Outside the Window

‘My stick!’ he says, and turns in the lane

To the house just left, whence a vixen voice

Comes out with the firelight through the pane,

And he sees within that the girl of his choice

Stands rating her mother with eyes aglare

For something said while he was there.

‘At last I behold her soul undraped!’

Thinks the man who had loved her more than himself;

‘My God!—'tis but narrowly I have escaped.—

My precious porcelain proves it delf.’

His face has reddened like one ashamed,

And he steals off, leaving his stick unclaimed.

-o0o-

A new Week End Blog
THE BEST OF MY CHOICE MY DELIGHT 
begins tomorrow
31st August
thebestofmychoicemydelight.blogspot.com
and will be updated every week end
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-  

In the Room of the Bride-Elect

"Would it had been the man of our wish!"

Sighs her mother. To whom with vehemence she

In the weddingdress - the wife to be -

"Then why were you so mollyish

As not to insist on him for me!"

The mother, amazed: "Why, dearest one,

Because you pleaded for this or none!"

"But Father and you should have stood out strong!

Since then, to my cost, I have lived to find

That you were right and that I was wrong;

This man is a dolt to the one declined. . . .

Ah!--here he comes with his button-hole rose.

Good God - I must marry him I suppose!"

-o0o-

The Two Soldiers

Just at the corner of the wall

We met - yes, he and I -

Who had not faced in camp or hall

Since we bade home good-bye,

And what once happened came back - all -

Out of those years gone by.

And that strange woman whom we knew

And loved - long dead and gone,

Whose poor half-perished residue,

Tombless and trod, lay yon!

But at this moment to our view

Rose like a phantom wan.

And in his fixed face I could see,

Lit by a lurid shine,

The drama re-enact which she

Had dyed incarnadine

For us, and more. And doubtless he

Beheld it too in mine.

A start, as at one slightly known,

And with an indifferent air

We passed, without a sign being shown

That, as it real were,

A memory-acted scene had thrown

Its tragic shadow there.

-o0o- 

Had You Wept

Had you wept; had you but neared me with a frail uncertain ray,

Dewy as the face of the dawn, in your large and luminous eye,

Then would have come back all the joys the tidings had slain that day,

And a new beginning, a fresh fair heaven, have smoothed the things awry.

But you were less feebly human, and no passionate need for clinging

Possessed your soul to overthrow reserve when I came near;

Ay, though you suffer as much as I from storms the hours are bringing

Upon your heart and mine, I never see you shed a tear.

The deep strong woman is weakest, the weak one is the strong;

The weapon of all weapons best for winning, you have not used;

Have you never been able, or would you not, through the evil times and long?

Has not the gift been given you, or such gift have you refused?

When I bade me not absolve you on that evening or the morrow,

Why did you not make war on me with those who weep like rain?

You felt too much, so gained no balm for all your torrid sorrow,

And hence our deep division, and our dark undying pain. 

-o0o-

The Phantom Horsewoman

I

Queer are the ways of a man I know: 

He comes and stands 

In a careworn craze, 

And looks at the sands 

And the seaward haze 

With moveless hands 

And face and gaze, 

Then turns to go... 

And what does he see when he gazes so? 

II 

They say he sees as an instant thing 

More clear than to-day, 

A sweet soft scene 

That once was in play 

By that briny green; 

Yes, notes alway 

Warm, real, and keen, 

What his back years bring— 

A phantom of his own figuring. 

III 

Of this vision of his they might say more: 

Not only there 

Does he see this sight, 

But everywhere 

In his brain–day, night, 

As if on the air 

It were drawn rose bright– 

Yea, far from that shore 

Does he carry this vision of heretofore: 

IV 

A ghost-girl-rider. And though, toil-tried, 

He withers daily, 

Time touches her not, 

But she still rides gaily 

In his rapt thought 

On that shagged and shaly 

Atlantic spot, 

And as when first eyed 

Draws rein and sings to the swing of the tide. 

