MISCELLANEOUS PIECES

“Love, while you were away there came to me— From whence I cannot tell— A plaintive lady pale and passionless, Who bent her eyes upon me critically, And weighed me with a wearing wistfulness, As if she knew me well.”

“I saw no lady of that wistful sort As I came riding home. Perhaps she was some dame the Fates constrain By memories sadder than she can support, Or by unhappy vacancy of brain, To leave her roof and roam?”

“Ah, but she knew me. And before this time I have seen her, lending ear To my light outdoor words, and pondering each, Her frail white finger swayed in pantomime, As if she fain would close with me in speech, And yet would not come near.

“And once I saw her beckoning with her hand As I came into sight At an upper window. And I at last went out; But when I reached where she had seemed to stand, And wandered up and down and searched about, I found she had vanished quite.”

Then thought I how my dead Love used to say, With a small smile, when she Was waning wan, that she would hover round And show herself after her passing day To any newer Love I might have found, But show her not to me.

“Why do you stand in the dripping rye, Cold-lipped, unconscious, wet to the knee, When there are firesides near?” said I. “I told him I wished him dead,” said she.

“Yea, cried it in my haste to one Whom I had loved, whom I well loved still; And die he did. And I hate the sun, And stand here lonely, aching, chill;

“Stand waiting, waiting under skies That blow reproach, the while I see The rooks sheer off to where he lies Wrapt in a peace withheld from me.”

Why do you harbour that great cheval-glass Filling up your narrow room? You never preen or plume, Or look in a week at your full-length figure— Picture of bachelor gloom!

“Well, when I dwelt in ancient England, Renting the valley farm, Thoughtless of all heart-harm, I used to gaze at the parson’s daughter, A creature of nameless charm.

“Thither there came a lover and won her, Carried her off from my view. O it was then I knew Misery of a cast undreamt of— More than, indeed, my due!

“Then far rumours of her ill-usage Came, like a chilling breath When a man languisheth; Followed by news that her mind lost balance, And, in a space, of her death.

“Soon sank her father; and next was the auction— Everything to be sold: Mid things new and old Stood this glass in her former chamber, Long in her use, I was told.

“Well, I awaited the sale and bought it . . . There by my bed it stands, And as the dawn expands Often I see her pale-faced form there Brushing her hair’s bright bands.

“There, too, at pallid midnight moments Quick she will come to my call, Smile from the frame withal Ponderingly, as she used to regard me Passing her father’s wall.

“So that it was for its revelations I brought it oversea, And drag it about with me . . . Anon I shall break it and bury its fragments Where my grave is to be.”

Between the folding sea-downs, In the gloom Of a wailful wintry nightfall, When the boom Of the ocean, like a hammering in a hollow tomb,

Throbbed up the copse-clothed valley From the shore To the chamber where I darkled, Sunk and sore With gray ponderings why my Loved one had not come before

To salute me in the dwelling That of late I had hired to waste a while in— Vague of date, Quaint, and remote—wherein I now expectant sate;

On the solitude, unsignalled, Broke a man Who, in air as if at home there, Seemed to scan Every fire-flecked nook of the apartment span by span.

A stranger’s and no lover’s Eyes were these, Eyes of a man who measures What he sees But vaguely, as if wrapt in filmy phantasies.

Yea, his bearing was so absent As he stood, It bespoke a chord so plaintive In his mood, That soon I judged he would not wrong my quietude.

“Ah—the supper is just ready,” Then he said, “And the years’-long binned Madeira Flashes red!” (There was no wine, no food, no supper-table spread.)

“You will forgive my coming, Lady fair? I see you as at that time Rising there, The self-same curious querying in your eyes and air.

“Yet no. How so? You wear not The same gown, Your locks show woful difference, Are not brown: What, is it not as when I hither came from town?

“And the place . . . But you seem other— Can it be? What’s this that Time is doing Unto me? You dwell here, unknown woman? . . . Whereabouts, then, is she?

“And the house—things are much shifted.— Put them where They stood on this night’s fellow; Shift her chair: Here was the couch: and the piano should be there.”

I indulged him, verily nerve-strained Being alone, And I moved the things as bidden, One by one, And feigned to push the old piano where he had shown.

“Aha—now I can see her! Stand aside: Don’t thrust her from the table Where, meek-eyed, She makes attempt with matron-manners to preside.

“She serves me: now she rises, Goes to play . . . But you obstruct her, fill her With dismay, And embarrassed, scared, she vanishes away!”

And, as ’twere useless longer To persist, He sighed, and sought the entry Ere I wist, And retreated, disappearing soundless in the mist.

That here some mighty passion Once had burned, Which still the walls enghosted, I discerned, And that by its strong spell mine might be overturned.

I sat depressed; till, later, My Love came; But something in the chamber Dimmed our flame,— An emanation, making our due words fall tame,

As if the intenser drama Shown me there Of what the walls had witnessed Filled the air, And left no room for later passion anywhere.

