Selections from THE DAFFODIL FIELDS.

Between the barren pasture and the wood There is a patch of poultry-stricken grass, Where, in old time, Ryemeadows’ Farmhouse stood, And human fate brought tragic things to pass. A spring comes bubbling up there, cold as glass, It bubbles down, crusting the leaves with lime, Babbling the self-same song that it has sung through time. Ducks gobble at the selvage of the brook, But still it slips away, the cold hill-spring, Past the Ryemeadows’ lonely woodland nook Where many a stubble gray-goose preens her wing, On, by the woodland side. You hear it sing Past the lone copse where poachers set their wires, Past the green hill once grim with sacrificial fires. Another water joins it; then it turns, Runs through the Ponton Wood, still turning west, Past foxgloves, Canterbury bells, and ferns, And many a blackbird’s, many a thrush’s nest; The cattle tread it there; then, with a zest It sparkles out, babbling its pretty chatter Through Foxholes Farm, where it gives white-faced cattle water. Under the road it runs, and now it slips Past the great ploughland, babbling, drop and linn, To the moss’d stumps of elm trees which it lips, And blackberry-bramble-trails where eddies spin. Then, on its left, some short-grassed fields begin, Red-clayed and pleasant, which the young spring fills With the never-quiet joy of dancing daffodils. There are three fields where daffodils are found; The grass is dotted blue-gray with their leaves; Their nodding beauty shakes along the ground Up to a fir-clump shutting out the eaves Of an old farm where always the wind grieves High in the fir boughs, moaning; people call This farm The Roughs, but some call it the Poor Maid’s Hall. There, when the first green shoots of tender corn Show on the plough; when the first drift of white Stars the black branches of the spiky thorn, And afternoons are warm and evenings light, The shivering daffodils do take delight, Shaking beside the brook, and grass comes green, And blue dog-violets come and glistening celandine. And there the pickers come, picking for town Those dancing daffodils; all day they pick; Hard-featured women, weather-beaten brown, Or swarthy-red, the colour of old brick. At noon they break their meats under the rick. The smoke of all three farms lifts blue in air As though man’s passionate mind had never suffered there. And sometimes as they rest an old man comes, Shepherd or carter, to the hedgerow-side, And looks upon their gangrel tribe, and hums, And thinks all gone to wreck since master died; And sighs over a passionate harvest-tide Which Death’s red sickle reaped under those hills, There, in the quiet fields among the daffodils.

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.

Soon he was at the Foxholes, at the place Whither, from over sea, his heart had turned Often at evening-ends in times of grace. But little outward change his eye discerned; A red rose at her bedroom window burned, Just as before. Even as of old the wasps Poised at the yellow plums; the gate creaked on its hasps And the white fantails sidled on the roof Just as before; their pink feet, even as of old, Printed the frosty morning’s rime with proof. Still the zew-tallat’s thatch was green with mould; The apples on the withered boughs were gold. Men and the times were changed: “And I,” said he, “Will go and not return, since she is not for me. “I’ll go, for it would be a scurvy thing To spoil her marriage, and besides, she cares For that half-priest she married with the ring. Small joy for me in seeing how she wears, Or seeing what he takes and what she shares. That beauty and those ways: she had such ways, There in the daffodils in those old April days. So with an impulse of good will he turned, Leaving that place of daffodils; the road Was paven sharp with memories which burned; He trod them strongly under as he strode. At the Green Turning’s forge the furnace glowed; Red dithying sparks flew from the crumpled soft Fold from the fire’s heart; down clanged the hammers oft. That was a bitter place to pass, for there Mary and he had often, often stayed To watch the horseshoe growing in the glare. It was a tryst in childhood when they strayed. There was a stile beside the forge; he laid His elbows on it, leaning, looking down. The river-valley stretched with great trees turning brown. Infinite, too, because