Late Lyrics and Earlier | Page 8

jessamine,?And nine-and-ninety smear the stones and tiles:?- 'Twas not so in that August--full-rayed, fine--?When we lived out-of-doors, sang songs, strode miles.
Or was there then no noted radiancy?Of summer? Were dun clouds, a dribbling bough,?Gilt over by the light I bore in me,?And was the waste world just the same as now?
It can have been so: yea, that threatenings?Of coming down-drip on the sunless gray,?By the then possibilities in things?Were wrought more bright than brightest skies to-day.
1920.
THE DISSEMBLERS
"It was not you I came to please,
Only myself," flipped she;?"I like this spot of phantasies,
And thought you far from me."?But O, he was the secret spell
That led her to the lea!
"It was not she who shaped my ways,
Or works, or thoughts," he said.?"I scarcely marked her living days,
Or missed her much when dead."?But O, his joyance knew its knell
When daisies hid her head!
TO A LADY PLAYING AND SINGING IN THE MORNING
Joyful lady, sing!?And I will lurk here listening,?Though nought be done, and nought begun,?And work-hours swift are scurrying.
Sing, O lady, still!?Aye, I will wait each note you trill,?Though duties due that press to do?This whole day long I unfulfil.
"--It is an evening tune;?One not designed to waste the noon,"?You say. I know: time bids me go--?For daytide passes too, too soon!
But let indulgence be,?This once, to my rash ecstasy:?When sounds nowhere that carolled air?My idled morn may comfort me!
"A MAN WAS DRAWING NEAR TO ME"
On that gray night of mournful drone,?A part from aught to hear, to see,?I dreamt not that from shires unknown
In gloom, alone,?By Halworthy,?A man was drawing near to me.
I'd no concern at anything,?No sense of coming pull-heart play;?Yet, under the silent outspreading
Of even's wing?Where Otterham lay,?A man was riding up my way.
I thought of nobody--not of one,?But only of trifles--legends, ghosts--?Though, on the moorland dim and dun
That travellers shun?About these coasts,?The man had passed Tresparret Posts.
There was no light at all inland,?Only the seaward pharos-fire,?Nothing to let me understand
That hard at hand?By Hennett Byre?The man was getting nigh and nigher.
There was a rumble at the door,?A draught disturbed the drapery,?And but a minute passed before,
With gaze that bore?My destiny,?The man revealed himself to me.
THE STRANGE HOUSE?(MAX GATE, A.D. 2000)
"I hear the piano playing--
Just as a ghost might play."?"--O, but what are you saying?
There's no piano to-day;?Their old one was sold and broken;
Years past it went amiss."?"--I heard it, or shouldn't have spoken:
A strange house, this!
"I catch some undertone here,
From some one out of sight."?"--Impossible; we are alone here,
And shall be through the night."?"--The parlour-door--what stirred it?"
"--No one: no soul's in range."?"--But, anyhow, I heard it,
And it seems strange!
"Seek my own room I cannot--
A figure is on the stair!"?"--What figure? Nay, I scan not
Any one lingering there.?A bough outside is waving,
And that's its shade by the moon."?"--Well, all is strange! I am craving
Strength to leave soon."
"--Ah, maybe you've some vision
Of showings beyond our sphere;?Some sight, sense, intuition
Of what once happened here??The house is old; they've hinted
It once held two love-thralls,?And they may have imprinted
Their dreams on its walls?
"They were--I think 'twas told me--
Queer in their works and ways;?The teller would often hold me
With weird tales of those days.?Some folk can not abide here,
But we--we do not care?Who loved, laughed, wept, or died here,
Knew joy, or despair."
"AS 'TWERE TO-NIGHT"?(SONG)
As 'twere to-night, in the brief space
Of a far eventime,?My spirit rang achime?At vision of a girl of grace;?As 'twere to-night, in the brief space
Of a far eventime.
As 'twere at noontide of to-morrow
I airily walked and talked,?And wondered as I walked?What it could mean, this soar from sorrow;?As 'twere at noontide of to-morrow
I airily walked and talked.
As 'twere at waning of this week
Broke a new life on me;?Trancings of bliss to be?In some dim dear land soon to seek;?As 'twere at waning of this week
Broke a new life on me!
THE CONTRETEMPS
A forward rush by the lamp in the gloom,
And we clasped, and almost kissed;?But she was not the woman whom?I had promised to meet in the thawing brume?On that harbour-bridge; nor was I he of her tryst.
So loosening from me swift she said:
"O why, why feign to be?The one I had meant!--to whom I have sped?To fly with, being so sorrily wed!"?- 'Twas thus and thus that she upbraided me.
My assignation had struck upon
Some others' like it, I found.?And her lover rose on the night anon;?And then her husband entered on?The lamplit, snowflaked, sloppiness around.
"Take her and welcome, man!" he cried:
"I wash my hands of her.?I'll find me twice as good a bride!"?--All this to me, whom he had eyed,?Plainly, as his wife's planned deliverer.
And next the lover: "Little I knew,
Madam, you had a third!?Kissing here in my very view!"?--Husband and lover then withdrew.?I let them; and I told them not they erred.
Why not? Well, there faced she and I--
Two strangers who'd kissed, or near,?Chancewise. To see stand weeping by?A woman once embraced,