Moments of Vision | Page 7

broken,?The heart whose sweet reverberances are all time leaves to me.
Jan.-Feb. 1913.
SITTING ON THE BRIDGE?(Echo of an old song)
Sitting on the bridge?Past the barracks, town and ridge,?At once the spirit seized us?To sing a song that pleased us -?As "The Fifth" were much in rumour;?It was "Whilst I'm in the humour,
Take me, Paddy, will you now?"?And a lancer soon drew nigh,?And his Royal Irish eye?Said, "Willing, faith, am I,?O, to take you anyhow, dears,
To take you anyhow."
But, lo!--dad walking by,?Cried, "What, you lightheels! Fie!?Is this the way you roam?And mock the sunset gleam?"?And he marched us straightway home,?Though we said, "We are only, daddy,?Singing, 'Will you take me, Paddy?'"?--Well, we never saw from then?If we sang there anywhen,?The soldier dear again,?Except at night in dream-time,
Except at night in dream.
Perhaps that soldier's fighting
In a land that's far away,?Or he may be idly plighting
Some foreign hussy gay;?Or perhaps his bones are whiting
In the wind to their decay! . . .?Ah!--does he mind him how?The girls he saw that day?On the bridge, were sitting singing?At the time of curfew-ringing,?"Take me, Paddy; will you now, dear?
Paddy, will you now?"
GREY'S BRIDGE.
THE YOUNG CHURCHWARDEN
When he lit the candles there,?And the light fell on his hand,?And it trembled as he scanned?Her and me, his vanquished air?Hinted that his dream was done,?And I saw he had begun
To understand.
When Love's viol was unstrung,?Sore I wished the hand that shook?Had been mine that shared her book?While that evening hymn was sung,?His the victor's, as he lit?Candles where he had bidden us sit
With vanquished look.
Now her dust lies listless there,?His afar from tending hand,?What avails the victory scanned??Does he smile from upper air:?"Ah, my friend, your dream is done;?And 'tis YOU who have begun
To understand!
"I TRAVEL AS A PHANTOM NOW"
I travel as a phantom now,?For people do not wish to see?In flesh and blood so bare a bough
As Nature makes of me.
And thus I visit bodiless?Strange gloomy households often at odds,?And wonder if Man's consciousness
Was a mistake of God's.
And next I meet you, and I pause,?And think that if mistake it were,?As some have said, O then it was
One that I well can bear!
1915.
LINES?TO A MOVEMENT IN MOZART'S E-FLAT SYMPHONY
Show me again the time?When in the Junetide's prime?We flew by meads and mountains northerly! -?Yea, to such freshness, fairness, fulness, fineness, freeness,
Love lures life on.
Show me again the day?When from the sandy bay?We looked together upon the pestered sea! -?Yea, to such surging, swaying, sighing, swelling, shrinking,
Love lures life on.
Show me again the hour?When by the pinnacled tower?We eyed each other and feared futurity! -?Yea, to such bodings, broodings, beatings, blanchings, blessings,
Love lures life on.
Show me again just this:?The moment of that kiss?Away from the prancing folk, by the strawberry-tree! -?Yea, to such rashness, ratheness, rareness, ripeness, richness,
Love lures life on.
Begun November 1898.
"IN THE SEVENTIES"
"Qui deridetur ab amico suo sicut ego."--JOB.
In the seventies I was bearing in my breast,
Penned tight,?Certain starry thoughts that threw a magic light?On the worktimes and the soundless hours of rest?In the seventies; aye, I bore them in my breast
Penned tight.
In the seventies when my neighbours--even my friend -
Saw me pass,?Heads were shaken, and I heard the words, "Alas,?For his onward years and name unless he mend!"?In the seventies, when my neighbours and my friend
Saw me pass.
In the seventies those who met me did not know
Of the vision?That immuned me from the chillings of mis-prision?And the damps that choked my goings to and fro?In the seventies; yea, those nodders did not know
Of the vision.
In the seventies nought could darken or destroy it,
Locked in me,?Though as delicate as lamp-worm's lucency;?Neither mist nor murk could weaken or alloy it?In the seventies!--could not darken or destroy it,
Locked in me.
THE PEDIGREE
I
I bent in the deep of night?Over a pedigree the chronicler gave?As mine; and as I bent there, half-unrobed,?The uncurtained panes of my window-square let in the watery light
Of the moon in its old age:?And green-rheumed clouds were hurrying past where mute and cold it globed
Like a drifting dolphin's eye seen through a lapping wave.
II
So, scanning my sire-sown tree,?And the hieroglyphs of this spouse tied to that,
With offspring mapped below in lineage,?Till the tangles troubled me,?The branches seemed to twist into a seared and cynic face
Which winked and tokened towards the window like a Mage
Enchanting me to gaze again thereat.
III
It was a mirror now,?And in it a long perspective I could trace?Of my begetters, dwindling backward each past each
All with the kindred look,?Whose names had since been inked down in their place
On the recorder's book,?Generation and generation of my mien, and build, and brow.
IV
And then did I divine?That every heave and coil and move I made?Within my brain, and in my mood and speech,
Was in the glass portrayed?As long forestalled by their so making it;?The first of them, the primest fuglemen of my line,?Being fogged in far antiqueness past surmise and