were real again; but Mary's woe Came into Lion's mind, and Michael vexed him so,

Talking with careless freshness, side by side With that dark Spanish beauty who had won, As though no heart-broke woman, heavy-eyed, Mourned for him over sea, as though the sun Shone but to light his steps to love and fun, While she, that golden and beloved soul, Worth ten of him, lay wasting like an unlit coal.

So supper passed; the meat in Lion's gorge Stuck at the last, he could not bide that face. The idle laughter on it plied the forge Where hate was smithying tools; the jokes, the place, Wrought him to wrath; he could not stay for grace. The tin mug full of red wine spilled and fell. He kicked his stool aside with "Michael, this is hell.

"Come out into the night and talk to me." The young man lit a cigarette and followed; The stars seemed trembling at a brink to see; A little ghostly white-owl stooped and holloed. Beside the stake-fence Lion stopped and swallowed, While all the wrath within him made him grey. Michael stood still and smoked, and flicked his ash away.

"Well, Lion," Michael said, "men make mistakes, And then regret them; and an early flame Is frequently the worst mistake man makes. I did not seek this passion, but it came. Love happens so in life. Well? Who's to blame? You'll say I've broken Mary's heart; the heart Is not the whole of life, but an inferior part,

"Useful for some few years and then a curse. Nerves should be stronger. You have come to say The three-year term is up; so much the worse. I cannot meet the bill; I cannot pay. I would not if I could. Men change. To-day I know that that first choice, however sweet, Was wrong and a mistake; it would have meant defeat,

"Ruin and misery to us both. Let be. You say I should have told her this? Perhaps. You try to make a loving woman see That the warm link which holds you to her snaps. Neglect is deadlier than the thunder-claps. Yet she is bright and I am water. Well, I did not make myself; this life is often hell.

"Judge if you must, but understand it first. We are old friends, and townsmen, Shropshire born, Under the Wrekin. You believe the worst. You have no knowledge how the heart is torn, Trying for duty up against the thorn. Now say I've broken Mary's heart: begin. Break hers, or hers and mine, which were the greater sin?"

"Michael," said Lion, "I have heard you. Now Listen to me. Three years ago you made With a most noble soul a certain vow. Now you reject it, saying that you played. She did not think so, Michael, she has stayed, Eating her heart out for a line, a word, News that you were not dead; news that she never heard.

"Not once, after the first. She has held firm To what you counted pastime; she has wept Life, day by weary day throughout the term, While her heart sickened, and the clock-hand crept. While you, you with your woman here, have kept Holiday, feasting; you are fat; you smile. You have had love and laughter all the ghastly while.

"I shall be back in England six weeks hence, Standing with your poor Mary face to face; Far from a pleasant moment, but intense. I shall be asked to tell her of this place. And she will eye me hard and hope for grace, Some little crumb of comfort while I tell; And every word will burn like a red spark from hell,

"That you have done with her, that you are living Here with another woman; that you care Nought for the pain you've given and are giving; That all your lover's vows were empty air. This I must tell: thus I shall burn her bare, Burn out all hope, all comfort, every crumb, End it, and watch her whiten, hopeless, tearless, dumb.

"Or do I judge you wrongly?" He was still. The cigarette-end glowed and dimmed with ash; A preying night bird whimpered on the hill. Michael said "Ah!" and fingered with his sash, Then stilled. The night was still; there came no flash Of sudden passion bursting. All was still; A lonely water gurgled like a whip-poor-will.

"Now I must go," said Lion; "where's the horse?" "There," said his friend; "I'll set you on your way." They caught and rode, both silent, while remorse Worked in each heart, though neither would betray What he was feeling, and the moon came grey, Then burned into an opal white and great, Silvering the downs of grass where these two travelled late,

Thinking of English fields which that moon saw, Fields full of quiet beauty lying hushed At midnight in the moment full of awe, When the red fox comes creeping, dewy-brushed. But neither spoke; they rode; the horses rushed, Scattering the great clods skywards with such thrills As colts in April feel there in the daffodils.

V

The river brimming full was silvered over By moonlight at the ford; the river bank Smelt of bruised clote buds and of yellow clover. Nosing the gleaming dark the horses drank, Drooping and dripping as the reins fell lank; The men drooped too; the stars in heaven drooped; Rank after hurrying rank the silver water trooped

In ceaseless bright procession past the shallows, Talking its quick inconsequence. The friends, Warmed by the gallop on the unfenced fallows, Felt it a kindlier thing to make amends. "A jolly burst," said Michael; "here it ends. Your way lies straight beyond the water. There. Watch for the lights, and keep those two stars as they bear."

Something august was quick in all that sky, Wheeling in multitudinous march with fire; The falling of the wind brought it more nigh, They felt the earth take solace and respire; The horses shifted foothold in the mire, Splashing and making eddies. Lion spoke: "Do you remember riding past the haunted oak