it reached the sky, And distant spires arose and distant smoke; The whiteness on the blue went stilly by; Only the clinking forge the stillness broke. Ryemeadows brook was there; The Roughs, the oak Where the White Woman walked; the black firs showed Around the Occleve homestead, Mary’s new abode. A long, long time he gazed at that fair place, So well remembered from of old; he sighed. “I will go down and look upon her face, See her again, whatever may betide. Hell is my future; I shall soon have died, But I will take to hell one memory more; She shall not see nor know; I shall be gone before; “Before they turn the dogs upon me, even. I do not mean to speak; but only see. Even the devil gets a peep at heaven; One peep at her shall come to hell with me; One peep at her, no matter what may be.” He crossed the stile and hurried down the slope. Remembered trees and hedges gave a zest to hope. * * * * A low brick wall with privet shrubs beyond Ringed in The Roughs upon the side he neared; Eastward some bramble bushes cloaked the pond; Westward was barley-stubble not yet cleared. He thrust aside the privet boughs and peered. The drooping fir trees let their darkness trail Black like a pirate’s masts bound under easy sail. The garden with its autumn flowers was there; Few that his wayward memory linked with her. Summer had burnt the summer flowers bare, But honey-hunting bees still made a stir. Sprigs were still bluish on the lavender, And bluish daisies budded, bright flies poised; The wren upon the tree-stump carolled cheery-voiced. He could not see her there. Windows were wide, Late wasps were cruising, and the curtains shook. Smoke, like the house’s breathing, floated, sighed; Among the trembling firs strange ways it took. But still no Mary’s presence blessed his look; The house was still as if deserted, hushed. Faint fragrance hung about it as if herbs were crushed. Fragrance that gave his memory’s guard a hint Of times long past, of reapers in the corn, Bruising with heavy boots the stalks of mint, When first the berry reddens on the thorn. Memories of her that fragrance brought. Forlorn That vigil of the watching outcast grew; He crept towards the kitchen, sheltered by a yew. The windows of the kitchen opened wide. Again the fragrance came; a woman spoke; Old Mrs. Occleve talked to one inside. A smell of cooking filled a gust of smoke. Then fragrance once again, for herbs were broke; Pourri was being made; the listener heard Things lifted and laid down, bruised into sweetness, stirred. While an old woman made remarks to one Who was not the beloved: Michael learned That Roger’s wife at Upton had a son, And that the red geraniums should be turned; A hen was missing, and a rick was burned; Our Lord commanded patience; here it broke; The window closed, it made the kitchen chimney smoke. Steps clacked on flagstones to the outer door; A dairymaid, whom he remembered well, Lined, now, with age, and grayer than before, Rang a cracked cow-bell for the dinner-bell. He saw the dining-room; he could not tell If Mary were within: inly he knew That she was coming now, that she would be in blue. Blue with a silver locket at the throat, And that she would be there, within there, near, With the little blushes that he knew by rote, And the gray eyes so steadfast and so dear, The voice, pure like the nature, true and clear, Speaking to her belov’d within the room. The gate clicked, Lion came: the outcast hugged the gloom, Watching intently from below the boughs, While Lion cleared his riding-boots of clay, Eyed the high clouds and went within the house. His eyes looked troubled, and his hair looked gray. Dinner began within with much to say. Old Occleve roared aloud at his own joke. Mary, it seemed, was gone; the loved voice never spoke. Nor could her lover see her from the yew; She was not there at table; she was ill, Ill, or away perhaps—he wished he knew. Away, perhaps, for Occleve bellowed still. “If sick,” he thought, “the maid or Lion will Take food to her.” He watched; the dinner ended. The staircase was not used; none climbed it, none descended. “Not here,” he thought; but wishing to be sure, He waited till the Occleves went to field, Then followed, round the house, another lure, Using the well-known privet as his shield. He meant to run a risk; his heart was steeled. He knew of old which bedroom would