Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses Part 21

Said the third in plaid, Each word being weighed:

"And trotting does In the park, in the lane, And just outside The shuttered pane, Have also been heard - Quick feet as light As the feet of a sprite - And the wise mind knows What things may betide When such has occurred."

Cried the black-c.r.a.ped fourth, Cold faced as the north:

"O, though giving such Some head-room, I smile At your falterings When noting those things Round your domicile!

For what, what can touch One whom, riven of all That makes life gay, No hints can appal Of more takings away!"

PATHS OF FORMER TIME

No; no; It must not be so: They are the ways we do not go.

Still chew The kine, and moo In the meadows we used to wander through;

Still purl The rivulets and curl Towards the weirs with a musical swirl;

Haymakers As in former years Rake rolls into heaps that the pitchfork rears;

Wheels crack On the turfy track The waggon pursues with its toppling pack.

"Why then shun - Since summer's not done - All this because of the lack of one?"

Had you been Sharer of that scene You would not ask while it bites in keen

Why it is so We can no more go By the summer paths we used to know!

1913.

THE CLOCK OF THE YEARS

"A spirit pa.s.sed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up."

And the Spirit said, "I can make the clock of the years go backward, But am loth to stop it where you will."

And I cried, "Agreed To that. Proceed: It's better than dead!"

He answered, "Peace"; And called her up--as last before me; Then younger, younger she freshed, to the year I first had known Her woman-grown, And I cried, "Cease! -

"Thus far is good - It is enough--let her stay thus always!"

But alas for me. He shook his head: No stop was there; And she waned child-fair, And to babyhood.

Still less in mien To my great sorrow became she slowly, And smalled till she was nought at all In his checkless griff; And it was as if She had never been.

"Better," I plained, "She were dead as before! The memory of her Had lived in me; but it cannot now!"

And coldly his voice: "It was your choice To mar the ordained."

1916.

AT THE PIANO

A woman was playing, A man looking on; And the mould of her face, And her neck, and her hair, Which the rays fell upon Of the two candles there, Sent him mentally straying In some fancy-place Where pain had no trace.

A cowled Apparition Came pus.h.i.+ng between; And her notes seemed to sigh, And the lights to burn pale, As a spell numbed the scene.

But the maid saw no bale, And the man no monition; And Time laughed awry, And the Phantom hid nigh.

THE SHADOW ON THE STONE

I went by the Druid stone That broods in the garden white and lone, And I stopped and looked at the s.h.i.+fting shadows That at some moments fall thereon From the tree hard by with a rhythmic swing, And they shaped in my imagining To the shade that a well-known head and shoulders Threw there when she was gardening.

I thought her behind my back, Yea, her I long had learned to lack, And I said: "I am sure you are standing behind me, Though how do you get into this old track?"

And there was no sound but the fall of a leaf As a sad response; and to keep down grief I would not turn my head to discover That there was nothing in my belief.

Yet I wanted to look and see That n.o.body stood at the back of me; But I thought once more: "Nay, I'll not unvision A shape which, somehow, there may be."

So I went on softly from the glade, And left her behind me throwing her shade, As she were indeed an apparition - My head unturned lest my dream should fade.

Begun 1913: finished 1916.

IN THE GARDEN (M. H.)

We waited for the sun To break its cloudy prison (For day was not yet done, And night still unbegun) Leaning by the dial.

After many a trial - We all silent there - It burst as new-arisen, Throwing a shade to where Time travelled at that minute.

Little saw we in it, But this much I know, Of lookers on that shade, Her towards whom it made Soonest had to go.

1915.