Time's Laughingstocks, and Other Verses Part 7

Along the street to maids well known Blithe lovers hum their tender airs, But in your praise voice not a tone.

- Since nought bespeaks you here, or bears, As I, your imprint through and through, Here might I rest, till my heart shares The spot's unconsciousness of you!

SALISBURY.

"I SAY I'LL SEEK HER"

I say, "I'll seek her side Ere hindrance interposes;"

But eve in midnight closes, And here I still abide.

When darkness wears I see Her sad eyes in a vision; They ask, "What indecision Detains you, Love, from me? -

"The creaking hinge is oiled, I have unbarred the backway, But you tread not the trackway; And shall the thing be spoiled?

"Far c.o.c.kcrows echo shrill, The shadows are abating, And I am waiting, waiting; But O, you tarry still!"

HER FATHER

I met her, as we had privily planned, Where pa.s.sing feet beat busily: She whispered: "Father is at hand!

He wished to walk with me."

His presence as he joined us there Banished our words of warmth away; We felt, with cloudings of despair, What Love must lose that day.

Her crimson lips remained unkissed, Our fingers kept no tender hold, His lack of feeling made the tryst Embarra.s.sed, stiff, and cold.

A cynic ghost then rose and said, "But is his love for her so small That, nigh to yours, it may be read As of no worth at all?

"You love her for her pink and white; But what when their fresh splendours close?

His love will last her in despite Of Time, and wrack, and foes."

WEYMOUTH.

AT WAKING

When night was lifting, And dawn had crept under its shade, Amid cold clouds drifting Dead-white as a corpse outlaid, With a sudden scare I seemed to behold My Love in bare Hard lines unfold.

Yea, in a moment, An insight that would not die Killed her old endowment Of charm that had capped all nigh, Which vanished to none Like the gilt of a cloud, And showed her but one Of the common crowd.

She seemed but a sample Of earth's poor average kind, Lit up by no ample Enrichments of mien or mind.

I covered my eyes As to cover the thought, And unrecognize What the morn had taught.

O vision appalling When the one believed-in thing Is seen falling, falling, With all to which hope can cling.

Off: it is not true; For it cannot be That the prize I drew Is a blank to me!

WEYMOUTH, 1869.

FOUR FOOTPRINTS

Here are the tracks upon the sand Where stood last evening she and I - Pressed heart to heart and hand to hand; The morning sun has baked them dry.

I kissed her wet face--wet with rain, For arid grief had burnt up tears, While reached us as in sleeping pain The distant gurgling of the weirs.

"I have married him--yes; feel that ring; 'Tis a week ago that he put it on . . .

A dutiful daughter does this thing, And resignation succeeds anon!

"But that I body and soul was yours Ere he'd possession, he'll never know.

He's a confident man. 'The husband scores,'

He says, 'in the long run' . . . Now, Dear, go!"

I went. And to-day I pa.s.s the spot; It is only a smart the more to endure; And she whom I held is as though she were not, For they have resumed their honeymoon tour.

IN THE VAULTED WAY

In the vaulted way, where the pa.s.sage turned To the shadowy corner that none could see, You paused for our parting,--plaintively; Though overnight had come words that burned My fond frail happiness out of me.

And then I kissed you,--despite my thought That our spell must end when reflection came On what you had deemed me, whose one long aim Had been to serve you; that what I sought Lay not in a heart that could breathe such blame.

But yet I kissed you; whereon you again As of old kissed me. Why, why was it so?

Do you cleave to me after that light-tongued blow?

If you scorned me at eventide, how love then?

The thing is dark, Dear. I do not know.

IN THE MIND'S EYE