Part 3

But I shall not be in them. Let Him take The finer ones, the easier to break. And they are not gone, yet, for me, the lights, the colours, the perfumes, Though now they speak rather in sumptuous rooms, In silks and in gem-like wines; Here, even, in this corner where my little candle shines And overhead the lancet-window glows With golds and crimsons you could almost drink To know how jewels taste, just as I used to think There was the scent in every red and yellow rose Of all the sunsets. But this place is grey, And much too quiet. No one here, Why, this is awful, this is fear! Nothing to see, no face. Nothing to hear except your heart beating in space As if the world was ended. Dead at last! Dead soul, dead body, tied together fast. These to go on with and alone, to the slow end: No one to sit with, really, or to speak to, friend to friend: Out of the long procession, black or white or red Not one left now to say “Still I am here, then see you, dear, lay here your head.” Only the doll’s house looking on the Park To-night, all nights, I know, when the man puts the lights out, very dark. With, upstairs, in the blue and gold box of a room, just the maids’ footsteps overhead, Then utter silence and the empty world--the room--the bed--

The corpse! No, not quite dead, while this cries out in me, But nearly: very soon to be A handful of forgotten dust-- There must be someone. Christ! there must, Tell me there _will_ be someone. Who? If there were no one else, could it be You?

How old was Mary out of whom you cast So many devils? Was she young or perhaps for years She had sat staring, with dry eyes, at this and that man going past Till suddenly she saw You on the steps of Simon’s house And stood and looked at You through tears. I think she must have known by those The thing, for what it was that had come to her. For some of us there is a passion, I suppose So far from earthly cares and earthly fears That in its stillness you can hardly stir Or in its nearness, lift your hand, So great that you have simply got to stand Looking at it through tears, through tears Then straight from these there broke the kiss, I think You must have known by this The thing, for what it was, that had come to You: She did not love You like the rest, It was in her own way, but at the worst, the best, She gave you something altogether new. And through it all, from her, no word, She scarcely saw You, scarcely heard: Surely You knew when she so touched You with her hair, Or by the wet cheek lying there, And while her perfume clung to You from head to feet all through the day That You can change the things for which we care, But even You, unless You kill us, not the way.

This, then was peace for her, but passion too. I wonder was it like a kiss that once I knew, The only one that I would care to take Into the grave with me, to which if there were afterwards, to wake. Almost as happy as the carven dead In some dim chancel lying head by head We slept with it, but face to face, the whole night through-- One breath, one throbbing quietness, as if the thing behind our lips was endless life, Lost, as I woke, to hear in the strange earthly dawn, his “Are you there?” And lie still, listening to the wind outside, among the firs.

So Mary chose the dream of Him for what was left to her of night and day, It is the only truth: it is the dream in us that neither life nor death nor any other thing can take away: But if she had not touched Him in the doorway of the dream could she have cared so much? She was a sinner, we are what we are: the spirit afterwards, but first, the touch.

And He has never shared with me my haunted house beneath the trees Of Eden and Calvary, with its ghosts that have not any eyes for tears, And the happier guests who would not see, or if they did, remember these, Though they lived there a thousand years. Outside, too gravely looking at me, He seems to stand, And looking at Him, if my forgotten spirit came Unwillingly back, what could it claim Of those calm eyes, that quiet speech, Breaking like a slow tide upon the beach, The scarred, not quite human hand?-- Unwillingly back to the burden of old imaginings When it has learned so long not to think, not to be, Again, again it would speak as it has spoken to me of things That I shall not see!

I cannot bear to look at this divinely bent and gracious head: When I was small I never quite believed that He was dead: And at the Convent school I used to lie awake in bed Thinking about His hands. It did not matter what they said, He was alive to me, so hurt, so hurt! And most of all in Holy Week When there was no one else to see I used to think it would not hurt me too, so terribly, If He had ever seemed to notice me Or, if, for once, He would only speak.

EXSPECTO RESURRECTIONEM

Oh! King who hast the key Of that dark room, The last which prisons us but held not Thee, Thou know’st its gloom. Dost Thou a little love this one Shut in to-night, Young and so piteously alone, Cold--out of sight? Thou know’st how hard and bare The pillow of that new-made narrow bed, Then leave not there So dear a head!

ON THE ROAD TO THE SEA

We passed each other, turned and stopped for half an hour, then went our way, I who make other women smile did not make you-- But no man can move mountains in a day. So this hard thing is yet to do.

