Times Laughingstocks | Page 9

while hurt, at the roar
As of surging sea?From the stormy sturdy band
Who have doomed her lord's cause,?Though she waves her little hand
As it were applause.
Here will be candidates yet,
And candidates' wives,?Fervid with zeal to set
Their ideals on our lives:?Here will come market-men
On the market-days,?Here will clash now and then
More such party assays.
And the balcony will fill
When such times are renewed,?And the throng in the street will thrill
With to-day's mettled mood;?But she will no more stand
In the sunshine there,?With that wave of her white-gloved hand,
And that chestnut hair.
January 1906.
THE FARM-WOMAN'S WINTER
I
If seasons all were summers,
And leaves would never fall,?And hopping casement-comers
Were foodless not at all,?And fragile folk might be here
That white winds bid depart;?Then one I used to see here
Would warm my wasted heart!
II
One frail, who, bravely tilling
Long hours in gripping gusts,?Was mastered by their chilling,
And now his ploughshare rusts.?So savage winter catches
The breath of limber things,?And what I love he snatches,
And what I love not, brings.
AUTUMN IN KING'S HINTOCK PARK
Here by the baring bough
Raking up leaves,?Often I ponder how
Springtime deceives, -?I, an old woman now,
Raking up leaves.
Here in the avenue
Raking up leaves,?Lords' ladies pass in view,
Until one heaves?Sighs at life's russet hue,
Raking up leaves!
Just as my shape you see
Raking up leaves,?I saw, when fresh and free,
Those memory weaves?Into grey ghosts by me,
Raking up leaves.
Yet, Dear, though one may sigh,
Raking up leaves,?New leaves will dance on high -
Earth never grieves! -?Will not, when missed am I
Raking up leaves.
1901.
SHUT OUT THAT MOON
Close up the casement, draw the blind,
Shut out that stealing moon,?She wears too much the guise she wore
Before our lutes were strewn?With years-deep dust, and names we read
On a white stone were hewn.
Step not out on the dew-dashed lawn
To view the Lady's Chair,?Immense Orion's glittering form,
The Less and Greater Bear:?Stay in; to such sights we were drawn
When faded ones were fair.
Brush not the bough for midnight scents
That come forth lingeringly,?And wake the same sweet sentiments
They breathed to you and me?When living seemed a laugh, and love
All it was said to be.
Within the common lamp-lit room
Prison my eyes and thought;?Let dingy details crudely loom,
Mechanic speech be wrought:?Too fragrant was Life's early bloom,
Too tart the fruit it brought!
1904.
REMINISCENCES OF A DANCING MAN
I
Who now remembers Almack's balls -
Willis's sometime named -?In those two smooth-floored upper halls
For faded ones so famed??Where as we trod to trilling sound?The fancied phantoms stood around,
Or joined us in the maze,?Of the powdered Dears from Georgian years,?Whose dust lay in sightless sealed-up biers,
The fairest of former days.
II
Who now remembers gay Cremorne,
And all its jaunty jills,?And those wild whirling figures born
Of Jullien's grand quadrilles??With hats on head and morning coats?There footed to his prancing notes
Our partner-girls and we;?And the gas-jets winked, and the lustres clinked,?And the platform throbbed as with arms enlinked
We moved to the minstrelsy.
III
Who now recalls those crowded rooms
Of old yclept "The Argyle,"?Where to the deep Drum-polka's booms
We hopped in standard style??Whither have danced those damsels now!?Is Death the partner who doth moue
Their wormy chaps and bare??Do their spectres spin like sparks within?The smoky halls of the Prince of Sin
To a thunderous Jullien air?
THE DEAD MAN WALKING
They hail me as one living,
But don't they know?That I have died of late years,
Untombed although?
I am but a shape that stands here,
A pulseless mould,?A pale past picture, screening
Ashes gone cold.
Not at a minute's warning,
Not in a loud hour,?For me ceased Time's enchantments
In hall and bower.
There was no tragic transit,
No catch of breath,?When silent seasons inched me
On to this death . . .
? A Troubadour-youth I rambled With Life for lyre, The beats of being raging
? In me like fire.
But when I practised eyeing
The goal of men,?It iced me, and I perished
A little then.
When passed my friend, my kinsfolk
Through the Last Door,?And left me standing bleakly,
I died yet more;
And when my Love's heart kindled
In hate of me,?Wherefore I knew not, died I
One more degree.
And if when I died fully
I cannot say,?And changed into the corpse-thing
I am to-day;
Yet is it that, though whiling
The time somehow?In walking, talking, smiling,
I live not now.
MORE LOVE LYRICS
1967
In five-score summers! All new eyes,?New minds, new modes, new fools, new wise;?New woes to weep, new joys to prize;
With nothing left of me and you?In that live century's vivid view?Beyond a pinch of dust or two;
A century which, if not sublime,?Will show, I doubt not, at its prime,?A scope above this blinkered time.
? Yet what to me how far above? For I would only ask thereof That thy worm should be my worm, Love!
16 WESTBOURNE PARK VILLAS, 1867.
HER DEFINITION
I lingered through the night to break of day,?Nor once did sleep extend a wing to me,?Intently busied with a vast array?Of epithets that should outfigure thee.
Full-featured terms--all fitless--hastened by,?And this sole speech remained: "That maiden mine!" -?Debarred from due description then did I?Perceive the indefinite phrase could yet define.
As common chests encasing wares of price?Are borne with tenderness through halls of state,?For what they cover,