-o0o-

At Castle Boterel

As I drive to the junction of lane and highway,

And the drizzle bedrenches the waggonette,

I look behind at the fading byway,

And see on its slope, now glistening wet,

Distinctly yet

Myself and a girlish form benighted

In dry March weather. We climb the road

Beside a chaise. We had just alighted

To ease the sturdy pony’s load

When he sighed and slowed.

What we did as we climbed, and what we talked of

Matters not much, nor to what it led,—

Something that life will not be balked of

Without rude reason till hope is dead,

And feeling fled.

It filled but a minute. But was there ever

A time of such quality, since or before,

In that hill’s story? To one mind never,

Though it has been climbed, foot-swift, foot-sore,

By thousands more.

Primaeval rocks form the road’s steep border,

And much have they faced there, first and last,

Of the transitory in Earth’s long order;

But what they record in colour and cast

Is—that we two passed.

And to me, though Time’s unflinching rigour,

In mindless rote, has ruled from sight

The substance now, one phantom figure

Remains on the slope, as when that night

Saw us alight.

I look and see it there, shrinking, shrinking,

I look back at it amid the rain

For the very last time; for my sand is sinking,

And I shall traverse old love’s domain

Never again. 

-o0o-

To Meet or Otherwise

Whether to sally and see thee, girl of my dreams,

Or whether to stay

And see thee not! How vast the difference seems

Of Yea from Nay

Just now. Yet this same sun will slant its beams

At no far day

On our two mounds, and then what will the difference weigh!

Yet I will see thee, maiden dear, and make

The most I can

Of what remains to us amid this brake

Cimmerian*

Through which we grope, and from whose thorns we ache,

While still we scan

Round our frail faltering progress for some path or plan.

By briefest meeting something sure is won;

It will have been:

Nor God nor Daemon can undo the done,

Unsight the seen,

Make muted music be as unbegun,

Though things terrene

Groan in their bondage till oblivion supervene.

So, to the one long-sweeping symphony

From times remote

Till now, of human tenderness, shall we

Supply one note,

Small and untraced, yet that will ever be

Somewhere afloat

Amid the spheres, as part of sick Life's antidote. 

* cimmerian - a member of a mythical people living in perpetual mist and darkness near the land of the dead.

-o0o-

The Wind blew Words

The wind blew words along the skies,

And these it blew to me

Through the wide dusk: "Lift up your eyes,

Behold this troubled tree,

Complaining as it sways and plies;

It is a limb of thee.

"Yea, too, the creatures sheltering round -

Dumb figures, wild and tame,

Yea, too, thy fellows who abound -

Either of speech the same

Or far and strange - black, dwarfed, and browned,

They are stuff of thy own frame."

I moved on in a surging awe

Of inarticulateness

At the pathetic Me I saw

In all his huge distress,

Making self-slaughter of the law

To kill, break, or suppress.

-o0o-

A Thought in Two Moods

I saw it - pink and white - revealed

Upon the white and green;

The white and green was a daisied field,

The pink and white Ethleen.

And as I looked it seemed in kind

That difference they had none;

The two fair bodiments combined

As varied miens of one.

A sense that, in some mouldering year,

As one they both would lie,

Made me move quickly on to her

To pass the pale thought by.

She laughed and said: "Out there, to me,

You looked so weather-browned,

And brown in clothes, you seemed to be

Made of the dusty ground!"

-o0o-

To the Moon

What have you looked at, Moon,

     In your time,

   Now long past your prime?"

"O, I have looked at, often looked at

     Sweet, sublime,

Sore things, shudderful, night and noon

     In my time."

"What have you mused on, Moon,

     In your day,

   So aloof, so far away?"

"O, I have mused on, often mused on

     Growth, decay,

Nations alive, dead, mad, aswoon,

     In my day!"

"Have you much wondered, Moon,

     On your rounds,

   Self-wrapt, beyond Earth's bounds?"

"Yea, I have wondered, often wondered

     At the sounds

Reaching me of the human tune

     On my rounds."