be hers; He crouched upon the north front in among the firs. The house stared at him with its red-brick blank, Its vacant window-eyes; its open door, With old wrought bridle ring-hooks at each flank, Swayed on a creaking hinge as the wind bore. Nothing had changed; the house was as before, The dull red brick, the windows sealed or wide: “I will go in,” he said. He rose and stepped inside. None could have seen him coming; all was still; He listened in the doorway for a sign. Above, a rafter creaked, a stir, a thrill Moved, till the frames clacked on the picture line. “Old Mother Occleve sleeps, the servants dine,” He muttered, listening. “Hush.” A silence brooded. Far off the kitchen dinner clattered; he intruded. Still, to his right, the best room door was locked. Another door was at his left; he stayed. Within, a stately timepiece ticked and tocked To one who slumbered breathing deep; it made An image of Time’s going and man’s trade. He looked: Old Mother Occleve lay asleep, Hands crossed upon her knitting, rosy, breathing deep. He tiptoed up the stairs which creaked and cracked. The landing creaked; the shut doors, painted gray, Loomed, as if shutting in some dreadful act. The nodding frames seemed ready to betray. The east room had been closed in Michael’s day, Being the best; but now he guessed it hers; The fields of daffodils lay next it, past the firs. Just as he reached the landing, Lion cried, Somewhere below, “I’ll get it.” Lion’s feet Struck on the flagstones with a hasty stride, “He’s coming up,” thought Michael, “we shall meet,” He snatched the nearest door for his retreat, Opened with thieves’ swift silence, dared not close, But stood within, behind it. Lion’s footsteps rose, Running two steps at once, while Michael stood, Not breathing, only knowing that the room Was someone’s bedroom smelling of old wood, Hung with engravings of the day of doom. The footsteps stopped; and Lion called, to whom? A gentle question, tapping at a door, And Michael shifted feet, and creakings took the floor. The footsteps recommenced, a door-catch clacked; Within an eastern room the footsteps passed. Drawers were pulled loudly open and ransacked, Chattels were thrust aside and overcast. What could the thing be that he sought? At last His voice said, “Here it is.” The wormèd floor Creaked with returning footsteps down the corridor. The footsteps came as though the walker read, Or added rows of figures by the way; There was much hesitation in the tread; Lion seemed pondering which, to go or stay; Then, seeing the door, which covered Michael, sway, He swiftly crossed and shut it. “Always one For order,” Michael muttered; “Now be swift, my son.” The action seemed to break the walker’s mood; The footsteps passed downstairs, along the hall, Out at the door and off towards the wood. “Gone,” Michael muttered. “Now to hazard all.” Outside, the frames still nodded on the wall. Michael stepped swiftly up the floor to try The door where Lion tapped and waited for reply. It was the eastmost of the rooms which look Over the fields of daffodils; the bound Scanned from its windows is Ryemeadows brook, Banked by gnarled apple trees and rising ground. Most gently Michael tapped; he heard no sound, Only the blind-pull tapping with the wind; The kitchen-door was opened; kitchen-clatter dinned. A woman walked along the hall below, Humming; a maid, he judged; the footsteps died, Listening intently still, he heard them go, Then swiftly turned the knob and went inside. The blind-pull at the window volleyed wide; The curtains streamed out like a waterfall; The pictures of the fox-hunt clacked along the wall. No one was there; no one; the room was hers. A book of praise lay open on the bed; The clothes-press smelt of many lavenders, Her spirit stamped the room; herself was fled. Here she found peace of soul like daily bread, Here, with her lover Lion; Michael gazed; He would have been the sharer had he not been crazed. He took the love-gift handkerchief again; He laid it on her table, near the glass, So opened that the broidered name was plain; “Plain,” he exclaimed, “she cannot let it pass. It stands and speaks for me as bold as brass. My answer, my heart’s cry, to tell her this, That she is still my darling; all she was she is. “So she will know at least that she was wrong, That underneath the blindness I was true. Fate is