Late Lyrics and Earlier, With Many Other Verses Part 13

Had we mused a little s.p.a.ce 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

I can see the towers In mind quite clear Not many hours'

Faring from here; But how up and go, And briskly bear Thither, and know That are not there?

Though the birds sing small, And apple and pear On your trees by the wall Are ripe and rare, Though none excel them, I have no care To taste them or smell them And you not there.

Though the College stones Are smit with the sun, And the graduates and Dons Who held you as one Of brightest brow Still think as they did, Why haunt with them now Your candle is hid?

Towards the river A pealing swells: They cost me a quiver - Those prayerful bells!

How go to G.o.d, Who can reprove With so heavy a rod As your swift remove!

The chorded keys Wait all in a row, And the bellows wheeze As long ago.

And the psalter lingers, And organist's chair; But where are your fingers That once wagged there?

Shall I then seek That desert place This or next week, And those tracks trace That fill me with cark And cloy; nowhere Being movement or mark Of you now there!

THE RIFT (SONG: Minor Mode)

'Twas just at gnat and cobweb-time, When yellow begins to show in the leaf, That your old gamut changed its chime From those true tones--of span so brief! - That met my beats of joy, of grief, As rhyme meets rhyme.

So sank I from my high sublime!

We faced but chancewise after that, And never I knew or guessed my crime. . .

Yes; 'twas the date--or nigh thereat - Of the yellowing leaf; at moth and gnat And cobweb-time.

VOICES FROM THINGS GROWING IN A CHURCHYARD

These flowers are I, poor f.a.n.n.y Hurd, Sir or Madam, A little girl here sepultured.

Once I flit-fluttered like a bird Above the gra.s.s, as now I wave In daisy shapes above my grave, All day cheerily, All night eerily!

- I am one Bachelor Bowring, "Gent,"

Sir or Madam; In shingled oak my bones were pent; Hence more than a hundred years I spent In my feat of change from a coffin-thrall To a dancer in green as leaves on a wall.

All day cheerily, All night eerily!

- I, these berries of juice and gloss, Sir or Madam, Am clean forgotten as Thomas Voss; Thin-urned, I have burrowed away from the moss That covers my sod, and have entered this yew, And turned to cl.u.s.ters ruddy of view, All day cheerily, All night eerily!

- The Lady Gertrude, proud, high-bred, Sir or Madam, Am I--this laurel that shades your head; Into its veins I have stilly sped, And made them of me; and my leaves now shine, As did my satins superfine, All day cheerily, All night eerily!

- I, who as innocent withwind climb, Sir or Madam.

Am one Eve Greensleeves, in olden time Kissed by men from many a clime, Beneath sun, stars, in blaze, in breeze, As now by glowworms and by bees, All day cheerily, All night eerily! {2}

- I'm old Squire Audeley Grey, who grew, Sir or Madam, Aweary of life, and in scorn withdrew; Till anon I clambered up anew As ivy-green, when my ache was stayed, And in that attire I have longtime gayed All day cheerily, All night eerily!

- And so they breathe, these masks, to each Sir or Madam Who lingers there, and their lively speech Affords an interpreter much to teach, As their murmurous accents seem to come Thence hitheraround in a radiant hum, All day cheerily, All night eerily!

ON THE WAY

The trees fret fitfully and twist, Shutters rattle and carpets heave, Slime is the dust of yestereve, And in the streaming mist Fishes might seem to fin a pa.s.sage if they list.

But to his feet, Drawing nigh and nigher A hidden seat, The fog is sweet And the wind a lyre.

A vacant sameness grays the sky, A moisture gathers on each knop Of the bramble, rounding to a drop, That greets the goer-by With the cold listless l.u.s.tre of a dead man's eye.

But to her sight, Drawing nigh and nigher Its deep delight, The fog is bright And the wind a lyre.

"SHE DID NOT TURN"

She did not turn, But pa.s.sed foot-faint with averted head In her gown of green, by the bobbing fern, Though I leaned over the gate that led From where we waited with table spread; But she did not turn: Why was she near there if love had fled?

She did not turn, Though the gate was whence I had often sped In the mists of morning to meet her, and learn Her heart, when its moving moods I read As a book--she mine, as she sometimes said; But she did not turn, And pa.s.sed foot-faint with averted head.

GROWTH IN MAY

I enter a daisy-and-b.u.t.tercup land, And thence thread a jungle of gra.s.s: Hurdles and stiles scarce visible stand Above the lush stems as I pa.s.s.

Hedges peer over, and try to be seen, And seem to reveal a dim sense That amid such ambitious and elbow-high green They make a mean show as a fence.

Elsewhere the mead is possessed of the neats, That range not greatly above The rich rank thicket which brushes their teats, And HER gown, as she waits for her Love.

NEAR CHARD.