Kitabı oku: «Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses», sayfa 5

DURING WIND AND RAIN

 
   They sing their dearest songs —
   He, she, all of them – yea,
   Treble and tenor and bass,
      And one to play;
   With the candles mooning each face.
      Ah, no; the years O!
How the sick leaves reel down in throngs!
 
 
   They clear the creeping moss —
   Elders and juniors – aye,
   Making the pathways neat
      And the garden gay;
   And they build a shady seat.
      Ah, no; the years, the years;
See, the white storm-birds wing across!
 
 
   They are blithely breakfasting all —
   Men and maidens – yea,
   Under the summer tree,
      With a glimpse of the bay,
   While pet fowl come to the knee.
      Ah, no; the years O!
And the rotten rose is ript from the wall.
 
 
   They change to a high new house,
   He, she, all of them – aye,
   Clocks and carpets and chairs
      On the lawn all day,
   And brightest things that are theirs.
      Ah, no; the years, the years;
Down their carved names the rain-drop ploughs.
 

HE PREFERS HER EARTHLY

 
This after-sunset is a sight for seeing,
Cliff-heads of craggy cloud surrounding it.
   – And dwell you in that glory-show?
You may; for there are strange strange things in being,
      Stranger than I know.
 
 
Yet if that chasm of splendour claim your presence
Which glows between the ash cloud and the dun,
   How changed must be your mortal mould!
Changed to a firmament-riding earthless essence
      From what you were of old:
 
 
All too unlike the fond and fragile creature
Then known to me.. Well, shall I say it plain?
   I would not have you thus and there,
But still would grieve on, missing you, still feature
      You as the one you were.
 

THE DOLLS

 
“Whenever you dress me dolls, mammy,
   Why do you dress them so,
And make them gallant soldiers,
   When never a one I know;
And not as gentle ladies
   With frills and frocks and curls,
As people dress the dollies
   Of other little girls?”
 
 
Ah – why did she not answer: —
   “Because your mammy’s heed
Is always gallant soldiers,
   As well may be, indeed.
One of them was your daddy,
   His name I must not tell;
He’s not the dad who lives here,
   But one I love too well.”
 

MOLLY GONE

 
   No more summer for Molly and me;
      There is snow on the tree,
   And the blackbirds plump large as the rooks are, almost,
      And the water is hard
Where they used to dip bills at the dawn ere her figure was lost
      To these coasts, now my prison close-barred.
 
 
   No more planting by Molly and me
      Where the beds used to be
   Of sweet-william; no training the clambering rose
      By the framework of fir
Now bowering the pathway, whereon it swings gaily and blows
      As if calling commendment from her.
 
 
   No more jauntings by Molly and me
      To the town by the sea,
   Or along over Whitesheet to Wynyard’s green Gap,
      Catching Montacute Crest
To the right against Sedgmoor, and Corton-Hill’s far-distant cap,
      And Pilsdon and Lewsdon to west.
 
 
   No more singing by Molly to me
      In the evenings when she
   Was in mood and in voice, and the candles were lit,
      And past the porch-quoin
The rays would spring out on the laurels; and dumbledores hit
      On the pane, as if wishing to join.
 
 
   Where, then, is Molly, who’s no more with me?
      – As I stand on this lea,
   Thinking thus, there’s a many-flamed star in the air,
      That tosses a sign
That her glance is regarding its face from her home, so that there
      Her eyes may have meetings with mine.
 

A BACKWARD SPRING

 
The trees are afraid to put forth buds,
And there is timidity in the grass;
The plots lie gray where gouged by spuds,
   And whether next week will pass
Free of sly sour winds is the fret of each bush
   Of barberry waiting to bloom.
 
 
Yet the snowdrop’s face betrays no gloom,
And the primrose pants in its heedless push,
Though the myrtle asks if it’s worth the fight
   This year with frost and rime
   To venture one more time
On delicate leaves and buttons of white
From the selfsame bough as at last year’s prime,
And never to ruminate on or remember
What happened to it in mid-December.
 

April 1917.

LOOKING ACROSS

I

 
It is dark in the sky,
And silence is where
Our laughs rang high;
And recall do I
That One is out there.
 

II

 
The dawn is not nigh,
And the trees are bare,
And the waterways sigh
That a year has drawn by,
And Two are out there.
 

III

 
The wind drops to die
Like the phantom of Care
Too frail for a cry,
And heart brings to eye
That Three are out there.
 

IV

 
This Life runs dry
That once ran rare
And rosy in dye,
And fleet the days fly,
And Four are out there.
 