the strongest thing, though men are strong; Out from beyond life I was sealed to you. But my blind ways destroyed the cords that drew; And now, the evil done, I know my need; Fate has his way with those who mar what is decreed. “And now, good-bye.” He closed the door behind him, Then stept, with firm swift footstep down the stair, Meaning to go where she would never find him; He would go down through darkness to despair. Out at the door he stept; the autumn air Came fresh upon his face; none saw him go. “Good-bye, my love,” he muttered; “it is better so.” Soon he was on the high road, out of sight Of valley and farm; soon he could see no more The oast-house pointing finger take the light As tumbling pigeons glittered over; nor Could he behold the wind-vane gilded o’er, Swinging above the church; the road swung round. “Now, the last look,” he cried: he saw that holy ground. “Good-bye,” he cried; he could behold it all, Spread out as in a picture; but so clear That the gold apple stood out from the wall; Like a red jewel stood the grazing steer. Precise, intensely coloured, all brought near, As in a vision, lay that holy ground. “Mary is there,” he moaned, “and I am outward bound. “I never saw this place so beautiful, Never like this. I never saw it glow. Spirit is on this place; it fills it full. So let the die be cast; I will not go. But I will see her face to face and know From her own lips what thoughts she has of me; And if disaster come: right; let disaster be.” Back, by another way, he turned. The sun Fired the yew-tops in the Roman woods. Lights in the valley twinkled one by one, The starlings whirled in dropping multitudes. Dusk fingered into one earth’s many moods, Back to The Roughs he walked; he neared the brook; A lamp burned in the farm; he saw; his fingers shook. He had to cross the brook, to cross a field Where daffodils were thick when years were young. Then, were she there, his fortunes should be sealed. Down the mud trackway to the brook he swung; Then while the passion trembled on his tongue, Dim, by the dim bridge-stile, he seemed to see A figure standing mute; a woman—it was she. She stood quite stilly, waiting for him there. She did not seem surprised; the meeting seemed Planned from all time by powers in the air To change their human fates; he even deemed That in another life this thing had gleamed, This meeting by the bridge. He said, “It’s you.” “Yes, I,” she said, “who else? You must have known; you knew “That I should come here to the brook to see, After your message.” “You were out,” he said. “Gone, and I did not know where you could be. Where were you, Mary, when the thing was laid?” “Old Mrs. Cale is dying, and I stayed Longer than usual, while I read the Word. You could have hardly gone.” She paused, her bosom stirred. “Mary, I sinned,” he said. “Not that, dear, no,” She said; “but, oh, you were unkind, unkind, Never to write a word and leave me so, But out of sight with you is out of mind.” “Mary, I sinned,” he said, “and I was blind. Oh, my beloved, are you Lion’s wife?” “Belov’d sounds strange,” she answered, “in my present life. “But it is sweet to hear it, all the same. It is a language little heard by me Alone, in that man’s keeping, with my shame. I never thought such miseries could be. I was so happy in you, Michael. He Came when I felt you changed from what I thought you. Even now it is not love, but jealousy that brought you.” “That is untrue,” he said. “I am in hell. You are my heart’s beloved, Mary, you. By God, I know your beauty now too well. We are each other’s, flesh and soul, we two.” “That was sweet knowledge once,” she said; “we knew That truth of old. Now, in a strange man’s bed, I read it in my soul, and find it written red.” “Is he a brute?” he asked. “No,” she replied. “I did not understand what it would mean. And now that you are back, would I had died; Died, and the misery of it not have been. Lion would not be wrecked, nor I unclean. I was a proud one once, and now I’m tame; Oh, Michael, say some word to take away my shame.” She sobbed; his arms went round her; the night heard Intense fierce whispering passing, soul to soul, Love running hot on many a murmured word, Love’s passionate giving into new control. Their present misery did but blow the coal, Did but entangle deeper their two wills, While the brown brook ran on by buried daffodils.

