Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with Miscellaneous Pieces | Page 5

inquiring-wise
As those of a soul that weighed,
Scarce consciously,?The eternal question of what Life was,?And why we were there, and by whose strange laws
That which mattered most could not be.
TO MEET, OR OTHERWISE
Whether to sally and see thee, girl of my dreams,
Or whether to stay?And see thee not! How vast the difference seems
Of Yea from Nay?Just now. Yet this same sun will slant its beams
At no far day?On our two mounds, and then what will the difference weigh!
Yet I will see thee, maiden dear, and make
The most I can?Of what remains to us amid this brake Cimmerian?Through which we grope, and from whose thorns we ache,
While still we scan?Round our frail faltering progress for some path or plan.
By briefest meeting something sure is won;
It will have been:?Nor God nor Daemon can undo the done,
Unsight the seen,?Make muted music be as unbegun,
Though things terrene?Groan in their bondage till oblivion supervene.
So, to the one long-sweeping symphony
From times remote?Till now, of human tenderness, shall we
Supply one note,?Small and untraced, yet that will ever be
Somewhere afloat?Amid the spheres, as part of sick Life's antidote.
THE DIFFERENCE
I
Sinking down by the gate I discern the thin moon,?And a blackbird tries over old airs in the pine,?But the moon is a sorry one, sad the bird's tune,?For this spot is unknown to that Heartmate of mine.
II
Did my Heartmate but haunt here at times such as now,?The song would be joyous and cheerful the moon;?But she will see never this gate, path, or bough,?Nor I find a joy in the scene or the tune.
THE SUN ON THE BOOKCASE?(Student's Love-song)
Once more the cauldron of the sun?Smears the bookcase with winy red,?And here my page is, and there my bed,?And the apple-tree shadows travel along.?Soon their intangible track will be run,
And dusk grow strong?And they be fled.
Yes: now the boiling ball is gone,?And I have wasted another day . . .?But wasted--WASTED, do I say??Is it a waste to have imaged one?Beyond the hills there, who, anon,
My great deeds done?Will be mine alway?
"WHEN I SET OUT FOR LYONNESSE"
When I set out for Lyonnesse,
A hundred miles away,?The rime was on the spray,?And starlight lit my lonesomeness?When I set out for Lyonnesse
A hundred miles away.
What would bechance at Lyonnesse
While I should sojourn there?No prophet durst declare,?Nor did the wisest wizard guess?What would bechance at Lyonnesse
While I should sojourn there.
When I came back from Lyonnesse
With magic in my eyes,?None managed to surmise?What meant my godlike gloriousness,?When I came back from Lyonnesse
With magic in my eyes.
A THUNDERSTORM IN TOWN?(A Reminiscence)
She wore a new "terra-cotta" dress,?And we stayed, because of the pelting storm,?Within the hansom's dry recess,?Though the horse had stopped; yea, motionless
We sat on, snug and warm.
Then the downpour ceased, to my sharp sad pain,?And the glass that had screened our forms before?Flew up, and out she sprang to her door:?I should have kissed her if the rain
Had lasted a minute more.
THE TORN LETTER
I
I tore your letter into strips
No bigger than the airy feathers?That ducks preen out in changing weathers?Upon the shifting ripple-tips.
II
In darkness on my bed alone
I seemed to see you in a vision,?And hear you say: "Why this derision?Of one drawn to you, though unknown?"
III
Yes, eve's quick mood had run its course,
The night had cooled my hasty madness;?I suffered a regretful sadness?Which deepened into real remorse.
IV
I thought what pensive patient days
A soul must know of grain so tender,?How much of good must grace the sender?Of such sweet words in such bright phrase.
V
Uprising then, as things unpriced
I sought each fragment, patched and mended;?The midnight whitened ere I had ended?And gathered words I had sacrificed.
VI
But some, alas, of those I threw
Were past my search, destroyed for ever:?They were your name and place; and never?Did I regain those clues to you.
VII
I learnt I had missed, by rash unheed,
My track; that, so the Will decided,?In life, death, we should be divided,?And at the sense I ached indeed.
VIII
That ache for you, born long ago,
Throbs on; I never could outgrow it.?What a revenge, did you but know it!?But that, thank God, you do not know.
BEYOND THE LAST LAMP?(Near Tooting Common)
I
While rain, with eve in partnership,?Descended darkly, drip, drip, drip,?Beyond the last lone lamp I passed
Walking slowly, whispering sadly,?Two linked loiterers, wan, downcast:?Some heavy thought constrained each face,?And blinded them to time and place.
II
The pair seemed lovers, yet absorbed?In mental scenes no longer orbed?By love's young rays. Each countenance
As it slowly, as it sadly?Caught the lamplight's yellow glance?Held in suspense a misery?At things which had been or might be.
III
When I retrod that watery way?Some hours beyond the droop of day,?Still I found pacing there the twain
Just as slowly, just as sadly,?Heedless of the night and rain.?One could but wonder who they were?And what wild woe detained them there.
IV
Though thirty years of blur and blot?Have slid since I beheld that spot,?And saw in curious converse there
Moving slowly, moving sadly?That mysterious tragic pair,?Its