Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses Part 8

Is it the spirit astray Of the man at the house below Whose coffin they took in to-day?

We do not know.

A KISS

By a wall the stranger now calls his, Was born of old a particular kiss, Without forethought in its genesis; Which in a trice took wing on the air.

And where that spot is nothing shows: There ivy calmly grows, And no one knows What a birth was there!

That kiss is gone where none can tell - Not even those who felt its spell: It cannot have died; that know we well.

Somewhere it pursues its flight, One of a long procession of sounds Travelling aethereal rounds Far from earth's bounds In the infinite.

THE ANNOUNCEMENT

They came, the brothers, and took two chairs In their usual quiet way; And for a time we did not think They had much to say.

And they began and talked awhile Of ordinary things, Till spread that silence in the room A pent thought brings.

And then they said: "The end has come.

Yes: it has come at last."

And we looked down, and knew that day A spirit had pa.s.sed.

THE OXEN

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.

"Now they are all on their knees,"

An elder said as we sat in a flock By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where They dwelt in their strawy pen, Nor did it occur to one of us there To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave In these years! Yet, I feel, If someone said on Christmas Eve, "Come; see the oxen kneel

"In the lonely barton by yonder coomb Our childhood used to know,"

I should go with him in the gloom, Hoping it might be so.

1915.

THE TRESSES

"When the air was damp It made my curls hang slack As they kissed my neck and back While I footed the salt-aired track I loved to tramp.

"When it was dry They would roll up crisp and tight As I went on in the light Of the sun, which my own sprite Seemed to outvie.

"Now I am old; And have not one gay curl As I had when a girl For dampness to unfurl Or sun uphold!"

THE PHOTOGRAPH

The flame crept up the portrait line by line As it lay on the coals in the silence of night's profound, And over the arm's incline, And along the marge of the silkwork superfine, And gnawed at the delicate bosom's defenceless round.

Then I vented a cry of hurt, and averted my eyes; The spectacle was one that I could not bear, To my deep and sad surprise; But, compelled to heed, I again looked furtive-wise Till the flame had eaten her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and mouth, and hair.

"Thank G.o.d, she is out of it now!" I said at last, In a great relief of heart when the thing was done That had set my soul aghast, And nothing was left of the picture unsheathed from the past But the ashen ghost of the card it had figured on.

She was a woman long hid amid packs of years, She might have been living or dead; she was lost to my sight, And the deed that had nigh drawn tears Was done in a casual clearance of life's arrears; But I felt as if I had put her to death that night! . . .

- Well; she knew nothing thereof did she survive, And suffered nothing if numbered among the dead; Yet--yet--if on earth alive Did she feel a smart, and with vague strange anguish strive?

If in heaven, did she smile at me sadly and shake her head?

ON A HEATH

I could hear a gown-skirt rustling Before I could see her shape, Rustling through the heather That wove the common's drape, On that evening of dark weather When I hearkened, lips agape.

And the town-s.h.i.+ne in the distance Did but baffle here the sight, And then a voice flew forward: Dear, is't you? I fear the night!"

And the herons flapped to norward In the firs upon my right.

There was another looming Whose life we did not see; There was one stilly blooming Full nigh to where walked we; There was a shade entombing All that was bright of me.

AN ANNIVERSARY

It was at the very date to which we have come, In the month of the matching name, When, at a like minute, the sun had upswum, Its couch-time at night being the same.

And the same path stretched here that people now follow, And the same stile crossed their way, And beyond the same green hillock and hollow The same horizon lay; And the same man pilgrims now hereby who pilgrimed here that day.