Lion lay still while the cold tides of death Came brimming up his channels. With one hand He groped to know if Michael still drew breath. His little hour was running out its sand. Then, in a mist, he saw his Mary stand Above. He cried aloud, “He was my brother. I was his comrade sworn, and we have killed each other. “Oh desolate grief, beloved, and through me. We wise who try to change. Oh, you wild birds, Help my unhappy spirit to the sea. The golden bowl is scattered into sherds.” And Mary knelt and murmured passionate words To that poor body on the dabbled flowers: “Oh, beauty, oh, sweet soul, oh, little love of ours— “Michael, my own heart’s darling, speak; it’s me, Mary. You know my voice. I’m here, dear, here. Oh, little golden-haired one, listen. See, It’s Mary, Michael. Speak to Mary, dear. Oh, Michael, little love, he cannot hear; And you have killed him, Lion; he is dead. My little friend, my love, my Michael, golden head. “We had such fun together, such sweet fun, My love and I, my merry love and I. Oh, love, you shone upon me like the sun. Oh, Michael, say some little last good-bye.” Then in a calm voice Lion called, “I die. Go home and tell my people. Mary. Hear. Though I have wrought this ruin, I have loved you, dear. “Better than he; not better, dear, as well. If you could kiss me, dearest, at this last. We have made bloody doorways from our hell, Cutting our tangle. Now, the murder past, We are but pitiful poor souls; and fast The darkness and the cold come. Kiss me, sweet; I loved you all my life; but some lives never meet “Though they go wandering side by side through Time. Kiss me,” he cried. She bent, she kissed his brow. “Oh, friend,” she said, “you’re lying in the slime.” “Three blind ones, dear,” he murmured, “in the slough, Caught fast for death; but never mind that now; Go home and tell my people. I am dying, Dying dear, dying now.” He died; she left him lying, And kissed her dead one’s head and crossed the field. “They have been killed,” she called, in a great crying. “Killed, and our spirits’ eyes are all unsealed The blood is scattered on the flowers drying.” It was the hush of dusk, and owls were flying; They hooted as the Occleves ran to bring That sorry harvest home from Death’s red harvesting. They laid the bodies on the bed together. And “You were beautiful,” she said, “and you Were my own darling in the April weather. You knew my very soul, you knew, you knew. Oh, my sweet, piteous love, I was not true. Fetch me fair water and the flowers of spring; My love is dead, and I must deck his burying.” They left her with her dead; they could not choose But grant the spirit burning in her face Rights that their pity urged them to refuse. They did her sorrow and the dead a grace. All night they heard her passing footsteps trace About the flooring in the room of death. They heard her singing there, lowly, with gentle breath, Yet when the darkness passed they tried the door, And burst it, fearing; there the singer lay Drooped at her lover’s bedside on the floor, Singing her passionate last of life away. White flowers had fallen from a blackthorn spray Over her loosened hair. Pale flowers of spring Filled the white room of death; they everything. Primroses, daffodils, and cuckoo-flowers. She bowed her singing head on Michael’s breast. “Oh, it was sweet,” she cried, “that love of ours. You were the dearest, sweet; I loved you best. Beloved, my beloved, let me rest By you forever, little Michael mine. Now the great hour is stricken, and the bread and wine “Broken and spilt; and now the homing birds Draw to a covert, Michael; I to you. Bury us two together,” came her words. The dropping petals fell about the two. Her heart had broken; she was dead. They drew Her gentle head aside; they found it pressed Against the broidered ’kerchief spread on Michael’s breast, The one that bore her name in Michael’s hair, Given so long before. They let her lie While the dim moon died out upon the air, And happy sunlight coloured all the sky. The lack cock crowed for morning; carts went by; Smoke rose from cottage chimneys; from the byre The yokes went clanking by, to dairy, through the mire. In the day’s noise the water’s noise was stilled, But still it slipped along, the cold hill-spring, Dropping from leafy hollows, which it filled, On to the pebbly shelves which made it sing; Glints glittered on it from the ’fisher’s wing; It saw the moorhen nesting; then it stayed In a great space of reeds where merry otters played. Slowly it loitered past the shivering reeds Into a mightier water; thence its course Becomes a pasture where the salmon feeds, Wherein no bubble tells its humble source; But the great waves go rolling, and the horse Snorts at the bursting waves and will not drink, And the great ships go outward, bubbling to the brink, Outward, with men upon them, stretched in line, Handling the halliards to the ocean’s gates, Where flicking windflaws fill the air with brine, And all the ocean opens. Then the mates Cry, and the sunburnt crew no longer waits, But sings triumphant and the topsail fills To this old tale of woe among the daffodils.