"What do you think of it, Moon,

     As you go?

   Is Life much, or no?"

"O, I think of it, often think of it

     As a show

God ought surely to shut up soon,

     As I go."

-o0o-

The Workbox

"See, here's the workbox, little wife,

 That I made of polished oak."

He was a joiner, of village life;

 She came of borough folk.

He holds the present up to her

 As with a smile she nears

And answers to the profferer,

 ''Twill last all my sewing years!"

"I warrant it will. And longer too.

 'Tis a scantling that I got

Off poor John Wayward's coffin, who

 Died of they knew not what.

"The shingled pattern that seems to cease

 Against your box's rim

Continues right on in the piece

 That's underground with him.

"And while I worked it made me think

 Of timber's varied doom;

One inch where people eat and drink,

 The next inch in a tomb.

"But why do you look so white, my dear,

 And turn aside your face?

You knew not that good lad, I fear,

 Though he came from your native place?'

"How could I know that good young man,

 Though he came from my native town,

When he must have left there earlier than

 I was a woman grown?"

"Ah, no. I should have understood!

 It shocked you that I gave

To you one end of a piece of wood

 Whose other is in a grave?"

"Don't, dear, despise my intellect,

 Mere accidental things

Of that sort never have effect

 On my imaginings."

Yet still her lips were limp and wan,

 Her face still held aside,

As if she had known not only John,

 But known of what he died.

-o0o-

Waiting Both

A star looks down at me,

And says: “Here I and you

Stand, each in our degree:

What do you mean to do, -

Mean to do?”

I say: “For all I know,

Wait, and let Time go by,

Till my change come.” - “Just so,”

The star says, “So mean I,

So mean I.”

-o0o-

The Sigh

Little head against my shoulder,

Shy at first, then somewhat bolder,

And up-eyed;

Till she, with a timid quaver,

Yielded to the kiss I gave her;

But, she sighed.

That there mingled with her feeling

Some sad thought she was concealing

It implied.

- Not that she had ceased to love me,

None on earth she set above me;

But she sighed.

She could not disguise a passion,

Dread, or doubt, in weakest fashion

If she tried:

Nothing seemed to hold us sundered,

Hearts were victors; so I wondered

Why she sighed.

Afterwards I knew her throughly,

And she loved me staunchly, truly,

Till she died;

But she never made confession

Why, at that first sweet concession,

She had sighed.

It was in our May, remember;

And though now I near November,

And abide

Till my appointed change, unfretting,

Sometimes I sit half regretting

That she sighed.

-o0o-

The Robin

When up aloft

I fly and fly,

I see in pools

The shining sky,

And a happy bird

Am I, am I!

When I descend

Towards their brink

I stand, and look,

And stoop, and drink,

And bathe my wings,

And chink and prink.

When winter frost

Makes earth as steel

I search and search

But find no meal,

And most unhappy

Then I feel.

But when it lasts,

And snows still fall,

I get to feel

No grief at all,

For I turn to a cold stiff

Feathery ball!

-o0o-

The Voice

Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me, 

Saying that now you are not as you were 

When you had changed from the one who was all to me, 

But as at first, when our day was fair. 

Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then, 

Standing as when I drew near to the town 

Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then, 

Even to the original air-blue gown! 

Or is it only the breeze, in its listlessness 

Travelling across the wet mead to me here, 

You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness, 

Heard no more again far or near? 

Thus I; faltering forward, 

Leaves around me falling, 

Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward, 

And the woman calling.

-o0o-

A Gentleman's Second-hand Suit

Here it is hanging in the sun

By the pawn-shop door,

A dress-suit - all its revels done

Of heretofore.

Long drilled to the waltzers' swing and sway,

As its tokens show:

What it has seen, what it could say

If it did but know!

The sleeve bears still a print of powder

Rubbed from her arms

When she warmed up as the notes swelled louder

And livened her charms -

Or rather theirs, for beauties many

Leant there, no doubt,

Leaving these tell-tale traces when he

Spun them about.

