GHOSTS AT CHALDON HERRING

Hush, my dear, hush! Who are these that pass Up Shady Lane? Their feet don’t brush Any dew from the grass And they are silent, too. Hand in kind hand Go some, and closelier linked Another twain; And others stand As a-drouse, indistinct Beneath the darkening boughs. Ghosts, ghosts are these!— Long-dead lasses, each Beside her swain— Between the trees Pacing slow, without speech, As they were wont to go. Strange, some should choose Thus their mouldered dears To meet again, Whom long misuse Of marriage, taunts and tears, And the slow grudge of age Warped and estranged; Sure, this place above All others fain They’d leave unranged, Lest a gaunt dead love Them, like a dead child, haunt. Ah, but not so These who in true-love-knot Their arms enchain. Dead long ago Are they all, and forgot The life that held them thrall. Nought now exists Save fancies nursed apart. And of all this train Scarce one that trysts With a seeming sweetheart But walks beside a dream.