Song of Hope

O sweet To-morrow! -

After to-day

There will away

This sense of sorrow.

Then let us borrow

Hope, for a gleaming

Soon will be streaming,

Dimmed by no grey -

No grey!

While the winds wing us

Sighs from The Gone,

Nearer to dawn

Minute-beats bring us;

When there will sing us

Larks of a glory

Waiting our story

Further anon -

Anon!

Doff the black token,

Don the red shoon,

Right and retune

Viol-strings broken;

Null the words spoken

In speeches of rueing,

The night cloud is hueing,

To-morrow shines soon -

Shines soon!

-o0o-

The Fallow Deer at the Lonely House

One without looks in to-night

Through the curtain-chink

From the sheet of glistening white;

One without looks in to-night

As we sit and think

By the fender-brink.

We do not discern those eyes

Watching in the snow;

Lit by lamps of rosy dyes

We do not discern those eyes

Wondering, aglow,

Fourfooted, tiptoe.

-o0o-

Middle-aged Enthusiasms

We passed where flag and flower

  Signalled a jocund throng;

  We said: "Go to, the hour

  Is apt!" - and joined the song;

And, kindling, laughed at life and care,

Although we knew no laugh lay there.

  We walked where shy birds stood

  Watching us, wonder-dumb;

  Their friendship met our mood;

  We cried: "We'll often come:

We'll come morn, noon, eve, everywhen!"

- We doubted we should come again.

  We joyed to see strange sheens

  Leap from quaint leaves in shade;

  A secret light of greens

  They'd for their pleasure made.

We said: "We'll set such sorts as these!"

- We knew with night the wish would cease.

  "So sweet the place," we said,

  "Its tacit tales so dear,

  Our thoughts, when breath has sped,

  Will meet and mingle here!" . . .

"Words!" mused we. "Passed the mortal door,

Our thoughts will reach this nook no more."

-o0o-

The Fiddler

The fiddler knows what's brewing

To the lilt of his lyric wiles:

The fiddler knows what rueing

Will come of this night's smiles!

He sees couples join them for dancing,

And afterwards joining for life,

He sees them pay high for their prancing

By a welter of wedded strife.

He twangs: "Music hails from the devil,

Though vaunted to come from heaven,

For it makes people do at a revel

What multiplies sins by seven.

"There's many a heart now mangled,

And waiting its time to go,

Whose tendrils were first entangled

By my sweet viol and bow!"

-o0o-

We sat at the Window

We sat at the window looking out,

And the rain came down like silken strings

That Swithin's day. Each gutter and spout

Babbled unchecked in the busy way

Of witless things:

Nothing to read, nothing to see

Seemed in that room for her and me

On Swithin's day.

We were irked by the scene, by our own selves; yes,

For I did not know, nor did she infer

How much there was to read and guess

By her in me, and to see and crown

By me in her.

Wasted were two souls in their prime,

And great was the waste, that July time

When the rain came down.

-o0o-

Paying Calls

I went by footpath and by stile

    Beyond where bustle ends,

Strayed here a mile and there a mile

    And called upon some friends.

On certain ones I had not seen

    For years past did I call,

And then on others who had been

    The oldest friends of all.

It was the time of midsummer

    When they had used to roam;

But now, though tempting was the air,

    I found them all at home.

I spoke to one and other of them

    By mound and stone and tree

Of things we had done ere days were dim,

    But they spoke not to me.

-o0o-

Autumn in King's Hintock Park

Here by the baring bough

   Raking up leaves,

Often I ponder how

   Springtime deceives, -

I, an old woman now,

   Raking up leaves.

Here in the avenue

   Raking up leaves,

Lords' ladies pass in view,

   Until one heaves

Sighs at life's russet hue,

   Raking up leaves!

Just as my shape you see

   Raking up leaves,

I saw, when fresh and free,

   Those memory weaves

Into grey ghosts by me,

   Raking up leaves.

Yet, Dear, though one may sigh,

   Raking up leaves,

New leaves will dance on high -

   Earth never grieves! -

Will not, when missed am I

   Raking up leaves.

-o0o-