THE NIGHT OF TRAFALGAR

In the wild October night-time, when the wind raved round the

    land,

And the Back-sea met the front-sea, and our doors were blocked

    with sand,

And we heard the drub of dead-man's bay, where the bones of

  thousands are,

We knew not what the day had done for us at Trafalgar.

       Had done,

       Had done,

      For us at Trafalgar!

'Pull hard, and make the north, or down we go!' One says,

    says he.

We pulled; and bedtime brought the storm; but snug at home

  slept we.

Yet all the while our gallants after fighting through the day,

Were beating up and down the dark, sou'west of Cadiz Bay.

      The dark,

      The dark,

        Sou'west of Cadiz Bay!

The victors and the vanquished then the storm it tossed and tore,

As hard they strove, those worn-out men, upon that surly shore;

Dead Nelson and his half dead crew, his foes from near and far,

Were rolled together on the deep that night at Trafalgar!

        The deep,

        The deep,

          That night at Trafalgar!

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AN AUGUST MIDNIGHT

A shaded lamp and a waving blind,

And the beat of a clock from a distant floor:

On this scene enter - winged, horned, and spined -

A longlegs, a moth, and a dumbledore;

While 'mid my page there idly stands

A sleepy fly, that rubs its hands . . .

Thus meet we five, in this still place,

At this point of time, at this point in space.

- My guests besmear my new-penned line,

Or bang at the lamp and fall supine.

"God's humblest, they!" I muse. Yet why?

They know Earth-secrets that know not I. 

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THE STRANGE HOUSE

I hear the piano playing--

   Just as a ghost might play."

"--O, but what are you saying?

   There's no piano to-day;

Their old one was sold and broken;

   Years past it went amiss."

"--I heard it, or shouldn't have spoken:

      A strange house, this!

"I catch some undertone here,

   From some one out of sight."

"--Impossible; we are alone here,

   And shall be through the night."

"--The parlour-door--what stirred it?"

   "--No one:  no soul's in range."

"--But, anyhow, I heard it,

      And it seems strange!

"Seek my own room I cannot--

   A figure is on the stair!"

"--What figure?  Nay, I scan not

   Any one lingering there.

A bough outside is waving,

   And that's its shade by the moon."

"--Well, all is strange!  I am craving

      Strength to leave soon."

"--Ah, maybe you've some vision

   Of showings beyond our sphere;

Some sight, sense, intuition

   Of what once happened here?

The house is old; they've hinted

   It once held two love-thralls,

And they may have imprinted

      Their dreams on its walls?

"They were--I think 'twas told me--

   Queer in their works and ways;

The teller would often hold me

   With weird tales of those days.

Some folk can not abide here,

   But we--we do not care

Who loved, laughed, wept, or died here,

      Knew joy, or despair."

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-

SIDE BY SIDE

So there sat they,

The estranged two,

Thrust in one pew

By chance that day;

Placed so, breath-nigh,

Each comer unwitting

Who was to be sitting

In touch close by.

Thus side by side

Blindly alighted,

They seemed united

As groom and bride,

Who'd not communed

For many years -

Lives from twain spheres

With hearts distuned.

Her fringes brushed

His garment's hem

As the harmonies rushed

Through each of them:

Her lips could be heard

In the creed and psalms,

And their fingers neared

At the giving of alms.

And women and men,

The matins ended,

By looks commended

Them, joined again.

Quickly said she,

"Don't undeceive them -

Better thus leave them:"

"Quite so," said he.

Slight words! the last

Between them said,

Those two, once wed,

Who had not stood fast.

Diverse their ways

From the western door,

To meet no more

In their span of days.

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AT THE DRAPER'S

'I stood at the back of the shop, my dear,
But you did not perceive me.
Well, when they deliver what you were shown
I shall know nothing of it, believe me!'
And he coughed and coughed as she paled and said,
'O, I didn't see you come in there--
Why couldn't you speak?--'Well, I didn't. I left
That you should not notice I'd been there.
'You were viewing some lovely things. "Soon required
For a widow, of latest fashion;"
And I knew 'twould upset you to meet the man
Who had to be cold and ashen
And screwed in a box before they could dress you
"In the latest new note in mourning,"
As they defined it. So, not to distress you,
I left you to your adorning.'

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MAD JUDY

When the hamlet hailed a birth

Judy used to cry:

When she heard our christening mirth

She would kneel and sigh.

She was crazed, we knew, and we

Humoured her infirmity.

When the daughters and the sons

Gathered them to wed,

And we like-intending ones

Danced till dawn was red,

She would rock and mutter, "More

Comers to this stony shore!"

When old Headsman Death laid hands

On a babe or twain,

She would feast, and by her brands

Sing her songs again.

What she liked we let her do,

Judy was insane, we knew.

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DRUMMER HODGE

They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest

Uncoffined - just as found:

His landmark is a kopje-crest

That breaks the veldt around:

And foreign constellations west

Each night above his mound.

Young Hodge the drummer never knew -

Fresh from his Wessex home -

The meaning of the broad Karoo,

The Bush, the dusty loam,

And why uprose to nightly view

Strange stars amid the gloam.

Yet portion of that unknown plain

Will Hodge for ever be;

His homely Northern breast and brain

Grow to some Southern tree,

And strange-eyed constellations reign

His stars eternally. 

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