Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume II. | Page 7

greedily?"
Says I, "It is wild roses
Do smell so winsomely,
And winy briar,
too," says I,
"That in these thickets be."
"And oh!" says he, "what leetle bird
Is singing in yon high tree,
So

every shrill and long-drawn note
Like bubbles breaks in me?"
Says I, "It is the mavis
That perches in the tree,
And sings so shrill,
and sings so sweet,
When dawn comes up the sea."
At which he fell a-musing,
And fixed his eye on me,
As one alone
'twixt light and dark
A spirit thinks to see.
"England!" he whispers soft and harsh,
"England!" repeated he,

"And briar, and rose, and mavis,
A-singing in yon high tree.
"Ye speak me true, my leetle son,
So--so, it came to me,
A-drifting
landwards on a spar,
And grey dawn on the sea.
"Ay, ay, I could not be mistook;
I knew them leafy trees,
I knew
that land so witchery sweet,
And that old noise of seas.
"Though here I've sailed a score of years,
And heard 'em, dream or
wake,
Lap small and hollow 'gainst my cheek,
On sand and coral
break;
"'Yet now,' my leetle son, says I,
A-drifting on the wave,
'That land
I see so safe and green,
Is England, I believe.
"'And that there wood is English wood,
And this here cruel sea,
The
selfsame old blue ocean
Years gone remembers me.
"'A-sitting with my bread and butter
Down ahind yon chitterin' mill;

And this same Marinere'--(that's me),
'Is that same leetle Will!--
"'That very same wee leetle Will
Eating his bread and butter there,

A-looking on the broad blue sea
Betwixt his yaller hair!'
"And here be I, my son, thrown up
Like corpses from the sea,
Ships,
stars, winds, tempests, pirates past,
Yet leetle Will I be!"

He said no more, that sailorman,
But in a reverie
Stared like the
figure of a ship
With painted eyes to sea.
THE PHANTOM
"Upstairs in the large closet, child,
This side the blue room door,
Is
an old Bible, bound in leather,
Standing upon the floor;
"Go with this taper, bring it me;
Carry it so, upon your arm;
It is the
book on many a sea
Hath stilled the waves' alarm."
Late the hour, dark the night,
The house is solitary;
Feeble is a
taper's light
To light poor Ann to see.
Her eyes are yet with visions bright
Of sylph and river, flower and
fay,
Now through a narrow corridor
She goes her lonely way.
Vast shadows on the heedless walls
Gigantic loom, stoop low:
Each
little hasty footfall calls
Hollowly to and fro.
In the cold solitude her heart
Remembers sorrowfully
White
winters when her mother was
Her loving company.
Now in the dark clear glass she sees
A taper, mocking hers,--
A
phantom face of light blue eyes,
Reflecting phantom fears.
Around her loom the vacant rooms,
Wind the upward stairs,
She
climbs on into a loneliness
Only her taper shares.
Out in the dark a cold wind stirs,
At every window sighs;
A waning
moon peers small and chill
From out the cloudy skies,
Casting faint tracery on the walls;
So stony still the house
From
cellar to attic rings the shrill
Squeak of the hungry mouse.
Her grandmother is deaf with age;
A garden of moonless trees


Would answer not though she should cry
In anguish on her knees.
So that she scarce can breathe--so fast
Her pent up heart doth beat--

When, faint along the corridor,
Falleth the sound of feet:--
Sounds lighter than silk slippers make
Upon a ballroom floor, when
sweet
Violin and 'cello wake
Music for twirling feet.
O! 'neath an old unfriendly roof,
What shapes may not conceal

Their faces in the open day,
At night abroad to steal?
Even her taper seems with fear
To languish small and blue;
Far in
the woods the winter wind
Runs whistling through.
A dreadful cold plucks at each hair,
Her mouth is stretched to cry,

But sudden, with a gush of joy,
It narrows to a sigh.
It is a phantom child which comes
Soft through the corridor,

Singing an old forgotten song,
This ancient burden bore:--
"Thorn, thorn, I wis,
And roses twain,
A red rose and a white,

Stoop in the blossom, bee, and kiss
A lonely child good-night.
"Swim fish, sing bird,
And sigh again,
I that am lost am lone,
Bee
in the blossom never stirred
Locks hid beneath a stone!"--
Her eye was of the azure fire
That hovers in wintry flame;
Her
raiment wild and yellow as furze
That spouteth out the same;
And in her hand she bore no flower,
But on her head a wreath
Of
faded flowers that did yet
Smell sweetly after death....
Gloomy with night the listening walls
Are now that she is gone,

Albeit this solitary child
No longer seems alone.
Fast though her taper dwindles down,
Heavy and thick the tome,
A

beauty beyond fear to dim
Haunts now her alien home.
Ghosts in the world, malignant, grim,
Vex many a wood and glen,

And house and pool--the unquiet ghosts,
Of dead and restless men.
But in her grannie's house this spirit--
A child as lone as she--

Pining for love not found on earth,
Ann dreams again to see.
Seated upon her tapestry stool,
Her fairy-book laid by,
She gazes
into the fire, knowing
She has sweet company.
THE MILLER AND HIS SON
A twangling harp for Mary,
A silvery flute for John,
And now we'll
play, the livelong day,
"The Miller and his Son."...