Time's Laughingstocks, and Other Verses Part 6

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 pa.s.sed 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, so the poor device Of homely wording I could tolerate, Knowing its unadornment held as freight The sweetest image outside Paradise.

W. P. V., Summer 1866.

THE DIVISION

Rain on the windows, creaking doors, With blasts that besom the green, And I am here, and you are there, And a hundred miles between!

O were it but the weather, Dear, O were it but the miles That summed up all our severance, There might be room for smiles.

But that thwart thing betwixt us twain, Which nothing cleaves or clears, Is more than distance, Dear, or rain, And longer than the years!

1893.

ON THE DEPARTURE PLATFORM

We kissed at the barrier; and pa.s.sing through She left me, and moment by moment got Smaller and smaller, until to my view She was but a spot;

A wee white spot of muslin fluff That down the diminishing platform bore Through hustling crowds of gentle and rough To the carriage door.

Under the lamplight's fitful glowers, Behind dark groups from far and near, Whose interests were apart from ours, She would disappear,

Then show again, till I ceased to see That flexible form, that nebulous white; And she who was more than my life to me Had vanished quite . . .

We have penned new plans since that fair fond day, And in season she will appear again - Perhaps in the same soft white array - But never as then!

- "And why, young man, must eternally fly A joy you'll repeat, if you love her well?"

--O friend, nought happens twice thus; why, I cannot tell!

IN A CATHEDRAL CITY

These people have not heard your name; No loungers in this placid place Have helped to bruit your beauty's fame.

The grey Cathedral, towards whose face Bend eyes untold, has met not yours; Your shade has never swept its base,

Your form has never darked its doors, Nor have your faultless feet once thrown A pensive pit-pat on its floors.