Its cut seems rather in bygone style

On looking close,

So it mayn't have bent it for some while

To the dancing pose:

Anyhow, often within its clasp

Fair partners hung,

Assenting to the wearer's grasp

With soft sweet tongue.

Where is, alas, the gentleman

Who wore this suit?

And where are his ladies? Tell none can:

Gossip is mute.

Some of them may forget him quite

Who smudged his sleeve,

Some think of a wild and whirling night

With him, and grieve.

-o0o-

Postponement

Snow-bound in woodland, a mournful word,

Dropt now and then from the bill of a bird,

Reached me on wind-wafts; and thus I heard,

Wearily waiting: -

"I planned her a nest in a leafless tree,

But the passers eyed and twitted me,

And said: 'How reckless a bird is he,

Cheerily mating!'

"Fear-filled, I stayed me till summer-tide,

In lewth of leaves to throne her bride;

But alas! her love for me waned and died,

Wearily waiting.

"Ah, had I been like some I see,

Born to an evergreen nesting-tree,

None had eyed and twitted me,

Cheerily mating!"

-o0o-

By her Aunt's Grave

"Sixpence a week", says the girl to her lover,

"Aunt used to bring me, for she could confide

In me alone, she vowed. 'Twas to cover

The cost of her headstone when she died.

And that was a year ago last June;

I've not yet fixed it. But I must soon."

"And where is the money now, my dear?"

"O, snug in my purse - Aunt was so slow

In saving it - eighty weeks, or near." - 

"Let's spend it," he hints. "For she won't know.

There's a dance to-night at the Load of Hay."

She passively nods. And they go that way.

-o0o-

Throwing a Tree

The two executioners stalk along over the knolls, 

Bearing two axes with heavy heads shining and wide, 

And a long limp two-handled saw toothed for cutting great boles, 

And so they approach the proud tree that bears the death-mark on its side.

Jackets doffed they swing axes and chop away just above ground, 

And the chips fly about and lie white on the moss and fallen leaves; 

Till a broad deep gash in the bark is hewn all the way round, 

And one of them tries to hook upward a rope, which at last he achieves.

The saw then begins, till the top of the tall giant shivers: 

The shivers are seen to grow greater with each cut than before: 

They edge out the saw, tug the rope; but the tree only quivers, 

And kneeling and sawing again, they step back to try pulling once more.

Then, lastly, the living mast sways, further sways: with a shout 

Job and Ike rush aside. Readied the end of its long staying powers 

The tree crashes downward: it shakes all its neighbours throughout, 

And two hundred years' steady growth has been ended in less than two hours.

-o0o-

I Rose up as my Custom is

I rose up as my custom is 

On the eve of All-Souls' day, 

And left my grave for an hour or so 

To call on those I used to know 

Before I passed away. 

I visited my former Love 

As she lay by her husband's side; 

I asked her if life pleased her, now 

She was rid of a poet wrung in brow, 

And crazed with the ills he eyed; 

Who used to drag her here and there 

Wherever his fancies led, 

And point out pale phantasmal things, 

And talk of vain vague purposings 

That she discredited. 

She was quite civil, and replied, 

"Old comrade, is that you? 

Well, on the whole, I like my life. - 

I know I swore I'd be no wife, 

But what was I to do? 

"You see, of all men for my sex 

A poet is the worst; 

Women are practical, and they 

Crave the wherewith to pay their way, 

And slake their social thirst. 

"You were a poet - quite the ideal 

That we all love awhile: 

But look at this man snoring here - 

He's no romantic chanticleer, 

Yet keeps me in good style. 

"He makes no quest into my thoughts, 

But a poet wants to know 

What one has felt from earliest days, 

Why one thought not in other ways, 

And one's Loves of long ago."

Her words benumbed my fond frail ghost; 

The nightmares neighed from their stalls, 

The vampires screeched, the harpies flew, 

And under the dim dawn I withdrew 

To Death's inviolate halls.

