Wessex Poems and Other Verses Part 11

Not a line of her writing have I, Not a thread of her hair, No mark of her late time as dame in her dwelling, whereby I may picture her there; And in vain do I urge my unsight To conceive my lost prize At her close, whom I knew when her dreams were upbr.i.m.m.i.n.g with light, And with laughter her eyes.

What scenes spread around her last days, Sad, s.h.i.+ning, or dim?

Did her gifts and compa.s.sions enray and enarch her sweet ways With an aureate nimb?

Or did life-light decline from her years, And mischances control Her full day-star; unease, or regret, or forebodings, or fears Disenn.o.ble her soul?

Thus I do but the phantom retain Of the maiden of yore As my relic; yet haply the best of her--fined in my brain It maybe the more That no line of her writing have I, Nor a thread of her hair, No mark of her late time as dame in her dwelling, whereby I may picture her there.

March 1890.

MIDDLE-AGE ENTHUSIASMS To M. H.

We pa.s.sed where flag and flower Signalled a jocund throng; We said: "Go to, the hour Is apt!"--and joined the song; And, kindling, laughed at life and care, Although we knew no laugh lay there.

We walked where shy birds stood Watching us, wonder-dumb; Their friends.h.i.+p met our mood; We cried: "We'll often come: We'll come morn, noon, eve, everywhen!"

- We doubted we should come again.

We joyed to see strange sheens Leap from quaint leaves in shade; A secret light of greens They'd for their pleasure made.

We said: "We'll set such sorts as these!"

- We knew with night the wish would cease.

"So sweet the place," we said, "Its tacit tales so dear, Our thoughts, when breath has sped, Will meet and mingle here!" . . .

"Words!" mused we. "Pa.s.sed the mortal door, Our thoughts will reach this nook no more."

IN A WOOD See "THE WOODLANDERS"

Pale beech and pine-tree blue, Set in one clay, Bough to bough cannot you Bide out your day?

When the rains skim and skip, Why mar sweet comrades.h.i.+p, Blighting with poison-drip Neighbourly spray?

Heart-halt and spirit-lame, City-opprest, Unto this wood I came As to a nest; Dreaming that sylvan peace Offered the harrowed ease-- Nature a soft release From men's unrest.

But, having entered in, Great growths and small Show them to men akin - Combatants all!

Sycamore shoulders oak, Bines the slim sapling yoke, Ivy-spun halters choke Elms stout and tall.

Touches from ash, O wych, Sting you like scorn!

You, too, brave hollies, twitch Sidelong from thorn.

Even the rank poplars bear Illy a rival's air, Cankering in black despair If overborne.

Since, then, no grace I find Taught me of trees, Turn I back to my kind, Worthy as these.

There at least smiles abound, There discourse trills around, There, now and then, are found Life-loyalties.

1887: 1896.

TO A LADY OFFENDED BY A BOOK OF THE WRITER'S

Now that my page upcloses, doomed, maybe, Never to press thy cosy cus.h.i.+ons more, Or wake thy ready Yeas as heretofore, Or stir thy gentle vows of faith in me:

Knowing thy natural receptivity, I figure that, as flambeaux banish eve, My sombre image, warped by insidious heave Of those less forthright, must lose place in thee.

So be it. I have borne such. Let thy dreams Of me and mine diminish day by day, And yield their s.p.a.ce to s.h.i.+ne of smugger things; Till I shape to thee but in fitful gleams, And then in far and feeble visitings, And then surcease. Truth will be truth alway.

TO AN ORPHAN CHILD A WHIMSEY

Ah, child, thou art but half thy darling mother's; Hers couldst thou wholly be, My light in thee would outglow all in others; She would relive to me.

But n.i.g.g.ard Nature's trick of birth Bars, lest she overjoy, Renewal of the loved on earth Save with alloy.

The Dame has no regard, alas, my maiden, For love and loss like mine - No sympathy with mind-sight memory-laden; Only with fickle eyne.

To her mechanic artistry My dreams are all unknown, And why I wish that thou couldst be But One's alone!

NATURE'S QUESTIONING

When I look forth at dawning, pool, Field, flock, and lonely tree, All seem to gaze at me Like chastened children sitting silent in a school;

Their faces dulled, constrained, and worn, As though the master's ways Through the long teaching days Their first terrestrial zest had chilled and overborne.

And on them stirs, in lippings mere (As if once clear in call, But now scarce breathed at all) - "We wonder, ever wonder, why we find us here!

"Has some Vast Imbecility, Mighty to build and blend, But impotent to tend, Framed us in jest, and left us now to hazardry?

"Or come we of an Automaton Unconscious of our pains? . . .

Or are we live remains Of G.o.dhead dying downwards, brain and eye now gone?

"Or is it that some high Plan betides, As yet not understood, Of Evil stormed by Good, We the Forlorn Hope over which Achievement strides?"

Thus things around. No answerer I . . .

Meanwhile the winds, and rains, And Earth's old glooms and pains Are still the same, and gladdest Life Death neighbours nigh.

THE IMPERCIPIENT (AT A CATHEDRAL SERVICE)