The Listeners | Page 2

tailor's old stone-lintelled door:?There sits he stitching half asleep,?Beside his smoky tallow dip.?'Click, click,' his needle hastes, and shrill?Cries back the cricket 'neath the sill.?Sometimes he stays, and o'er his thread?Leans sidelong his old tousled head;?Or stoops to peer with half-shut eye?When some strange footfall echoes by;?Till clearer gleams his candle's spark?Into the dusty summer dark.?Then from his crosslegs he gets down,?To find how dark the evening's grown;?And hunched-up in his door he'll hear?The cricket whistling crisp and clear;?And so beneath the starry grey?Will mutter half a seam away.
MARTHA
'Once ... once upon a time ...'?Over and over again,?Martha would tell us her stories,?In the hazel glen.
Hers were those clear grey eyes?You watch, and the story seems?Told by their beautifulness?Tranquil as dreams.
She'd sit with her two slim hands?Clasped round her bended knees;?While we on our elbows lolled,?And stared at ease.
Her voice and her narrow chin,?Her grave small lovely head,?Seemed half the meaning?Of the words she said.
'Once ... once upon a time ...'?Like a dream you dream in the night,?Fairies and gnomes stole out?In the leaf-green light.
And her beauty far away?Would fade, as her voice ran on,?Till hazel and summer sun?And all were gone:--
All fordone and forgot;?And like clouds in the height of the sky,?Our hearts stood still in the hush?Of an age gone by.
THE SLEEPER
As Ann came in one summer's day,?She felt that she must creep,?So silent was the clear cool house,?It seemed a house of sleep.?And sure, when she pushed open the door,?Rapt in the stillness there,?Her mother sat, with stooping head,?Asleep upon a chair;?Fast--fast asleep; her two hands laid?Loose-folded on her knee,?So that her small unconscious face?Looked half unreal to be:?So calmly lit with sleep's pale light?Each feature was; so fair?Her forehead--every trouble was?Smooth'd out beneath her hair.?But though her mind in dream now moved,?Still seemed her gaze to rest?From out beneath her fast-sealed lids,?Above her moving breast,?On Ann, as quite, quite still she stood;?Yet slumber lay so deep?Even her hands upon her lap?Seemed saturate with sleep.?And as Ann peeped, a cloudlike dread?Stole over her, and then,?On stealthy, mouselike feet she trod,?And tiptoed out again.
THE KEYS OF MORNING
While at her bedroom window once,?Learning her task for school,?Little Louisa lonely sat?In the morning clear and cool,?She slanted her small bead-brown eyes?Across the empty street,?And saw Death softly watching her?In the sunshine pale and sweet.?His was a long lean sallow face,?He sat with half-shut eyes,?Like an old sailor in a ship?Becalmed 'neath tropic skies.?Beside him in the dust he'd set?His staff and shady hat;?These, peeping small, Louisa saw?Quite clearly where she sat--?The thinness of his coal-black locks,?His hands so long and lean?They scarcely seemed to grasp at all?The keys that hung between:?Both were of gold, but one was small,?And with this last did he?Wag in the air, as if to say,?'Come hither, child, to me!'
Louisa laid her lesson book?On the cold window-sill;?And in the sleepy sunshine house?Went softly down, until?She stood in the half-opened door,?And peeped; but strange to say,?Where Death just now had sunning sat?Only a shadow lay;--?Just the tall chimney's round-topped cowl,?And the small sun behind,?Had with its shadow in the dust?Called sleepy Death to mind.?But most she thought how strange it was?Two keys that he should bear,?And that, when beckoning, he should wag?The littlest in the air.
RACHEL
Rachel sings sweet--?Oh yes, at night,?Her pale face bent?In the candle-light,?Her slim hands touch?The answering keys,?And she sings of hope?And of memories:?Sings to the little?Boy that stands?Watching those slim,?Light, heedful hands.?He looks in her face;?Her dark eyes seem?Dark with a beautiful?Distant dream;?And still she plays,?Sings tenderly?To him of hope,?And of memory.
ALONE
A very old woman?Lives in yon house--?The squeak of the cricket,?The stir of the mouse,?Are all she knows?Of the earth and us.
Once she was young,?Would dance and play,?Like many another?Young popinjay;?And run to her mother?At dusk of day.
And colours bright?She delighted in;?The fiddle to hear,?And to lift her chin,?And sing as small?As a twittering wren.
But age apace?Comes at last to all;?And a lone house filled?With the cricket's call;?And the scampering mouse?In the hollow wall.
THE BELLS
Shadow and light both strove to be?The eight bell-ringers' company,?As with his gliding rope in hand,?Counting his changes, each did stand;?While rang and trembled every stone,?To music by the bell-mouths blown,?Till the bright clouds that towered on high?Seemed to re-echo cry with cry.?Still swang the clappers to and fro,?When, in the far-spread fields below,?I saw a ploughman with his team?Lift to the bells and fix on them?His distant eyes, as if he would?Drink in the utmost sound he could;?While near him sat his children three,?And in the green grass placidly?Played undistracted on, as if?What music earthly bells might give?Could only faintly stir their dream,?And stillness make more lovely seem.?Soon night hid horses, children, all?In sleep deep and ambrosial;?Yet, yet it seemed from star to star,?Welling now near, now faint and far,?Those echoing bells rang on in dream,?And stillness