-o0o-

To Life

O life with the sad seared face, 

   I weary of seeing thee, 

And thy draggled cloak, and thy hobbling pace, 

   And thy too-forced pleasantry! 

   I know what thou would'st tell 

   Of Death, Time, Destiny - 

I have known it long, and know, too, well 

   What it all means for me. 

   But canst thou not array 

   Thyself in rare disguise, 

And feign like truth, for one mad day, 

   That Earth is Paradise? 

   I'll tune me to the mood, 

   And mumm with thee till eve; 

And maybe what as interlude 

   I feign, I shall believe! 

-o0o-

Everything Comes

"The house is bleak and cold

Built so new for me!

All the winds upon the wold

Search it through for me;

No screening trees abound,

And the curious eyes around

Keep on view for me."

"My Love, I am planting trees

As a screen for you

Both from winds, and eyes that tease

And peer in for you.

Only wait till they have grown,

No such bower will be known

As I mean for you."

"Then I will bear it, Love,

And will wait," she said.

- So, with years, there grew a grove.

"Skill how great!" she said.

"As you wished, Dear?" - "Yes, I see!

But - I'm dying; and for me

'Tis too late," she said.

-o0o-

The Man who Forgot

At a lonely cross where bye-roads met

I sat upon a gate;

I saw the sun decline and set,

And still was fain to wait.

A trotting boy passed up the way

And roused me from my thought;

I called to him, and showed where lay

A spot I shyly sought.

"A summer-house fair stands hidden where

You see the moonlight thrown;

Go, tell me if within it there

A lady sits alone."

He half demurred, but took the track,

And silence held the scene;

I saw his figure rambling back;

I asked him if he had been.

"I went just where you said, but found

No summer-house was there:

Beyond the slope 'tis all bare ground;

Nothing stands anywhere.

"A man asked what my brains were worth;

The house, he said, grew rotten,

And was pulled down before my birth,

And is almost forgotten!"

My right mind woke, and I stood dumb;

Forty years' frost and flower

Had fleeted since I'd used to come

To meet her in that bower.

-o0o-

At Tea

The kettle descants in a cozy drone,

And the young wife looks in her husband's face,

And then at her guest's, and shows in her own

Her sense that she fills an envied place;

And the visiting lady is all abloom,

And says there was never so sweet a room.

And the happy young housewife does not know

That the woman beside her was first his choice,

Till the fates ordained it could not be so. . . .

Betraying nothing in look or voice

The guest sits smiling and sips her tea,

And he throws her a stray glance yearningly.

-o0o-

Looking Across

It is dark in the sky,

And silence is where

Our laughs rang high;

And recall do I

That One is out there.

The dawn is not nigh,

And the trees are bare,

And the waterways sigh

That a year has drawn by,

And Two are out there.

The wind drops to die

Like the phantom of Care

Too frail for a cry,

And heart brings to eye

That Three are out there.

This Life runs dry

That once ran rare

And rosy in dye,

And fleet the days fly,

And Four are out there.

Tired, tired am I

Of this earthly air,

And my wraith asks: Why,

Since these calm lie,

Are not Five out there?

-o0o-

The Torn Letter

I tore your letter into strips

No bigger than the airy feathers

That ducks preen out in changing weathers

Upon the shifting ripple-tips.

In darkness on my bed alone

I seemed to see you in a vision,

And hear you say: "Why this derision

Of one drawn to you, though unknown?"

Yes, eve's quick mood had run its course,

The night had cooled my hasty madness;

I suffered a regretful sadness

Which deepened into real remorse.

I thought what pensive patient days

A soul must know of grain so tender,

How much of good must grace the sender

Of such sweet words in such bright phrase.

Uprising then, as things unpriced

I sought each fragment, patched and mended;

The midnight whitened ere I had ended

And gathered words I had sacrificed.

But some, alas, of those I threw

Were past my search, destroyed for ever:

They were your name and place; and never

Did I regain those clues to you.

