The Woman in the Rye

Why do you stand in the dripping rye,

Cold-lipped, unconscious, wet to the knee,

When there are firesides near?" said I.

"I told him I wished him dead," said she.

"Yea, cried it in my haste to one

Whom I had loved, whom I well loved still;

And die he did. And I hate the sun,

And stand here lonely, aching, chill;

"Stand waiting, waiting under skies

That blow reproach, the while I see

The rooks sheer off to where he lies

Wrapt in a peace withheld from me."

-o0o-

I need not go

I need not go

Through sleet and snow

To where I know

She waits for me;

She will wait me there

Till I find it fair,

And have time to spare

From company.

When I've overgot

The world somewhat,

When things cost not

Such stress and strain,

Is soon enough

By cypress sough

To tell my Love

I am come again.

And if some day,

When none cries nay,

I still delay

To seek her side,

(Though ample measure

Of fitting leisure

Await my pleasure)

She will riot chide.

What - not upbraid me

That I delayed me,

Nor ask what stayed me

So long? Ah, no! -

New cares may claim me,

New loves inflame me,

She will not blame me,

But suffer it so.

-o0o-

Wagtail and Baby

A baby watched a ford, whereto

   A wagtail came for drinking;

A blaring bull went wading through,

   The wagtail showed no shrinking.

A stallion splashed his way across,

   The birdie nearly sinking;

He gave his plumes a twitch and toss,

   And held his own unblinking.

Next saw the baby round the spot

   A mongrel slowly slinking;

The wagtail gazed, but faltered not

   In dip and sip and prinking.

A perfect gentleman then neared;

   The wagtail, in a winking,

With terror rose and disappeared;

   The baby fell a-thinking.

-o0o-

On a discovered curl of hair

When your soft welcomings were said,

This curl was waving on your head,

And when we walked where breakers dinned

It sported in the sun and wind,

And when I had won your words of grace

It brushed and clung about my face.

Then, to abate the misery

Of absentness, you gave it me.

Where are its fellows now?  Ah, they

For brightest brown have donned a grey,

And gone into a caverned ark,

Ever unopened, always dark!

Yet this one curl, untouched of time,

Beams with live brown as in its prime,

So that it seems I even could now

Restore it to the living brow

By bearing down the western road

Till I had reached your old abode.

-o0o-

A Meeting with Despair

As evening shaped I found me on a moor

   Which sight could scarce sustain:

The black lean land, of featureless contour,

   Was like a tract in pain.

"This scene, like my own life," I said, "is one

   Where many glooms abide;

Toned by its fortune to a deadly dun -

   Lightless on every side."

I glanced aloft and halted, pleasure-caught

   To see the contrast there:

The ray-lit clouds gleamed glory; and I thought,

   "There's solace everywhere!"

Then bitter self-reproaches as I stood

   I dealt me silently

As one perverse - misrepresenting Good

   In graceless mutiny.

Against the horizon's dim-discerned wheel

   A form rose, strange of mould:

That he was hideous, hopeless, I could feel

   Rather than could behold.

"'Tis a dead spot, where even the light lies spent

   To darkness!" croaked the Thing.

"Not if you look aloft!" said I, intent

   On my new reasoning.

 "Yea - but await awhile!" he cried.  "Ho-ho! -

   Look now aloft and see!"

I looked.  There, too, sat night:  Heaven's radiant show

   Had gone.  Then chuckled he.

-o0o-

The Wedding Morning

  Tabitha dressed for her wedding:-

   "Tabby, why look so sad?"

"- O I feel a great gloominess spreading, spreading,

   Instead of supremely glad! . . .

   "I called on Carry last night,

   And he came whilst I was there,

Not knowing I'd called.  So I kept out of sight,

   And I heard what he said to her:

   "- Ah, I'd far liefer marry

   YOU, Dear, tomorrow!" he said,

"But that cannot be." O I'd give him to Carry,

   And willingly see them wed,

   But how can I do it when

   His baby will soon be born?

After that I hope I may die.  And then

   She can have him.  I shall not mourn!"

-o0o-

I was the Midmost of my World

I was the midmost of my world

   When first I frisked me free,

For though within its circuit gleamed

   But a small company,

And I was immature, they seemed

   To bend their looks on me.

She was the midmost of my world

   When I went further forth,

And hence it was that, whether I turned

   To south, east, west, or north,

Beams of an all-day Polestar burned

   From that new axe of earth.

Where now is midmost in my world?

   I trace it not at all:

No midmost shows it here, or there,

   When wistful voices call

"We are fain!  We are fain!" from everywhere

   On Earth's bewildering ball!

-o0o-