So came it that our fervours Did quite fail Of future consummation— Being made quail By the weird witchery of the parlour’s hidden tale,

Which I, as years passed, faintly Learnt to trace,— One of sad love, born full-winged In that place Where the predestined sorrowers first stood face to face.

And as that month of winter Circles round, And the evening of the date-day Grows embrowned, I am conscious of those presences, and sit spellbound.

There, often—lone, forsaken— Queries breed Within me; whether a phantom Had my heed On that strange night, or was it some wrecked heart indeed?

That love’s dull smart distressed my heart He shrewdly learnt to see, But that I was in love with a dead man Never suspected he.

He searched for the trace of a pictured face, He watched each missive come, And a note that seemed like a love-line Made him look frozen and glum.

He dogged my feet to the city street, He followed me to the sea, But not to the neighbouring churchyard Did he dream of following me.

She charged me with having said this and that To another woman long years before, In the very parlour where we sat,—

Sat on a night when the endless pour Of rain on the roof and the road below Bent the spring of the spirit more and more . . .

—So charged she me; and the Cupid’s bow Of her mouth was hard, and her eyes, and her face, And her white forefinger lifted slow.

Had she done it gently, or shown a trace That not too curiously would she view A folly passed ere her reign had place,

A kiss might have ended it. But I knew From the fall of each word, and the pause between, That the curtain would drop upon us two Ere long, in our play of slave and queen.

He paused on the sill of a door ajar That screened a lively liquor-bar, For the name had reached him through the door Of her he had married the week before.

“We called her the Hack of the Parade; But she was discreet in the games she played; If slightly worn, she’s pretty yet, And gossips, after all, forget.

“And he knows nothing of her past; I am glad the girl’s in luck at last; Such ones, though stale to native eyes, Newcomers snatch at as a prize.”

“Yes, being a stranger he sees her blent Of all that’s fresh and innocent, Nor dreams how many a love-campaign She had enjoyed before his reign!”

That night there was the splash of a fall Over the slimy harbour-wall: They searched, and at the deepest place Found him with crabs upon his face.

He lay awake, with a harassed air, And she, in her cloud of loose lank hair, Seemed trouble-tried As the dawn drew in on their faces there.

The chamber looked far over the sea From a white hotel on a white-stoned quay, And stepping a stride He parted the window-drapery.

Above the level horizon spread The sunrise, firing them foot to head From its smouldering lair, And painting their pillows with dyes of red.

“What strange disquiets have stirred you, dear, This dragging night, with starts in fear Of me, as it were, Or of something evil hovering near?”

“My husband, can I have fear of you? What should one fear from a man whom few, Or none, had matched In that late long spell of delays undue!”

He watched her eyes in the heaving sun: “Then what has kept, O reticent one, Those lids unlatched— Anything promised I’ve not yet done?”

“O it’s not a broken promise of yours (For what quite lightly your lip assures The due time brings) That has troubled my sleep, and no waking cures!” . . .

“I have shaped my will; ’tis at hand,” said he; “I subscribe it to-day, that no risk there be In the hap of things Of my leaving you menaced by poverty.”

“That a boon provision I’m safe to get, Signed, sealed by my lord as it were a debt, I cannot doubt, Or ever this peering sun be set.”

“But you flung my arms away from your side, And faced the wall. No month-old bride Ere the tour be out In an air so loth can be justified?

“Ah—had you a male friend once loved well, Upon whose suit disaster fell And frustrance swift? Honest you are, and may care to tell.”

She lay impassive, and nothing broke The stillness other than, stroke by stroke, The lazy lift Of the tide below them; till she spoke:

“I once had a friend—a Love, if you will— Whose wife forsook him, and sank until She was made a thrall In a prison-cell for a deed of ill . . .

“He remained alone; and we met—to love, But barring legitimate joy thereof Stood a doorless wall, Though we prized each other all else above.

“And this was why, though I’d touched my prime, I put off suitors from time to time— Yourself with the rest— Till friends, who approved you, called it crime,

“And when misgivings weighed on me In my lover’s absence, hurriedly, And much distrest, I took you . . . Ah, that such could be! . . .

“Now, saw you when crossing from yonder shore At yesternoon, that the packet bore On a white-wreathed bier A coffined body towards the fore?

“Well, while you stood at the other end, The loungers talked, and I could but lend A listening ear, For they named the dead. ’Twas the wife of my friend.

“He was there, but did not note me, veiled, Yet I saw that a joy, as of one unjailed, Now shone in his gaze; He knew not his hope of me just had failed!

“They had brought her home: she was born in this isle; And he will return to his domicile, And pass his days Alone, and not as he dreamt erstwhile!”

“—So you’ve lost a sprucer spouse than I!” She held her peace, as if fain deny She would indeed For his pleasure’s sake, but could lip no lie.