I learnt I had missed, by rash unheed,

My track; that, so the Will decided,

In life, death, we should be divided,

And at the sense I ached indeed.

That ache for you, born long ago,

Throbs on; I never could outgrow it.

What a revenge, did you but know it!

But that, thank God, you do not know.

-o0o-

The Photograph

The flame crept up the portrait line by line

As it lay on the coals in the silence of night's profound,

And over the arm's incline,

And along the marge of the silkwork superfine,

And gnawed at the delicate bosom's defenceless round.

Then I vented a cry of hurt, and averted my eyes;

The spectacle was one that I could not bear,

To my deep and sad surprise;

But, compelled to heed, I again looked furtive-wise

Till the flame had eaten her breasts, and mouth, and hair.

"Thank God, she is out of it now!" I said at last,

In a great relief of heart when the thing was done

That had set my soul aghast,

And nothing was left of the picture unsheathed from the past

But the ashen ghost of the card it had figured on.

She was a woman long hid amid packs of years,

She might have been living or dead; she was lost to my sight,

And the deed that had nigh drawn tears

Was done in a casual clearance of life's arrears;

But I felt as if I had put her to death that night! . . .

* * *

- Well; she knew nothing thereof did she survive,

And suffered nothing if numbered among the dead;

Yet - yet - if on earth alive

Did she feel a smart, and with vague strange anguish strive?

If in heaven, did she smile at me sadly and shake her head?

-o0o-

On the Doorstep

The rain imprinted the step's wet shine

With target-circles that quivered and crossed

As I was leaving this porch of mine;

When from within there swelled and paused

A song's sweet note;

And back I turned, and thought,

"Here I'll abide."

The step shines wet beneath the rain,

Which prints its circles as heretofore;

I watch them from the porch again,

But no song-notes within the door

Now call to me

To shun the dripping lea

And forth I stride.

-o0o-

Where the Picnic was

Where we made the fire

In the summer time

Of branch and briar

On the hill to the sea,

I slowly climb

Through winter mire,

And scan and trace

The forsaken place

Quite readily.

Now a cold wind blows,

And the grass is grey,

But the spot still shows

As a burnt circle - aye,

And stick-ends, charred,

Still strew the sward

Whereon I stand,

Last relic of the band

Who came that day!

Yes, I am here

Just as last year,

And the sea breathes brine

From its strange straight line

Up hither, the same

As when we four came.

– But two have wandered far

From this grassy rise

Into urban roar

Where no picnics are,

And one - has shut her eyes

For evermore.

-o0o-

Her Secret

That love's dull smart distressed my heart

He shrewdly learnt to see,

But that I was in love with a dead man

Never suspected he.

He searched for the trace of a pictured face,

He watched each missive come,

And a note that seemed like a love-line

Made him look frozen and glum.

He dogged my feet to the city street,

He followed me to the sea,

But not to the neighbouring churchyard

Did he dream of following me. 

-o0o-

Lament

How she would have loved

A party to-day! -

Bright-hatted and gloved,

With table and tray

And chairs on the lawn

Her smiles would have shone

With welcomings . . . But

She is shut, she is shut

From friendship's spell

In the jailing shell

Of her tiny cell.

Or she would have reigned

At a dinner to-night

With ardours unfeigned,

And a generous delight;

All in her abode

She'd have freely bestowed

On her guests . . . But alas,

She is shut under grass

Where no cups flow,

Powerless to know

That it might be so.

And she would have sought

With a child's eager glance

The shy snowdrops brought

By the new year's advance,

And peered in the rime

Of Candlemas-time

For crocuses . . . chanced

It that she were not tranced

From sights she loved best;

Wholly possessed

By an infinite rest!

And we are here staying

Amid these stale things

Who care not for gaying,

And those junketings

That used so to joy her,

And never to cloy her

As us they cloy! . . . But

She is shut, she is shut

From the cheer of them, dead

To all done and said

In a yew-arched bed.

-o0o-