V

 
Tired, tired am I
Of this earthly air,
And my wraith asks: Why,
Since these calm lie,
Are not Five out there?
 

December 1915.

AT A SEASIDE TOWN IN 1869
(Young Lover’s Reverie)

 
I went and stood outside myself,
   Spelled the dark sky
   And ship-lights nigh,
And grumbling winds that passed thereby.
 
 
Then next inside myself I looked,
   And there, above
   All, shone my Love,
That nothing matched the image of.
 
 
Beyond myself again I ranged;
   And saw the free
   Life by the sea,
And folk indifferent to me.
 
 
O ’twas a charm to draw within
   Thereafter, where
   But she was; care
For one thing only, her hid there!
 
 
But so it chanced, without myself
   I had to look,
   And then I took
More heed of what I had long forsook:
 
 
The boats, the sands, the esplanade,
   The laughing crowd;
   Light-hearted, loud
Greetings from some not ill-endowed;
 
 
The evening sunlit cliffs, the talk,
   Hailings and halts,
   The keen sea-salts,
The band, the Morgenblätter Waltz.
 
 
Still, when at night I drew inside
   Forward she came,
   Sad, but the same
As when I first had known her name.
 
 
Then rose a time when, as by force,
   Outwardly wooed
   By contacts crude,
Her image in abeyance stood.
 
 
At last I said: This outside life
   Shall not endure;
   I’ll seek the pure
Thought-world, and bask in her allure.
 
 
Myself again I crept within,
   Scanned with keen care
   The temple where
She’d shone, but could not find her there.
 
 
I sought and sought.  But O her soul
   Has not since thrown
   Upon my own
One beam!  Yea, she is gone, is gone.
 

From an old note.

THE GLIMPSE

 
She sped through the door
And, following in haste,
And stirred to the core,
I entered hot-faced;
But I could not find her,
No sign was behind her.
“Where is she?” I said:
– “Who?” they asked that sat there;
“Not a soul’s come in sight.”
– “A maid with red hair.”
– “Ah.”  They paled.  “She is dead.
People see her at night,
But you are the first
On whom she has burst
In the keen common light.”
 
 
It was ages ago,
When I was quite strong:
I have waited since, – O,
I have waited so long!
– Yea, I set me to own
The house, where now lone
I dwell in void rooms
Booming hollow as tombs!
But I never come near her,
Though nightly I hear her.
And my cheek has grown thin
And my hair has grown gray
With this waiting therein;
But she still keeps away!
 

THE PEDESTRIAN
AN INCIDENT OF 1883

 
“Sir, will you let me give you a ride?
Nox Venit, and the heath is wide.”
– My phaeton-lantern shone on one
   Young, fair, even fresh,
   But burdened with flesh:
A leathern satchel at his side,
His breathings short, his coat undone.
 
 
’Twas as if his corpulent figure slopped
With the shake of his walking when he stopped,
And, though the night’s pinch grew acute,
   He wore but a thin
   Wind-thridded suit,
Yet well-shaped shoes for walking in,
Artistic beaver, cane gold-topped.
 
 
“Alas, my friend,” he said with a smile,
“I am daily bound to foot ten mile —
Wet, dry, or dark – before I rest.
   Six months to live
   My doctors give
Me as my prospect here, at best,
Unless I vamp my sturdiest!”
 
 
His voice was that of a man refined,
A man, one well could feel, of mind,
Quite winning in its musical ease;
   But in mould maligned
   By some disease;
And I asked again.  But he shook his head;
Then, as if more were due, he said: —
 
 
“A student was I – of Schopenhauer,
Kant, Hegel, – and the fountained bower
Of the Muses, too, knew my regard:
   But ah – I fear me
   The grave gapes near me!.
Would I could this gross sheath discard,
And rise an ethereal shape, unmarred!”
 
 
How I remember him! – his short breath,
His aspect, marked for early death,
As he dropped into the night for ever;
   One caught in his prime
   Of high endeavour;
From all philosophies soon to sever
Through an unconscienced trick of Time!
 

“WHO’S IN THE NEXT ROOM?”

 
   “Who’s in the next room? – who?
      I seemed to see
Somebody in the dawning passing through,
      Unknown to me.”
“Nay: you saw nought.  He passed invisibly.”
 
 
   “Who’s in the next room? – who?
      I seem to hear
Somebody muttering firm in a language new
      That chills the ear.”
“No: you catch not his tongue who has entered there.”
 
 
   “Who’s in the next room? – who?
      I seem to feel
His breath like a clammy draught, as if it drew
      From the Polar Wheel.”
“No: none who breathes at all does the door conceal.”
 