“One far less formal and plain and slow!” She let the laconic assertion go As if of need She held the conviction that it was so.

“Regard me as his he always should, He had said, and wed me he vowed he would In his prime or sere Most verily do, if ever he could.

“And this fulfilment is now his aim, For a letter, addressed in my maiden name, Has dogged me here, Reminding me faithfully of his claim.

“And it started a hope like a lightning-streak That I might go to him—say for a week— And afford you right To put me away, and your vows unspeak.

“To be sure you have said, as of dim intent, That marriage is a plain event Of black and white, Without any ghost of sentiment,

“And my heart has quailed.—But deny it true That you will never this lock undo! No God intends To thwart the yearning He’s father to!”

The husband hemmed, then blandly bowed In the light of the angry morning cloud. “So my idyll ends, And a drama opens!” he mused aloud;

And his features froze. “You may take it as true That I will never this lock undo For so depraved A passion as that which kindles you.”

Said she: “I am sorry you see it so; I had hoped you might have let me go, And thus been saved The pain of learning there’s more to know.”

“More? What may that be? Gad, I think You have told me enough to make me blink! Yet if more remain Then own it to me. I will not shrink!”

“Well, it is this. As we could not see That a legal marriage could ever be, To end our pain We united ourselves informally;

“And vowed at a chancel-altar nigh, With book and ring, a lifelong tie; A contract vain To the world, but real to Him on High.”

“And you became as his wife?”—“I did.”— He stood as stiff as a caryatid, And said, “Indeed! . . . No matter. You’re mine, whatever you ye hid!”

“But is it right! When I only gave My hand to you in a sweat to save, Through desperate need (As I thought), my fame, for I was not brave!”

“To save your fame? Your meaning is dim, For nobody knew of your altar-whim?” “I mean—I feared There might be fruit of my tie with him;

“And to cloak it by marriage I’m not the first, Though, maybe, morally most accurst Through your unpeered And strict uprightness. That’s the worst!

“While yesterday his worn contours Convinced me that love like his endures, And that my troth-plight Had been his, in fact, and not truly yours.”

“So, my lady, you raise the veil by degrees . . . I own this last is enough to freeze The warmest wight! Now hear the other side, if you please:

“I did say once, though without intent, That marriage is a plain event Of black and white, Whatever may be its sentiment.

“I’ll act accordingly, none the less That you soiled the contract in time of stress, Thereto induced By the feared results of your wantonness.

“But the thing is over, and no one knows, And it’s nought to the future what you disclose. That you’ll be loosed For such an episode, don’t suppose!

“No: I’ll not free you. And if it appear There was too good ground for your first fear From your amorous tricks, I’ll father the child. Yes, by God, my dear.

“Even should you fly to his arms, I’ll damn Opinion, and fetch you; treat as sham Your mutinous kicks, And whip you home. That’s the sort I am!”

She whitened. “Enough . . . Since you disapprove I’ll yield in silence, and never move Till my last pulse ticks A footstep from the domestic groove.”

“Then swear it,” he said, “and your king uncrown.” He drew her forth in her long white gown, And she knelt and swore. “Good. Now you may go and again lie down

“Since you’ve played these pranks and given no sign, You shall crave this man of yours; pine and pine With sighings sore, ’Till I’ve starved your love for him; nailed you mine.

“I’m a practical man, and want no tears; You’ve made a fool of me, it appears; That you don’t again Is a lesson I’ll teach you in future years.”

She answered not, but lay listlessly With her dark dry eyes on the coppery sea, That now and then Flung its lazy flounce at the neighbouring quay.

From the slow march and muffled drum And crowds distrest, And book and bell, at length I have come To my full rest.

A ten years’ rule beneath the sun Is wound up here, And what I have done, what left undone, Figures out clear.

Yet in the estimate of such It grieves me more That I by some was loved so much Than that I bore,

From others, judgment of that hue Which over-hope Breeds from a theoretic view Of regal scope.

For kingly opportunities Right many have sighed; How best to bear its devilries Those learn who have tried!

I have eaten the fat and drunk the sweet, Lived the life out From the first greeting glad drum-beat To the last shout.

What pleasure earth affords to kings I have enjoyed Through its long vivid pulse-stirrings Even till it cloyed.

What days of drudgery, nights of stress Can cark a throne, Even one maintained in peacefulness, I too have known.

And so, I think, could I step back To life again, I should prefer the average track Of average men,

Since, as with them, what kingship would It cannot do, Nor to first thoughts however good Hold itself true.

Something binds hard the royal hand, As all that be, And it is That has shaped, has planned My acts and me.

At Westminster, hid from the light of day, Many who once had shone as monarchs lay.

Edward the Pious, and two Edwards more, The second Richard, Henrys three or four;

That is to say, those who were called the Third, Fifth, Seventh, and Eighth (the much self-widowered),

And James the Scot, and near him Charles the Second, And, too, the second George could there be reckoned.

