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

The lonely chambers here,
The autumn's settling shades embrowned
Nooks that it haunted near.
And so with time my vision less,
Yea, less and less
Makes of that Past my housemistress,

It dwindles in my eye;
It looms a far-off skeleton
And not a comrade nigh,
A fitful far-off skeleton
Dimming as days draw by.
AFTER THE VISIT
(To F. E. D.)
Come again to the place
Where your presence was as a leaf that
skims
Down a drouthy way whose ascent bedims
The bloom on the farer's face.
Come again, with the feet
That were light on the green as a
thistledown ball,
And those mute ministrations to one and to all
Beyond a man's saying sweet.
Until then the faint scent
Of the bordering flowers swam unheeded
away,
And I marked not the charm in the changes of day
As the cloud-colours came and went.
Through the dark corridors
Your walk was so soundless I did not
know
Your form from a phantom's of long ago
Said to pass on the ancient floors,
Till you drew from the shade,
And I saw the large luminous living
eyes
Regard me in fixed 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