 
   “Who’s in the next room? – who?
      A figure wan
With a message to one in there of something due?
      Shall I know him anon?”
“Yea he; and he brought such; and you’ll know him anon.”
 

AT A COUNTRY FAIR

 
At a bygone Western country fair
I saw a giant led by a dwarf
With a red string like a long thin scarf;
How much he was the stronger there
   The giant seemed unaware.
 
 
And then I saw that the giant was blind,
And the dwarf a shrewd-eyed little thing;
The giant, mild, timid, obeyed the string
As if he had no independent mind,
   Or will of any kind.
 
 
Wherever the dwarf decided to go
At his heels the other trotted meekly,
(Perhaps – I know not – reproaching weakly)
Like one Fate bade that it must be so,
   Whether he wished or no.
 
 
Various sights in various climes
I have seen, and more I may see yet,
But that sight never shall I forget,
And have thought it the sorriest of pantomimes,
   If once, a hundred times!
 

THE MEMORIAL BRASS: 186–

 
   “Why do you weep there, O sweet lady,
   Why do you weep before that brass? —
(I’m a mere student sketching the mediaeval)
   Is some late death lined there, alas? —
Your father’s?.. Well, all pay the debt that paid he!”
 
 
   “Young man, O must I tell! – My husband’s!  And under
   His name I set mine, and my death! —
Its date left vacant till my heirs should fill it,
   Stating me faithful till my last breath.”
– “Madam, that you are a widow wakes my wonder!”
 
 
   “O wait!  For last month I – remarried!
   And now I fear ’twas a deed amiss.
We’ve just come home.  And I am sick and saddened
   At what the new one will say to this;
And will he think – think that I should have tarried?
 
 
   “I may add, surely, – with no wish to harm him —
   That he’s a temper – yes, I fear!
And when he comes to church next Sunday morning,
   And sees that written.. O dear, O dear!”
– “Madam, I swear your beauty will disarm him!”
 

HER LOVE-BIRDS

 
When I looked up at my love-birds
   That Sunday afternoon,
   There was in their tiny tune
A dying fetch like broken words,
When I looked up at my love-birds
   That Sunday afternoon.
 
 
When he, too, scanned the love-birds
   On entering there that day,
   ’Twas as if he had nought to say
Of his long journey citywards,
When he, too, scanned the love-birds,
   On entering there that day.
 
 
And billed and billed the love-birds,
   As ’twere in fond despair
   At the stress of silence where
Had once been tones in tenor thirds,
And billed and billed the love-birds
   As ’twere in fond despair.
 
 
O, his speech that chilled the love-birds,
   And smote like death on me,
   As I learnt what was to be,
And knew my life was broke in sherds!
O, his speech that chilled the love-birds,
   And smote like death on me!
 

PAYING CALLS

 
I went by footpath and by stile
   Beyond where bustle ends,
Strayed here a mile and there a mile
   And called upon some friends.
 
 
On certain ones I had not seen
   For years past did I call,
And then on others who had been
   The oldest friends of all.
 
 
It was the time of midsummer
   When they had used to roam;
But now, though tempting was the air,
   I found them all at home.
 
 
I spoke to one and other of them
   By mound and stone and tree
Of things we had done ere days were dim,
   But they spoke not to me.
 

THE UPPER BIRCH-LEAVES

 
Warm yellowy-green
In the blue serene,
How they skip and sway
On this autumn day!
They cannot know
What has happened below, —
That their boughs down there
Are already quite bare,
That their own will be
When a week has passed, —
For they jig as in glee
To this very last.
 
 
But no; there lies
At times in their tune
A note that cries
What at first I fear
I did not hear:
“O we remember
At each wind’s hollo —
Though life holds yet —
We go hence soon,
For ’tis November;
– But that you follow
You may forget!”
 

“IT NEVER LOOKS LIKE SUMMER”

 
“It never looks like summer here
   On Beeny by the sea.”
But though she saw its look as drear,
   Summer it seemed to me.
 
 
It never looks like summer now
   Whatever weather’s there;
But ah, it cannot anyhow,
   On Beeny or elsewhere!
 

Boscastle,

March 8, 1913.

EVERYTHING COMES

 
“The house is bleak and cold
   Built so new for me!
All the winds upon the wold
   Search it through for me;
No screening trees abound,
And the curious eyes around
   Keep on view for me.”
 
 
“My Love, I am planting trees
   As a screen for you
Both from winds, and eyes that tease
   And peer in for you.
Only wait till they have grown,
No such bower will be known
   As I mean for you.”
 