Of women, Mary and Queen Elizabeth, And Anne, all silent in a musing death;

And William’s Mary, and Mary, Queen of Scots, And consort-queens whose names oblivion blots;

And several more whose chronicle one sees Adorning ancient royal pedigrees.

—Now, as they drowsed on, freed from Life’s old thrall, And heedless, save of things exceptional,

Said one: “What means this throbbing thudding sound That reaches to us here from overground;

“A sound of chisels, augers, planes, and saws, Infringing all ecclesiastic laws?

“And these tons-weight of timber on us pressed, Unfelt here since we entered into rest?

“Surely, at least to us, being corpses royal, A meet repose is owing by the loyal?”

“—Perhaps a scaffold!” Mary Stuart sighed, “If such still be. It was that way I died.”

“—Ods! Far more like,” said he the many-wived, “That for a wedding ’tis this work’s contrived.

“Ha-ha! I never would bow down to Rimmon, But I had a rare time with those six women!”

“Not all at once?” gasped he who loved confession. “Nay, nay!” said Hal. “That would have been transgression.”

“—They build a catafalque here, black and tall, Perhaps,” mused Richard, “for some funeral?”

And Anne chimed in: “Ah, yes: it maybe so!” “Nay!” squeaked Eliza. “Little you seem to know—

“Clearly ’tis for some crowning here in state, As they crowned us at our long bygone date;

“Though we’d no such a power of carpentry, But let the ancient architecture be;

“If I were up there where the parsons sit, In one of my gold robes, I’d see to it!”

“But you are not,” Charles chuckled. “You are here, And never will know the sun again, my dear!”

“Yea,” whispered those whom no one had addressed; “With slow, sad march, amid a folk distressed, We were brought here, to take our dusty rest.

“And here, alas, in darkness laid below, We’ll wait and listen, and endure the show . . . Clamour dogs kingship; afterwards not so!”

The chimes called midnight, just at interlune, And the daytime talk of the Roman investigations Was checked by silence, save for the husky tune The bubbling waters played near the excavations.

And a warm air came up from underground, And a flutter, as of a filmy shape unsepulchred, That collected itself, and waited, and looked around: Nothing was seen, but utterances could be heard:

Those of the goddess whose shrine was beneath the pile Of the God with the baldachined altar overhead: “And what did you get by raising this nave and aisle Close on the site of the temple I tenanted?

“The notes of your organ have thrilled down out of view To the earth-clogged wrecks of my edifice many a year, Though stately and shining once—ay, long ere you Had set up crucifix and candle here.

“Your priests have trampled the dust of mine without rueing, Despising the joys of man whom I so much loved, Though my springs boil on by your Gothic arcades and pewing, And sculptures crude . . . Would Jove they could be removed!”

“—Repress, O lady proud, your traditional ires; You know not by what a frail thread we equally hang; It is said we are images both—twitched by people’s desires; And that I, like you, fail as a song men yesterday sang!”

And the olden dark hid the cavities late laid bare, And all was suspended and soundless as before, Except for a gossamery noise fading off in the air, And the boiling voice of the waters’ medicinal pour.

Here goes a man of seventy-four, Who sees not what life means for him, And here another in years a score Who reads its very figure and trim.

The one who shall walk to-day with me Is not the youth who gazes far, But the breezy wight who cannot see What Earth’s ingrained conditions are.

“A woman never agreed to it!” said my knowing friend to me. “That one thing she’d refuse to do for Solomon’s mines in fee: No woman ever will make herself look older than she is.” I did not answer; but I thought, “you err there, ancient Quiz.”

It took a rare one, true, to do it; for she was surely rare— As rare a soul at that sweet time of her life as she was fair. And urging motives, too, were strong, for ours was a passionate case, Yea, passionate enough to lead to freaking with that young face.

I have told no one about it, should perhaps make few believe, But I think it over now that life looms dull and years bereave, How blank we stood at our bright wits’ end, two frail barks in distress, How self-regard in her was slain by her large tenderness.

I said: “The only chance for us in a crisis of this kind Is going it thorough!”—“Yes,” she calmly breathed. “Well, I don’t mind.” And we blanched her dark locks ruthlessly: set wrinkles on her brow; Ay—she was a right rare woman then, whatever she may be now.

That night we heard a coach drive up, and questions asked below. “A gent with an elderly wife, sir,” was returned from the bureau. And the wheels went rattling on, and free at last from public ken We washed all off in her chamber and restored her youth again.

How many years ago it was! Some fifty can it be Since that adventure held us, and she played old wife to me? But in time convention won her, as it wins all women at last, And now she is rich and respectable, and time has buried the past.

I rose up as my custom is On the eve of All-Souls’ day, And left my grave for an hour or so To call on those I used to know Before I passed away.

