Satires of Circumstance Part 8

"You were viewing some lovely things. 'Soon required For a widow, of latest fashion'; And I knew 'twould upset you to meet the man Who had to be cold and ashen

"And screwed in a box before they could dress you 'In the last new note in mourning,'

As they defined it. So, not to distress you, I left you to your adorning."

XIII--ON THE DEATH-BED

"I'll tell--being past all praying for - Then promptly die . . . He was out at the war, And got some scent of the intimacy That was under way between her and me; And he stole back home, and appeared like a ghost One night, at the very time almost That I reached her house. Well, I shot him dead, And secretly buried him. Nothing was said.

"The news of the battle came next day; He was scheduled missing. I hurried away, Got out there, visited the field, And sent home word that a search revealed He was one of the slain; though, lying alone And stript, his body had not been known.

"But she suspected. I lost her love, Yea, my hope of earth, and of Heaven above; And my time's now come, and I'll pay the score, Though it be burning for evermore."

XIV--OVER THE COFFIN

They stand confronting, the coffin between, His wife of old, and his wife of late, And the dead man whose they both had been Seems listening aloof, as to things past date.

--"I have called," says the first. "Do you marvel or not?"

"In truth," says the second, "I do--somewhat."

"Well, there was a word to be said by me! . . .

I divorced that man because of you - It seemed I must do it, boundenly; But now I am older, and tell you true, For life is little, and dead lies he; I would I had let alone you two!

And both of us, scorning parochial ways, Had lived like the wives in the patriarchs' days."

XV--IN THE MOONLIGHT

"O lonely workman, standing there In a dream, why do you stare and stare At her grave, as no other grave there were?

"If your great gaunt eyes so importune Her soul by the shine of this corpse-cold moon, Maybe you'll raise her phantom soon!"

"Why, fool, it is what I would rather see Than all the living folk there be; But alas, there is no such joy for me!"

"Ah--she was one you loved, no doubt, Through good and evil, through rain and drought, And when she pa.s.sed, all your sun went out?"

"Nay: she was the woman I did not love, Whom all the others were ranked above, Whom during her life I thought nothing of."

LYRICS AND REVERIES (continued)

SELF-UNCONSCIOUS

Along the way He walked that day, Watching shapes that reveries limn, And seldom he Had eyes to see The moment that encompa.s.sed him.

Bright yellowhammers Made mirthful clamours, And billed long straws with a bustling air, And bearing their load Flew up the road That he followed, alone, without interest there.

From bank to ground And over and round They sidled along the adjoining hedge; Sometimes to the gutter Their yellow flutter Would dip from the nearest slatestone ledge.

The smooth sea-line With a metal shine, And flashes of white, and a sail thereon, He would also descry With a half-wrapt eye Between the projects he mused upon.

Yes, round him were these Earth's artistries, But specious plans that came to his call Did most engage His pilgrimage, While himself he did not see at all.

Dead now as sherds Are the yellow birds, And all that mattered has pa.s.sed away; Yet G.o.d, the Elf, Now shows him that self As he was, and should have been shown, that day.

O it would have been good Could he then have stood At a focussed distance, and conned the whole, But now such vision Is mere derision, Nor soothes his body nor saves his soul.

Not much, some may Incline to say, To see therein, had it all been seen.

Nay! he is aware A thing was there That loomed with an immortal mien.

THE DISCOVERY

I wandered to a crude coast Like a ghost; Upon the hills I saw fires - Funeral pyres Seemingly--and heard breaking Waves like distant cannonades that set the land shaking.

And so I never once guessed A Love-nest, Bowered and candle-lit, lay In my way, Till I found a hid hollow, Where I burst on her my heart could not but follow.

TOLERANCE

"It is a foolish thing," said I, "To bear with such, and pa.s.s it by; Yet so I do, I know not why!"

And at each clash I would surmise That if I had acted otherwise I might have saved me many sighs.

But now the only happiness In looking back that I possess - Whose lack would leave me comfortless -

Is to remember I refrained From masteries I might have gained, And for my tolerance was disdained;