I Thought, My Heart

I thought, my Heart, that you had healed

Of those sore smartings of the past,

And that the summers had oversealed

All mark of them at last.

But closely scanning in the night

I saw them standing crimson-bright

Just as she made them:

Nothing could fade them;

Yea, I can swear

That there they were -

They still were there!

Then the Vision of her who cut them came,

And looking over my shoulder said,

"I am sure you deal me all the blame

For those sharp smarts and red;

But meet me, dearest, to-morrow night,

In the churchyard at the moon's half-height,

And so strange a kiss

Shall be mine, I wis,

That you'll cease to know

If the wounds you show

Be there or no!"

-o0o-

I Said And Sang Her Excellence - Fickle Lover's Song

I said and sang her excellence:

They called it laud undue.

(Have your way, my heart, O!)

Yet what was homage far above

The plain deserts of my olden Love

Proved verity of my new.

"She moves a sylph in picture-land,

Where nothing frosts the air:"

(Have your way, my heart, O!)

"To all winged pipers overhead

She is known by shape and song," I said,

Conscious of licence there.

I sang of her in a dim old hall

Dream-built too fancifully,

(Have your way, my heart, O!)

But lo, the ripe months chanced to lead

My feet to such a hall indeed,

Where stood the very She.

Strange, startling, was it then to learn

I had glanced down unborn time,

(Have your way, my heart, O!)

And prophesied, whereby I knew

That which the years had planned to do

In warranty of my rhyme.

-o0o-

Her Song

I sang that song on Sunday,

To witch an idle while,

I sang that song on Monday,

As fittest to beguile;

I sang it as the year outwore,

And the new slid in;

I thought not what might shape before

Another would begin.

I sang that song in summer,

All unforeknowingly,

To him as a new-comer

From regions strange to me:

I sang it when in afteryears

The shades stretched out,

And paths were faint; and flocking fears

Brought cup-eyed care and doubt.

Sings he that song on Sundays

In some dim land afar,

On Saturdays, or Mondays,

As when the evening star

Glimpsed in upon his bending face

And my hanging hair,

And time untouched me with a trace

Of soul-smart or despair?

-o0o-

Her Dilemma

The two were silent in a sunless church,

Whose mildewed walls, uneven paving-stones,

And wasted carvings passed antique research;

And nothing broke the clock's dull monotones.

Leaning against a wormy poppy-head,

So wan and worn that he could scarcely stand,

- For he was soon to die, he softly said,

"Tell me you love me!" holding hard her hand.

She would have given a world to breathe "yes" truly,

So much his life seemed hanging on her mind,

And hence she lied, her heart persuaded throughly

'Twas worth her soul to be a moment kind.

But the sad need thereof, his nearing death,

So mocked humanity that she shamed to prize

A world conditioned thus, or care for breath

Where Nature such dilemmas could devise.

-o0o-

Her Confession

As some bland soul, to whom a debtor says

"I'll now repay the amount I owe to you,"

In inward gladness feigns forgetfulness

That such a payment ever was his due

(His long thought notwithstanding), so did I

At our last meeting waive your proffered kiss

With quick divergent talk of scenery nigh,

By such suspension to enhance my bliss.

And as his looks in consternation fall

When, gathering that the debt is lightly deemed,

The debtor makes as not to pay at all,

So faltered I, when your intention seemed

Converted by my false uneagerness

To putting off for ever the caress.

-o0o-

Going And Staying

The moving sun-shapes on the spray,

The sparkles where the brook was flowing,

Pink faces, plightings, moonlit May,

These were the things we wished would stay;

But they were going.

Seasons of blankness as of snow,

The silent bleed of a world decaying,

The moan of multitudes in woe,

These were the things we wished would go;

But they were staying.

Then we looked closelier at Time,

And saw his ghostly arms revolving

To sweep off woeful things with prime,

Things sinister with things sublime

Alike dissolving.

-o0o-

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 pass 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.

-o0o-