I visited my former Love As she lay by her husband’s side; I asked her if life pleased her, now She was rid of a poet wrung in brow, And crazed with the ills he eyed;

Who used to drag her here and there Wherever his fancies led, And point out pale phantasmal things, And talk of vain vague purposings That she discredited.

She was quite civil, and replied, “Old comrade, is that you? Well, on the whole, I like my life.— I know I swore I’d be no wife, But what was I to do?

“You see, of all men for my sex A poet is the worst; Women are practical, and they Crave the wherewith to pay their way, And slake their social thirst.

“You were a poet—quite the ideal That we all love awhile: But look at this man snoring here— He’s no romantic chanticleer, Yet keeps me in good style.

“He makes no quest into my thoughts, But a poet wants to know What one has felt from earliest days, Why one thought not in other ways, And one’s Loves of long ago.”

Her words benumbed my fond frail ghost; The nightmares neighed from their stalls The vampires screeched, the harpies flew, And under the dim dawn I withdrew To Death’s inviolate halls.

On Monday night I closed my door, And thought you were not as heretofore, And little cared if we met no more.

I seemed on Tuesday night to trace Something beyond mere commonplace In your ideas, and heart, and face.

On Wednesday I did not opine Your life would ever be one with mine, Though if it were we should well combine.

On Thursday noon I liked you well, And fondly felt that we must dwell Not far apart, whatever befell.

On Friday it was with a thrill In gazing towards your distant vill I owned you were my dear one still.

I saw you wholly to my mind On Saturday—even one who shrined All that was best of womankind.

As wing-clipt sea-gull for the sea On Sunday night I longed for thee, Without whom life were waste to me!

Had you wept; had you but neared me with a frail uncertain ray, Dewy as the face of the dawn, in your large and luminous eye, Then would have come back all the joys the tidings had slain that day, And a new beginning, a fresh fair heaven, have smoothed the things awry. But you were less feebly human, and no passionate need for clinging Possessed your soul to overthrow reserve when I came near; Ay, though you suffer as much as I from storms the hours are bringing Upon your heart and mine, I never see you shed a tear.

The deep strong woman is weakest, the weak one is the strong; The weapon of all weapons best for winning, you have not used; Have you never been able, or would you not, through the evil times and long? Has not the gift been given you, or such gift have you refused? When I bade me not absolve you on that evening or the morrow, Why did you not make war on me with those who weep like rain? You felt too much, so gained no balm for all your torrid sorrow, And hence our deep division, and our dark undying pain.

I dream that the dearest I ever knew Has died and been entombed. I am sure it’s a dream that cannot be true, But I am so overgloomed By its persistence, that I would gladly Have quick death take me, Rather than longer think thus sadly; So wake me, wake me!

It has lasted days, but minute and hour I expect to get aroused And find him as usual in the bower Where we so happily housed. Yet stays this nightmare too appalling, And like a web shakes me, And piteously I keep on calling, And no one wakes me!

“What do you see in that time-touched stone, When nothing is there But ashen blankness, although you give it A rigid stare?

“You look not quite as if you saw, But as if you heard, Parting your lips, and treading softly As mouse or bird.

“It is only the base of a pillar, they’ll tell you, That came to us From a far old hill men used to name Areopagus.”

—“I know no art, and I only view A stone from a wall, But I am thinking that stone has echoed The voice of Paul,

“Paul as he stood and preached beside it Facing the crowd, A small gaunt figure with wasted features, Calling out loud

“Words that in all their intimate accents Pattered upon That marble front, and were far reflected, And then were gone.

“I’m a labouring man, and know but little, Or nothing at all; But I can’t help thinking that stone once echoed The voice of Paul.”

“Man, you too, aren’t you, one of these rough followers of the criminal? All hanging hereabout to gather how he’s going to bear Examination in the hall.” She flung disdainful glances on The shabby figure standing at the fire with others there, Who warmed them by its flare.

“No indeed, my skipping maiden: I know nothing of the trial here, Or criminal, if so he be.—I chanced to come this way, And the fire shone out into the dawn, and morning airs are cold now; I, too, was drawn in part by charms I see before me play, That I see not every day.”

“Ha, ha!” then laughed the constables who also stood to warm themselves, The while another maiden scrutinized his features hard, As the blaze threw into contrast every line and knot that wrinkled them, Exclaiming, “Why, last night when he was brought in by the guard, You were with him in the yard!”

“Nay, nay, you teasing wench, I say! You know you speak mistakenly. Cannot a tired pedestrian who has footed it afar Here on his way from northern parts, engrossed in humble marketings, Come in and rest awhile, although judicial doings are Afoot by morning star?”

“O, come, come!” laughed the constables. “Why, man, you speak the dialect He uses in his answers; you can hear him up the stairs. So own it. We sha’n’t hurt ye. There he’s speaking now! His syllables Are those you sound yourself when you are talking unawares, As this pretty girl declares.”

