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-