But first I want your life:--before I die I want to see The world that lies behind the strangeness of your eyes, There is nothing gay or green there for my gathering, it may be, Yet on brown fields there lies A haunting purple bloom: is there not something in grey skies And in grey sea? I want what world there is behind your eyes, I want your life and you will not give it to me.

Now, if I look, I see you walking down the years, Young, and through August fields--a face, a thought, a swinging dream perched on a stile--; I would have liked (so vile we are!) to have taught you tears But most to have made you smile.

To-day is not enough or yesterday: God sees it all-- Your length on sunny lawns, the wakeful rainy nights--; tell me--; (how vain to ask), but it is not a question--just a call--; Show me then, only your notched inches climbing up the garden wall, I like you best when you were small.

Is this a stupid thing to say Not having spent with you one day? No matter; I shall never touch your hair Or hear the little tick behind your breast. Still it is there, And as a flying bird Brushes the branches where it may not rest I have brushed your hand and heard The child in you: I like that best

So small, so dark, so sweet; and were you also then too grave and wise? Always I think. Then put your far off little hand in mine;--Oh! let it rest; I will not stare into the early world beyond the opening eyes, Or vex or scare what I love best. But I want your life before mine bleeds away-- Here--not in heavenly hereafters--soon,-- I want your smile this very afternoon, (The last of all my vices, pleasant people used to say, I wanted and I sometimes got--the Moon!)

You know, at dusk, the last bird’s cry, And round the house the flap of the bat’s low flight, Trees that go black against the sky And then--how soon the night!

No shadow of you on any bright road again, And at the darkening end of this--what voice? whose kiss? As if you’d say! It is not I who have walked with you, it will not be I who take away Peace, peace, my little handful of the gleaner’s grain From your reaped fields at the shut of day.

Peace! Would you not rather die Reeling,--with all the cannons at your ear? So, at least, would I, And I may not be here To-night, to-morrow morning or next year. Still I will let you keep your life a little while, See dear? _I have made you smile._

THE SUNLIT HOUSE

White through the gate it gleamed and slept In shuttered sunshine: the parched garden flowers Their fallen petals from the beds unswept, Like children unloved and ill-kept Dreamed through the hours. Two blue hydrangeas by the blistered door, burned brown, Watched there and no one in the town Cared to go past it night or day, Though why this was they wouldn’t say. But, I the stranger, knew that I must stay, Pace up the weed-grown paths and down, Till one afternoon--there is just a doubt-- But I fancy I heard a tiny shout-- From an upper window a bird flew out-- And I went my way.

THE SHADE-CATCHERS

I think they were about as high As haycocks are. They went running by Catching bits of shade in the sunny street: “I’ve got one,” cried sister to brother. “I’ve got two.” “Now I’ve got another.” But scudding away on their little bare feet, They left the shade in the sunny street.

LE SACRÉ-CŒUR (_Montmartre_)

It is dark up here on the heights, Between the dome and the stars it is quiet too, While down there under the crowded lights Flares the importunate face of you, Dear Paris of the hot white hands, the scarlet lips, the scented hair, _Une jolie fille à vendre, très cher_; A thing of gaiety, a thing of sorrow, Bought to-night, possessed, and tossed Back to the mart again to-morrow, Worth and over, what you cost; While half your charm is that you are Withal, like some unpurchasable star, So old, so young and infinite and lost.

It is dark on the dome-capped hill, Serenely dark, divinely still, Yet here is the Man who bought you first Dying of his immortal smart, Your Lover, the King with the broken heart, Who while you, feasting, drink your fill, Pass round the cup Not looking up, Calls down to you, “I thirst.”

“A king with a broken heart! _Mon Dieu!_ One breaks so many, _cela peut se croire_, To remember all _c’est la mer à boire_, And the first, _mais comme c’est vieux_. Perhaps there is still some keepsake--or One has possibly sold it for a song: _On ne peut pas toujours pleurer les morts_, And this One--He has been dead so long!”

SONG

Love, Love to-day, my dear, Love is not always here; Wise maids know how soon grows sere The greenest leaf of Spring; But no man knoweth Whither it goeth When the wind bloweth So frail a thing.

Love, Love, my dear, to-day, If the ship’s in the bay, If the bird has come your way That sings on summer trees; When his song faileth And the ship saileth No voice availeth To call back these.

SATURDAY MARKET

Bury your heart in some deep green hollow Or hide it up in a kind old tree Better still, give it the swallow When she goes over the sea.