“And you shudder when his chain clinks!” she rejoined. “O yes, I noticed it. And you winced, too, when those cuffs they gave him echoed to us here. They’ll soon be coming down, and you may then have to defend yourself Unless you hold your tongue, or go away and keep you clear When he’s led to judgment near!”

“No! I’ll be damned in hell if I know anything about the man! No single thing about him more than everybody knows! Must not I even warm my hands but I am charged with blasphemies?” . . . —His face convulses as the morning cock that moment crows, And he stops, and turns, and goes.

“More than half my life long Did they weigh me falsely, to my bitter wrong, But they all have shrunk away into the silence Like a lost song.

“And the day has dawned and come For forgiveness, when the past may hold it dumb On the once reverberate words of hatred uttered Half in delirium . . .

“With folded lips and hands They lie and wait what next the Will commands, And doubtless think, if think they can: ‘Let discord Sink with Life’s sands!’

“By these late years their names, Their virtues, their hereditary claims, May be as near defacement at their grave-place As are their fames.”

—Such thoughts bechanced to seize A traveller’s mind—a man of memories— As he set foot within the western city Where had died these

Who in their lifetime deemed Him their chief enemy—one whose brain had schemed To get their dingy greatness deeplier dingied And disesteemed.

So, sojourning in their town, He mused on them and on their once renown, And said, “I’ll seek their resting-place to-morrow Ere I lie down,

“And end, lest I forget, Those ires of many years that I regret, Renew their names, that men may see some liegeness Is left them yet.”

Duly next day he went And sought the church he had known them to frequent, And wandered in the precincts, set on eyeing Where they lay pent,

Till by remembrance led He stood at length beside their slighted bed, Above which, truly, scarce a line or letter Could now be read.

“Thus years obliterate Their graven worth, their chronicle, their date! At once I’ll garnish and revive the record Of their past state,

“That still the sage may say In pensive progress here where they decay, ‘This stone records a luminous line whose talents Told in their day.’”

While speaking thus he turned, For a form shadowed where they lay inurned, And he beheld a stranger in foreign vesture, And tropic-burned.

“Sir, I am right pleased to view That ancestors of mine should interest you, For I have come of purpose here to trace them . . . They are time-worn, true,

“But that’s a fault, at most, Sculptors can cure. On the Pacific coast I have vowed for long that relics of my forbears I’d trace ere lost,

“And hitherward I come, Before this same old Time shall strike me numb, To carry it out.”—“Strange, this is!” said the other; “What mind shall plumb

“Coincident design! Though these my father’s enemies were and mine, I nourished a like purpose—to restore them Each letter and line.”

“Such magnanimity Is now not needed, sir; for you will see That since I am here, a thing like this is, plainly, Best done by me.”

The other bowed, and left, Crestfallen in sentiment, as one bereft Of some fair object he had been moved to cherish, By hands more deft.

And as he slept that night The phantoms of the ensepulchred stood up-right Before him, trembling that he had set him seeking Their charnel-site.

And, as unknowing his ruth, Asked as with terrors founded not on truth Why he should want them. “Ha,” they hollowly hackered, “You come, forsooth,

“By stealth to obliterate Our graven worth, our chronicle, our date, That our descendant may not gild the record Of our past state,

“And that no sage may say In pensive progress near where we decay: ‘This stone records a luminous line whose talents Told in their day.’”

Upon the morrow he went And to that town and churchyard never bent His ageing footsteps till, some twelvemonths onward, An accident

Once more detained him there; And, stirred by hauntings, he must needs repair To where the tomb was. Lo, it stood still wasting In no man’s care.

“The travelled man you met The last time,” said the sexton, “has not yet Appeared again, though wealth he had in plenty. —Can he forget?

“The architect was hired And came here on smart summons as desired, But never the descendant came to tell him What he required.”

And so the tomb remained Untouched, untended, crumbling, weather-stained, And though the one-time foe was fain to right it He still refrained.

“I’ll set about it when I am sure he’ll come no more. Best wait till then.” But so it was that never the stranger entered That city again.

And the well-meaner died While waiting tremulously unsatisfied That no return of the family’s foreign scion Would still betide.

And many years slid by, And active church-restorers cast their eye Upon the ancient garth and hoary building The tomb stood nigh.

And when they had scraped each wall, Pulled out the stately pews, and smartened all, “It will be well,” declared the spruce church-warden, “To overhaul

“And broaden this path where shown; Nothing prevents it but an old tombstone Pertaining to a family forgotten, Of deeds unknown.

“Their names can scarce be read, Depend on’t, all who care for them are dead.” So went the tomb, whose shards were as path-paving Distributed.

Over it and about Men’s footsteps beat, and wind and water-spout, Until the names, aforetime gnawed by weathers, Were quite worn out.

