Times Laughingstocks | Page 5

of glory
chambered mortals view not,
Was blazing on my eyes,
From the Milton Woods to Dole-Hill
All the spacious landscape
lighting, and around about my feet Flinging tall thin tapering shadows
from the meanest mound and mole-hill,
And on trails the ewes had beat.
She was sitting still beside me,
Dozing likewise; and I turned to her,
to take her hanging hand; When, the more regarding, that which like a
spectre shook and tried me

In her image then I scanned;
That which Time's transforming chisel
Had been tooling night and
day for twenty years, and tooled too well, In its rendering of crease
where curve was, where was raven, grizzle -
Pits, where peonies once did dwell.
She had wakened, and perceiving
(I surmise) my sigh and shock, my
quite involuntary dismay, Up she started, and--her wasted figure all
throughout it heaving -
Said, "Ah, yes: I am THUS by day!
"Can you really wince and wonder
That the sunlight should reveal
you such a thing of skin and bone, As if unaware a Death's-head must
of need lie not far under
Flesh whose years out-count your own?
"Yes: that movement was a warning
Of the worth of man's
devotion!--Yes, Sir, I am OLD," said she, "And the thing which should
increase love turns it quickly into scorning -
And your new-won heart from me!"
Then she went, ere I could call her,
With the too proud temper ruling
that had parted us before, And I saw her form descend the slopes, and
smaller grow and smaller,
Till I caught its course no more . . .
True; I might have dogged her downward;
- But it MAY be (though I
know not) that this trick on us of Time Disconcerted and confused
me.--Soon I bent my footsteps townward,
Like to one who had watched a crime.

Well I knew my native weakness,
Well I know it still. I cherished her
reproach like physic-wine, For I saw in that emaciate shape of
bitterness and bleakness
A nobler soul than mine.
Did I not return, then, ever? -
Did we meet again?--mend all?--Alas,
what greyhead perseveres! - Soon I got the Route elsewhither.--Since
that hour I have seen her never:
Love is lame at fifty years.
A TRAMPWOMAN'S TRAGEDY
(182-)
I
From Wynyard's Gap the livelong day,
The livelong day,
We beat afoot the northward way
We had travelled times before.
The sun-blaze burning on our backs,

Our shoulders sticking to our packs,
By fosseway, fields, and
turnpike tracks
We skirted sad Sedge-Moor.
II
Full twenty miles we jaunted on,
We jaunted on, -
My fancy-man, and jeering John,
And Mother Lee, and I.
And, as the sun drew down to west,
We
climbed the toilsome Poldon crest,
And saw, of landskip sights the
best,
The inn that beamed thereby.

III
For months we had padded side by side,
Ay, side by side
Through the Great Forest, Blackmoor wide,
And where the Parret ran.
We'd faced the gusts on Mendip ridge,

Had crossed the Yeo unhelped by bridge,
Been stung by every
Marshwood midge,
I and my fancy-man.
IV
Lone inns we loved, my man and I,
My man and I;
"King's Stag," "Windwhistle" high and dry,
"The Horse" on Hintock Green,
The cosy house at Wynyard's Gap,

"The Hut" renowned on Bredy Knap,
And many another wayside tap
Where folk might sit unseen.
V
Now as we trudged--O deadly day,
O deadly day! -
I teased my fancy-man in play
And wanton idleness.
I walked alongside jeering John,
I laid his
hand my waist upon;
I would not bend my glances on
My lover's dark distress.
VI
Thus Poldon top at last we won,

At last we won,
And gained the inn at sink of sun
Far-famed as "Marshal's Elm."
Beneath us figured tor and lea,
From
Mendip to the western sea -
I doubt if finer sight there be
Within this royal realm.
VII
Inside the settle all a-row -
All four a-row
We sat, I next to John, to show
That he had wooed and won.
And then he took me on his knee,
And
swore it was his turn to be
My favoured mate, and Mother Lee
Passed to my former one.
VIII
Then in a voice I had never heard,
I had never heard,
My only Love to me: "One word,
My lady, if you please!
Whose is the child you are like to bear? -

HIS? After all my months o' care?"
God knows 'twas not! But, O
despair!
I nodded--still to tease.
IX
Then up he sprung, and with his knife -
And with his knife
He let out jeering Johnny's life,
Yes; there, at set of sun.
The slant ray through the window nigh

Gilded John's blood and glazing eye,
Ere scarcely Mother Lee and I

Knew that the deed was done.
X
The taverns tell the gloomy tale,
The gloomy tale,
How that at Ivel-chester jail
My Love, my sweetheart swung;
Though stained till now by no
misdeed
Save one horse ta'en in time o' need;
(Blue Jimmy stole
right many a steed
Ere his last