In Saturday Market there’s eggs a’plenty And dead-alive ducks with their legs tied down, Grey old gaffers and boys of twenty-- Girls and the women of the town-- Pitchers and sugar-sticks, ribbons and laces, Posies and whips and dicky-birds’ seed, Silver pieces and smiling faces, In Saturday Market they’ve all they need.

What were you showing in Saturday Market That set it grinning from end to end Girls and gaffers and boys of twenty--? Cover it close with your shawl, my friend-- Hasten you home with the laugh behind you, Over the down--, out of sight, Fasten your door, though no one will find you No one will look on a Market night.

See, you, the shawl is wet, take out from under The red dead thing--. In the white of the moon On the flags does it stir again? Well, and no wonder! Best make an end of it; bury it soon. If there is blood on the hearth who’ll know it? Or blood on the stairs, When a murder is over and done why show it? In Saturday Market nobody cares.

Then lie you straight on your bed for a short, short weeping And still, for a long, long rest, There’s never a one in the town so sure of sleeping As you, in the house on the down with a hole in your breast.

Think no more of the swallow, Forget, you, the sea, Never again remember the deep green hollow Or the top of the kind old tree!

ARRACOMBE WOOD

Some said, because he wud’n spaik Any words to women but Yes and No, Nor put out his hand for Parson to shake He mun be bird-witted. But I do go By the lie of the barley that he did sow, And I wish no better thing than to hold a rake Like Dave, in his time, or to see him mow.

Put up in churchyard a month ago, “A bitter old soul,” they said, but it wadn’t so. His heart were in Arracombe Wood where he’d used to go To sit and talk wi’ his shadder till sun went low, Though what it was all about us’ll never know. And there baint no mem’ry in the place Of th’ old man’s footmark, nor his face; Arracombe Wood do think more of a crow-- ’Will be violets there in the Spring: in Summer time the spider’s lace; And come the Fall, the whizzle and race Of the dry, dead leaves when the wind gies chase; And on the Eve of Christmas, fallin’ snow.

SEA LOVE

Tide be runnin’ the great world over: T’was only last June month I mind that we Was thinkin’ the toss and the call in the breast of the lover So everlastin’ as the sea.

Heer’s the same little fishes that sputter and swim, Wi’ the moon’s old glim on the grey, wet sand; An’ him no more to me nor me to him Than the wind goin’ over my hand.

THE ROAD TO KÉRITY

Do you remember the two old people we passed on the road to Kérity, Resting their sack on the stones, by the drenched wayside, Looking at us with their lightless eyes through the driving rain, and then out again To the rocks, and the long white line of the tide: Frozen ghosts that were children once, husband and wife, father, and mother, Looking at us with those frozen eyes; have you ever seen anything quite so chilled or so old? But we--with our arms about each other, We did not feel the cold!

I HAVE BEEN THROUGH THE GATES

His heart, to me, was a place of palaces and pinnacles and shining towers; I saw it then as we see things in dreams,--I do not remember how long I slept; I remember the trees, and the high, white walls, and how the sun was always on the towers; The walls are standing to-day, and the gates: I have been through the gates, I have groped, I have crept Back, back. There is dust in the streets, and blood; they are empty; darkness is over them; His heart is a place with the lights gone out, forsaken by great winds and the heavenly rain, unclean and unswept, Like the heart of the holy city, old, blind, beautiful Jerusalem, Over which Christ wept.

THE CENOTAPH

Not yet will those measureless fields be green again Where only yesterday the wild, sweet, blood of wonderful youth was shed; There is a grave whose earth must hold too long, too deep a stain, Though for ever over it we may speak as proudly as we may tread. But here, where the watchers by lonely hearths from the thrust of an inward sword have more slowly bled, We shall build the Cenotaph: Victory, winged, with Peace, winged too, at the column’s head. And over the stairway, at the foot--oh! here, leave desolate, passionate hands to spread Violets, roses, and laurel, with the small, sweet, twinkling country things Speaking so wistfully of other Springs, From the little gardens of little places where son or sweetheart was born and bred. In splendid sleep, with a thousand brothers To lovers--to mothers Here, too, lies he: Under the purple, the green, the red, It is all young life: it must break some women’s hearts to see Such a brave, gay coverlet to such a bed! Only, when all is done and said, God is not mocked and neither are the dead.

For this will stand in our Market-place-- Who’ll sell, who’ll buy (Will you or I Lie each to each with the better grace)? While looking into every busy whore’s and huckster’s face As they drive their bargains, is the Face Of God: and some young, piteous, murdered face.