So that no sage can say In pensive progress near where they decay, “This stone records a luminous line whose talents Told in their day.”

Regret not me; Beneath the sunny tree I lie uncaring, slumbering peacefully.

Swift as the light I flew my faery flight; Ecstatically I moved, and feared no night.

I did not know That heydays fade and go, But deemed that what was would be always so.

I skipped at morn Between the yellowing corn, Thinking it good and glorious to be born.

I ran at eves Among the piled-up sheaves, Dreaming, “I grieve not, therefore nothing grieves.”

Now soon will come The apple, pear, and plum And hinds will sing, and autumn insects hum.

Again you will fare To cider-makings rare, And junketings; but I shall not be there.

Yet gaily sing Until the pewter ring Those songs we sang when we went gipsying.

And lightly dance Some triple-timed romance In coupled figures, and forget mischance;

And mourn not me Beneath the yellowing tree; For I shall mind not, slumbering peacefully.

Let us off and search, and find a place Where yours and mine can be natural lives, Where no one comes who dissects and dives And proclaims that ours is a curious case, That its touch of romance can scarcely grace.

You would think it strange at first, but then Everything has been strange in its time. When some one said on a day of the prime He would bow to no brazen god again He doubtless dazed the mass of men.

None will recognize us as a pair whose claims To righteous judgment we care not making; Who have doubted if breath be worth the taking, And have no respect for the current fames Whence the savour has flown while abide the names.

We have found us already shunned, disdained, And for re-acceptance have not once striven; Whatever offence our course has given The brunt thereof we have long sustained. Well, let us away, scorned unexplained.

“No smoke spreads out of this chimney-pot, The people who lived here have left the spot, And others are coming who knew them not.

“If you listen anon, with an ear intent, The voices, you’ll find, will be different From the well-known ones of those who went.”

“Why did they go? Their tones so bland Were quite familiar to our band; The comers we shall not understand.”

“They look for a new life, rich and strange; They do not know that, let them range Wherever they may, they will get no change.

“They will drag their house-gear ever so far In their search for a home no miseries mar; They will find that as they were they are,

“That every hearth has a ghost, alack, And can be but the scene of a bivouac Till they move perforce—no time to pack!”

I have risen again, And awhile survey By my chilly ray Through your window-pane Your upturned face, As you think, “Ah-she Now dreams of me In her distant place!”

I pierce her blind In her far-off home: She fixes a comb, And says in her mind, “I start in an hour; Whom shall I meet? Won’t the men be sweet, And the women sour!”

In his early days he was quite surprised When she told him she was compromised By meetings and lingerings at his whim, And thinking not of herself but him; While she lifted orbs aggrieved and round That scandal should so soon abound, (As she had raised them to nine or ten Of antecedent nice young men) And in remorse he thought with a sigh, How good she is, and how bad am I!— It was years before he understood That she was the wicked one—he the good.

“O he’s suffering—maybe dying—and I not there to aid, And smooth his bed and whisper to him! Can I nohow go? Only the nurse’s brief twelve words thus hurriedly conveyed, As by stealth, to let me know.

“He was the best and brightest!—candour shone upon his brow, And I shall never meet again a soldier such as he, And I loved him ere I knew it, and perhaps he’s sinking now, Far, far removed from me!”

—The yachts ride mute at anchor and the fulling moon is fair, And the giddy folk are strutting up and down the smooth parade, And in her wild distraction she seems not to be aware That she lives no more a maid,

But has vowed and wived herself to one who blessed the ground she trod To and from his scene of ministry, and thought her history known In its last particular to him—aye, almost as to God, And believed her quite his own.

So great her absentmindedness she droops as in a swoon, And a movement of aversion mars her recent spousal grace, And in silence we two sit here in our waning honeymoon At this idle watering-place . . .

What now I see before me is a long lane overhung With lovelessness, and stretching from the present to the grave. And I would I were away from this, with friends I knew when young, Ere a woman held me slave.

“What are you still, still thinking,” He asked in vague surmise, “That stare at the wick unblinking With those great lost luminous eyes?”

“O, I see a poor moth burning In the candle-flame,” said she, “Its wings and legs are turning To a cinder rapidly.”

“Moths fly in from the heather,” He said, “now the days decline.” “I know,” said she. “The weather, I hope, will at last be fine.

“I think,” she added lightly, “I’ll look out at the door. The ring the moon wears nightly May be visible now no more.”

She rose, and, little heeding, Her husband then went on With his attentive reading In the annals of ages gone.

Outside the house a figure Came from the tumulus near, And speedily waxed bigger, And clasped and called her Dear.

“I saw the pale-winged token You sent through the crack,” sighed she. “That moth is burnt and broken With which you lured out me.

“And were I as the moth is It might be better far For one whose marriage troth is Shattered as potsherds are!”

