Times Laughingstocks | Page 6

fetch water from a valley half a mile off, the house containing not a drop, owing to its situation. However, a tantalizing row of full barrels behind her back testified to a wetness of a certain sort, which was not at that time desired.
"Marshal's Elm" (Stanza vi.) so picturesquely situated, is no longer an inn, though the house, or part of it, still remains. It used to exhibit a fine old swinging sign.
"Blue Jimmy" (Stanza x.) was a notorious horse-stealer of Wessex in those days, who appropriated more than a hundred horses before he was caught, among others one belonging to a neighbour of the writer's grandfather. He was hanged at the now demolished Ivel-chester or Ilchester jail above mentioned--that building formerly of so many sinister associations in the minds of the local peasantry, and the continual haunt of fever, which at last led to its condemnation. Its site is now an innocent-looking green meadow.
April 1902.
THE TWO ROSALINDS
I
The dubious daylight ended,?And I walked the Town alone, unminding whither bound and why, As from each gaunt street and gaping square a mist of light ascended
And dispersed upon the sky.
II
Files of evanescent faces?Passed each other without heeding, in their travail, teen, or joy, Some in void unvisioned listlessness inwrought with pallid traces
Of keen penury's annoy.
III
Nebulous flames in crystal cages?Leered as if with discontent at city movement, murk, and grime, And as waiting some procession of great ghosts from bygone ages
To exalt the ignoble time.
IV
In a colonnade high-lighted,?By a thoroughfare where stern utilitarian traffic dinned,?On a red and white emblazonment of players and parts, I sighted
The name of "Rosalind,"
V
And her famous mates of "Arden,"?Who observed no stricter customs than "the seasons' difference" bade, Who lived with running brooks for books in Nature's wildwood garden,
And called idleness their trade . . .
VI
Now the poster stirred an ember?Still remaining from my ardours of some forty years before, When the selfsame portal on an eve it thrilled me to remember
A like announcement bore;
VII
And expectantly I had entered,?And had first beheld in human mould a Rosalind woo and plead, On whose transcendent figuring my speedy soul had centred
As it had been she indeed . . .
VIII
So; all other plans discarding,?I resolved on entrance, bent on seeing what I once had seen, And approached the gangway of my earlier knowledge, disregarding
The tract of time between.
IX
"The words, sir?" cried a creature?Hovering mid the shine and shade as 'twixt the live world and the tomb; But the well-known numbers needed not for me a text or teacher
To revive and re-illume.
X
Then the play . . . But how unfitted?Was THIS Rosalind!--a mammet quite to me, in memories nurst, And with chilling disappointment soon I sought the street I had quitted,
To re-ponder on the first.
XI
The hag still hawked,--I met her?Just without the colonnade. "So you don't like her, sir?" said she. "Ah--_I_ was once that Rosalind!--I acted her--none better -
Yes--in eighteen sixty-three.
XII
"Thus I won Orlando to me?In my then triumphant days when I had charm and maidenhood, Now some forty years ago.--I used to say, COME WOO ME, WOO ME!"
And she struck the attitude.
XIII
It was when I had gone there nightly;?And the voice--though raucous now--was yet the old one.--Clear as noon My Rosalind was here . . . Thereon the band withinside lightly
Beat up a merry tune.
A SUNDAY MORNING TRAGEDY?(circa 186-)
I bore a daughter flower-fair,?In Pydel Vale, alas for me;?I joyed to mother one so rare,?But dead and gone I now would be.
Men looked and loved her as she grew,?And she was won, alas for me;?She told me nothing, but I knew,?And saw that sorrow was to be.
I knew that one had made her thrall,?A thrall to him, alas for me;?And then, at last, she told me all,?And wondered what her end would be.
She owned that she had loved too well,?Had loved too well, unhappy she,?And bore a secret time would tell,?Though in her shroud she'd sooner be.
I plodded to her sweetheart's door?In Pydel Vale, alas for me:?I pleaded with him, pleaded sore,?To save her from her misery.
He frowned, and swore he could not wed,?Seven times he swore it could not be;?"Poverty's worse than shame," he said,?Till all my hope went out of me.
"I've packed my traps to sail the main" -?Roughly he spake, alas did he -?"Wessex beholds me not again,?'Tis worse than any jail would be!"
? There was a shepherd whom I knew, A subtle man, alas for me: I sought him all the pastures through, Though better I had ceased to be.
I traced him by his lantern light,?And gave him hint, alas for me,?Of how she found her in the plight?That is so scorned in Christendie.
"Is there an herb . . . ?" I asked. "Or none?"?Yes, thus I asked him desperately.?"--There is," he said; "a certain one . . . "?Would he had sworn that none knew he!
"To-morrow I