Chapter I: DO not wish to win your vow

To take me soon or late as bride,
And lift me from the nook where now
I tarry your farings to my side.
I am blissful ever to abide
In this green labyrinth—let all be,
If but, whatever may betide,
You do not leave off loving me!

Your comet-comings I will wait
With patience time shall not wear through;
The yellowing years will not abate
My largened love and truth to you,
Nor drive me to complaint undue
Of absence, much as I may pine,
If never another ’twixt us two
Shall come, and you stand wholly mine.

THE CHILD AND THE SAGE

YOU say, O Sage, when weather-checked,
“I have been favoured so
With cloudless skies, I must expect
This dash of rain or snow.”

“Since health has been my lot,” you say,
“So many months of late,
I must not chafe that one short day
Of sickness mars my state.”

You say, “Such bliss has been my share
From Love’s unbroken smile,
It is but reason I should bear
A cross therein awhile.”

And thus you do not count upon
Continuance of joy;
But, when at ease, expect anon
A burden of annoy.

But, Sage—this Earth—why not a place
Where no reprisals reign,
Where never a spell of pleasantness
Makes reasonable a pain?

_December_ 21, 1908.

MISMET

I

HE was leaning by a face,
He was looking into eyes,
And he knew a trysting-place,
And he heard seductive sighs;
But the face,
And the eyes,
And the place,
And the sighs,
Were not, alas, the right ones—the ones meet for him—
Though fine and sweet the features, and the feelings all abrim.

II

She was looking at a form,
She was listening for a tread,
She could feel a waft of charm
When a certain name was said;
But the form,
And the tread,
And the charm
Of name said,
Were the wrong ones for her, and ever would be so,
While the heritor of the right it would have saved her soul to know!

AN AUTUMN RAIN-SCENE

THERE trudges one to a merry-making
With a sturdy swing,
On whom the rain comes down.

To fetch the saving medicament
Is another bent,
On whom the rain comes down.

One slowly drives his herd to the stall
Ere ill befall,
On whom the rain comes down.

This bears his missives of life and death
With quickening breath,
On whom the rain comes down.

One watches for signals of wreck or war
From the hill afar,
On whom the rain comes down.

No care if he gain a shelter or none,
Unhired moves one,
On whom the rain comes down.

And another knows nought of its chilling fall
Upon him at all,
On whom the rain comes down.

_October_ 1904.

MEDITATIONS ON A HOLIDAY (A NEW THEME TO AN OLD FOLK-JINGLE)

’TIS May morning,
All-adorning,
No cloud warning
Of rain to-day.
Where shall I go to,
Go to, go to?—
Can I say No to
Lyonnesse-way?

Well—what reason
Now at this season
Is there for treason
To other shrines?
Tristram is not there,
Isolt forgot there,
New eras blot there
Sought-for signs!

Stratford-on-Avon—
Poesy-paven—
I’ll find a haven
There, somehow!—
Nay—I’m but caught of
Dreams long thought of,
The Swan knows nought of
His Avon now!

What shall it be, then,
I go to see, then,
Under the plea, then,
Of votary?
I’ll go to Lakeland,
Lakeland, Lakeland,
Certainly Lakeland
Let it be.

But—why to that place,
That place, that place,
Such a hard come-at place
Need I fare?
When its bard cheers no more,
Loves no more, fears no more,
Sees no more, hears no more
Anything there!

Ah, there is Scotland,
Burns’s Scotland,
And Waverley’s. To what land
Better can I hie?—
Yet—if no whit now
Feel those of it now—
Care not a bit now
For it—why I?

I’ll seek a town street,
Aye, a brick-brown street,
Quite a tumbledown street,
Drawing no eyes.
For a Mary dwelt there,
And a Percy felt there
Heart of him melt there,
A Claire likewise.

Why incline to _that_ city,
Such a city, _that_ city,
Now a mud-bespat city!—
Care the lovers who
Now live and walk there,
Sit there and talk there,
Buy there, or hawk there,
Or wed, or woo?

Laughters in a volley
Greet so fond a folly
As nursing melancholy
In this and that spot,
Which, with most endeavour,
Those can visit never,
But for ever and ever
Will now know not!

If, on lawns Elysian,
With a broadened vision
And a faint derision
Conscious be they,
How they might reprove me
That these fancies move me,
Think they ill behoove me,
Smile, and say:

“What!—our hoar old houses,
Where the past dead-drowses,
Nor a child nor spouse is
Of our name at all?
Such abodes to care for,
Inquire about and bear for,
And suffer wear and tear for—
How weak of you and small!”

_May_ 1921.

AN EXPERIENCE

WIT, weight, or wealth there was not
In anything that was said,
In anything that was done;
All was of scope to cause not
A triumph, dazzle, or dread
To even the subtlest one,
My friend,
To even the subtlest one.

But there was a new afflation—
An aura zephyring round,
That care infected not:
It came as a salutation,
And, in my sweet astound,
I scarcely witted what
Might pend,
I scarcely witted what.

The hills in samewise to me
Spoke, as they grayly gazed,
—First hills to speak so yet!
The thin-edged breezes blew me
What I, though cobwebbed, crazed,
Was never to forget,
My friend,
Was never to forget!

THE BEAUTY

O DO not praise my beauty more,
In such word-wild degree,
And say I am one all eyes adore;
For these things harass me!

But do for ever softly say:
“From now unto the end
Come weal, come wanzing, come what may,
Dear, I will be your friend.”

I hate my beauty in the glass:
My beauty is not I:
I wear it: none cares whether, alas,
Its wearer live or die!