Then grinned the Ancient Briton From the tumulus treed with pine: “So, hearts are thwartly smitten In these days as in mine!”

Through snowy woods and shady We went to play a tune To the lonely manor-lady By the light of the Christmas moon.

We violed till, upward glancing To where a mirror leaned, We saw her airily dancing, Deeming her movements screened;

Dancing alone in the room there, Thin-draped in her robe of night; Her postures, glassed in the gloom there, Were a strange phantasmal sight.

She had learnt (we heard when homing) That her roving spouse was dead; Why she had danced in the gloaming We thought, but never said.

Just at the corner of the wall We met—yes, he and I— Who had not faced in camp or hall Since we bade home good-bye, And what once happened came back—all— Out of those years gone by.

And that strange woman whom we knew And loved—long dead and gone, Whose poor half-perished residue, Tombless and trod, lay yon! But at this moment to our view Rose like a phantom wan.

And in his fixed face I could see, Lit by a lurid shine, The drama re-enact which she Had dyed incarnadine For us, and more. And doubtless he Beheld it too in mine.

A start, as at one slightly known, And with an indifferent air We passed, without a sign being shown That, as it real were, A memory-acted scene had thrown Its tragic shadow there.

I opened my shutter at sunrise, And looked at the hill hard by, And I heartily grieved for the comrade Who wandered up there to die.

I let in the morn on the morrow, And failed not to think of him then, As he trod up that rise in the twilight, And never came down again.

I undid the shutter a week thence, But not until after I’d turned Did I call back his last departure By the upland there discerned.

Uncovering the casement long later, I bent to my toil till the gray, When I said to myself, “Ah—what ails me, To forget him all the day!”

As daily I flung back the shutter In the same blank bald routine, He scarcely once rose to remembrance Through a month of my facing the scene.

And ah, seldom now do I ponder At the window as heretofore On the long valued one who died yonder, And wastes by the sycamore.

A plain tilt-bonnet on her head She took the path across the leaze. —Her spouse the vicar, gardening, said, “Too dowdy that, for coquetries, So I can hoe at ease.”

But when she had passed into the heath, And gained the wood beyond the flat, She raised her skirts, and from beneath Unpinned and drew as from a sheath An ostrich-feathered hat.

And where the hat had hung she now Concealed and pinned the dowdy hood, And set the hat upon her brow, And thus emerging from the wood Tripped on in jaunty mood.

The sun was low and crimson-faced As two came that way from the town, And plunged into the wood untraced . . . When separately therefrom they paced The sun had quite gone down.

The hat and feather disappeared, The dowdy hood again was donned, And in the gloom the fair one neared Her home and husband dour, who conned Calmly his blue-eyed blonde.

“To-day,” he said, “you have shown good sense, A dress so modest and so meek Should always deck your goings hence Alone.” And as a recompense He kissed her on the cheek.

By Rome’s dim relics there walks a man, Eyes bent; and he carries a basket and spade; I guess what impels him to scrape and scan; Yea, his dreams of that Empire long decayed.

“Vast was Rome,” he must muse, “in the world’s regard, Vast it looms there still, vast it ever will be;” And he stoops as to dig and unmine some shard Left by those who are held in such memory.

But no; in his basket, see, he has brought A little white furred thing, stiff of limb, Whose life never won from the world a thought; It is this, and not Rome, that is moving him.

And to make it a grave he has come to the spot, And he delves in the ancient dead’s long home; Their fames, their achievements, the man knows not; The furred thing is all to him—nothing Rome!

“Here say you that Cæsar’s warriors lie?— But my little white cat was my only friend! Could she but live, might the record die Of Cæsar, his legions, his aims, his end!”

Well, Rome’s long rule here is oft and again A theme for the sages of history, And the small furred life was worth no one’s pen; Yet its mourner’s mood has a charm for me.

“See, here’s the workbox, little wife, That I made of polished oak.” He was a joiner, of village life; She came of borough folk.

He holds the present up to her As with a smile she nears And answers to the profferer, “’Twill last all my sewing years!”

“I warrant it will. And longer too. ’Tis a scantling that I got Off poor John Wayward’s coffin, who Died of they knew not what.

“The shingled pattern that seems to cease Against your box’s rim Continues right on in the piece That’s underground with him.

“And while I worked it made me think Of timber’s varied doom; One inch where people eat and drink, The next inch in a tomb.

“But why do you look so white, my dear, And turn aside your face? You knew not that good lad, I fear, Though he came from your native place?”

“How could I know that good young man, Though he came from my native town, When he must have left there earlier than I was a woman grown?”

“Ah no. I should have understood! It shocked you that I gave To you one end of a piece of wood Whose other is in a grave?”

“Don’t, dear, despise my intellect, Mere accidental things Of that sort never have effect On my imaginings.”

Yet still her lips were limp and wan, Her face still held aside, As if she had known not only John, But known of what he died.