 
“Then I will bear it, Love,
   And will wait,” she said.
– So, with years, there grew a grove.
   “Skill how great!” she said.
“As you wished, Dear?” – “Yes, I see!
But – I’m dying; and for me
   ’Tis too late,” she said.
 

THE MAN WITH A PAST

 
   There was merry-making
   When the first dart fell
   As a heralding, —
Till grinned the fully bared thing,
   And froze like a spell —
      Like a spell.
 
 
   Innocent was she,
   Innocent was I,
   Too simple we!
Before us we did not see,
   Nearing, aught wry —
      Aught wry!
 
 
   I can tell it not now,
   It was long ago;
   And such things cow;
But that is why and how
   Two lives were so —
      Were so.
 
 
   Yes, the years matured,
   And the blows were three
   That time ensured
On her, which she dumbly endured;
   And one on me —
      One on me.
 

HE FEARS HIS GOOD FORTUNE

 
There was a glorious time
At an epoch of my prime;
Mornings beryl-bespread,
And evenings golden-red;
   Nothing gray:
And in my heart I said,
“However this chanced to be,
It is too full for me,
Too rare, too rapturous, rash,
Its spell must close with a crash
   Some day!”
 
 
The radiance went on
Anon and yet anon,
And sweetness fell around
Like manna on the ground.
   “I’ve no claim,”
Said I, “to be thus crowned:
I am not worthy this: —
Must it not go amiss? —
Well.. let the end foreseen
Come duly! – I am serene.”
   – And it came.
 

HE WONDERS ABOUT HIMSELF

 
No use hoping, or feeling vext,
Tugged by a force above or under
Like some fantocine, much I wonder
What I shall find me doing next!
 
 
Shall I be rushing where bright eyes be?
Shall I be suffering sorrows seven?
Shall I be watching the stars of heaven,
Thinking one of them looks like thee?
 
 
Part is mine of the general Will,
Cannot my share in the sum of sources
Bend a digit the poise of forces,
And a fair desire fulfil?
 

Nov. 1893.

JUBILATE

 
“The very last time I ever was here,” he said,
“I saw much less of the quick than I saw of the dead.”
– He was a man I had met with somewhere before,
But how or when I now could recall no more.
 
 
“The hazy mazy moonlight at one in the morning
Spread out as a sea across the frozen snow,
Glazed to live sparkles like the great breastplate adorning
The priest of the Temple, with Urim and Thummim aglow.
 
 
“The yew-tree arms, glued hard to the stiff stark air,
Hung still in the village sky as theatre-scenes
When I came by the churchyard wall, and halted there
At a shut-in sound of fiddles and tambourines.
 
 
“And as I stood hearkening, dulcimers, haut-boys, and shawms,
And violoncellos, and a three-stringed double-bass,
Joined in, and were intermixed with a singing of psalms;
And I looked over at the dead men’s dwelling-place.
 
 
“Through the shine of the slippery snow I now could see,
As it were through a crystal roof, a great company
Of the dead minueting in stately step underground
To the tune of the instruments I had before heard sound.
 
 
“It was ‘Eden New,’ and dancing they sang in a chore,
‘We are out of it all! – yea, in Little-Ease cramped no more!’
And their shrouded figures pacing with joy I could see
As you see the stage from the gallery.  And they had no heed of me.
 
 
“And I lifted my head quite dazed from the churchyard wall
And I doubted not that it warned I should soon have my call.
But – ”.. Then in the ashes he emptied the dregs of his cup,
And onward he went, and the darkness swallowed him up.
 

HE REVISITS HIS FIRST SCHOOL

 
I should not have shown in the flesh,
I ought to have gone as a ghost;
It was awkward, unseemly almost,
Standing solidly there as when fresh,
   Pink, tiny, crisp-curled,
   My pinions yet furled
   From the winds of the world.
 
 
After waiting so many a year
To wait longer, and go as a sprite
From the tomb at the mid of some night
Was the right, radiant way to appear;
   Not as one wanzing weak
   From life’s roar and reek,
   His rest still to seek:
 
 
Yea, beglimpsed through the quaint quarried glass
Of green moonlight, by me greener made,
When they’d cry, perhaps, “There sits his shade
In his olden haunt – just as he was
   When in Walkingame he
   Conned the grand Rule-of-Three
   With the bent of a bee.”
 
 
But to show in the afternoon sun,
With an aspect of hollow-eyed care,
When none wished to see me come there,
Was a garish thing, better undone.
   Yes; wrong was the way;
   But yet, let me say,
   I may right it – some day.