The inner I O care for, then,
Yea, me and what I am,
And shall be at the gray hour when
My cheek begins to clam.

_Note_.—“The Regent Street beauty, Miss Verrey, the Swiss confectioner’s daughter, whose personal attractions have been so mischievously exaggerated, died of fever on Monday evening, brought on by the annoyance she had been for some time subject to.”—London paper, October 1828.

THE COLLECTOR CLEANS HIS PICTURE

Fili hominis, ecce ego tollo a te desiderabile oculorum tuorom in
plaga.—EZECH. xxiv. 16.

HOW I remember cleaning that strange picture!
I had been deep in duty for my sick neighbour—
His besides my own—over several Sundays,
Often, too, in the week; so with parish pressures,
Baptisms, burials, doctorings, conjugal counsel—
All the whatnots asked of a rural parson—
Faith, I was well-nigh broken, should have been fully
Saving for one small secret relaxation,
One that in mounting manhood had grown my hobby.

This was to delve at whiles for easel-lumber,
Stowed in the backmost slums of a soon-reached city,
Merely on chance to uncloak some worthy canvas,
Panel, or plaque, blacked blind by uncouth adventure,
Yet under all concealing a precious art-feat.
Such I had found not yet. My latest capture
Came from the rooms of a trader in ancient house-gear
Who had no scent of beauty or soul for brushcraft.
Only a tittle cost it—murked with grime-films,
Gatherings of slow years, thick-varnished over,
Never a feature manifest of man’s painting.

So, one Saturday, time ticking hard on midnight
Ere an hour subserved, I set me upon it.
Long with coiled-up sleeves I cleaned and yet cleaned,
Till a first fresh spot, a high light, looked forth,
Then another, like fair flesh, and another;
Then a curve, a nostril, and next a finger,
Tapering, shapely, significantly pointing slantwise.
“Flemish?” I said. “Nay, Spanish . . . But, nay, Italian!”
—Then meseemed it the guise of the ranker Venus,
Named of some Astarte, of some Cotytto.
Down I knelt before it and kissed the panel,
Drunk with the lure of love’s inhibited dreamings.

Till the dawn I rubbed, when there gazed up at me
A hag, that had slowly emerged from under my hands there,
Pointing the slanted finger towards a bosom
Eaten away of a rot from the lusts of a lifetime . . .
—I could have ended myself in heart-shook horror.
Stunned I sat till roused by a clear-voiced bell-chime,
Fresh and sweet as the dew-fleece under my luthern.
It was the matin service calling to me
From the adjacent steeple.

THE WOOD FIRE (A FRAGMENT)

“THIS is a brightsome blaze you’ve lit good friend, to-night!”
“—Aye, it has been the bleakest spring I have felt for years,
And nought compares with cloven logs to keep alight:
I buy them bargain-cheap of the executioners,
As I dwell near; and they wanted the crosses out of sight
By Passover, not to affront the eyes of visitors.

“Yes, they’re from the crucifixions last week-ending
At Kranion. We can sometimes use the poles again,
But they get split by the nails, and ’tis quicker work than mending
To knock together new; though the uprights now and then
Serve twice when they’re let stand. But if a feast’s impending,
As lately, you’ve to tidy up for the corners’ ken.

“Though only three were impaled, you may know it didn’t pass off
So quietly as was wont? That Galilee carpenter’s son
Who boasted he was king, incensed the rabble to scoff:
I heard the noise from my garden. This piece is the one he was on . . .
Yes, it blazes up well if lit with a few dry chips and shroff;
And it’s worthless for much else, what with cuts and stains thereon.”

SAYING GOOD-BYE (SONG)

WE are always saying
“Good-bye, good-bye!”
In work, in playing,
In gloom, in gaying:
At many a stage
Of pilgrimage
From youth to age
We say, “Good-bye,
Good-bye!”

We are undiscerning
Which go to sigh,
Which will be yearning
For soon returning;
And which no more
Will dark our door,
Or tread our shore,
But go to die,
To die.

Some come from roaming
With joy again;
Some, who come homing
By stealth at gloaming,
Had better have stopped
Till death, and dropped
By strange hands propped,
Than come so fain,
So fain.

So, with this saying,
“Good-bye, good-bye,”
We speed their waying
Without betraying
Our grief, our fear
No more to hear
From them, close, clear,
Again: “Good-bye,
Good-bye!”

ON THE TUNE CALLED THE OLD-HUNDRED-AND-FOURTH

WE never sang together
Ravenscroft’s terse old tune
On Sundays or on weekdays,
In sharp or summer weather,
At night-time or at noon.

Why did we never sing it,
Why never so incline
On Sundays or on weekdays,
Even when soft wafts would wing it
From your far floor to mine?

Shall we that tune, then, never
Stand voicing side by side
On Sundays or on weekdays? . . .
Or shall we, when for ever
In Sheol we abide,

Sing it in desolation,
As we might long have done
On Sundays or on weekdays
With love and exultation
Before our sands had run?

THE OPPORTUNITY (FOR H. P.)

FORTY springs back, I recall,
We met at this phase of the Maytime:
We might have clung close through all,
But we parted when died that daytime.

We parted with smallest regret;
Perhaps should have cared but slightly,
Just then, if we never had met:
Strange, strange that we lived so lightly!

Had we mused a little space
At that critical date in the Maytime,
One life had been ours, one place,
Perhaps, till our long cold daytime.

—This is a bitter thing
For thee, O man: what ails it?
The tide of chance may bring
Its offer; but nought avails it!

EVELYN G. OF CHRISTMINSTER