THE SELF-UNSEEING

Here is the ancient floor,

Footworn and hollowed and thin,

Here was the former door

Where the dead feet walked in.

She sat here in her chair,

Smiling into the fire;

He who played stood there,

Bowing it higher and higher.

Childlike, I danced in a dream;

Blessings emblazoned that day;

Everything glowed with a gleam;

Yet we were looking away! 

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LIFE LAUGHS ONWARD

Rambling I looked for an old abode

Where, years back, one had lived I knew;

Its site a dwelling duly showed,

But it was new.

I went where, not so long ago,

The sod had riven two breasts asunder;

Daisies throve gaily there, as though

No grave were under.

I walked along a terrace where

Loud children gambolled in the sun;

The figure that had once sat there

Was missed by none.

Life laughed and moved on unsubdued,

I saw that Old succumbed to Young:

'Twas well. My too regretful mood

Died on my tongue.

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FETCHING HER

An hour before the dawn,

         My friend,

You lit your waiting bedside-lamp,

   Your breakfast-fire anon,

And outing into the dark and damp

   You saddled, and set on.

   Thuswise, before the day,

         My friend,

You sought her on her surfy shore,

   To fetch her thence away

Unto your own new-builded door

   For a staunch lifelong stay.

   You said:  "It seems to be,

         My friend,

That I were bringing to my place

   The pure brine breeze, the sea,

The mews - all her old sky and space,

   In bringing her with me!"

  - But time is prompt to expugn,

         My friend,

Such magic-minted conjurings:

   The brought breeze fainted soon,

And then the sense of seamews' wings,

   And the shore's sibilant tune.

   So, it had been more due,

         My friend,

Perhaps, had you not pulled this flower

   From the craggy nook it knew,

And set it in an alien bower;

   But left it where it grew!

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THE AGEING HOUSE

When the walls were red

  That now are seen

   To be overspread

    With a mouldy green,

     A fresh fair head

     Would often lean

    From the sunny casement

       And scan the scene,

   While blithely spoke the wind to the little sycamore tree.

      But storms have raged

       Those walls about,

       And the head has aged

        That once looked out;

        And zest is suaged

        And trust is doubt,

        And slow effacement

         Is rife throughout,

   While fiercely girds the wind at the long-limbed sycamore tree!

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JULIE-JANE 

Sing; how 'a would sing!

How 'a would raise the tune

When we rode in the wagon from harvesting

By the light o' the moon!

Dance; how 'a would dance!

If a fiddlestring did but sound

She would hold out her coats, give a slanting glance,

And go round and round.

Laugh; how 'a would laugh!

Her peony lips would part

As if none such a place for a lover to quaff

At the deeps of a heart.

Julie, O girl of joy,

Soon, soon that lover he came.

Ah, yes; and gave thee a baby-boy,

But never his name . . .

- Tolling for her, as you guess;

And the baby too . . . 'Tis well.

You knew her in maidhood likewise? - Yes,

That's her burial bell.

"I suppose," with a laugh, she said,

"I should blush that I'm not a wife;

But how can it matter, so soon to be dead,

What one does in life!"

When we sat making the mourning

By her death-bed side, said she,

"Dears, how can you keep from your lovers, adorning

In honour of me!"

Bubbling and brightsome eyed!

But now - O never again.

She chose her bearers before she died

From her fancy-men.

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The new blog 

PICTURES TO PLEASE

begins today

picturestoplease.blogspot.com

and then will be updated every Saturday

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IN THE RESTAURANT

"But hear. If you stay, and the child be born,

It will pass as your husband's with the rest,

While, if we fly, the teeth of scorn

Will be gleaming at us from east to west;

And the child will come as a life despised;

I feel an elopement is ill-advised!"

"O you realize not what it is, my dear,

To a woman! Daily and hourly alarms

Lest the truth should out. How can I stay here,

And nightly take him into my arms!

Come to the child no name or fame,

Let us go, and face it, and bear the shame."

126

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I AM THE ONE.

I am the one whom ringdoves see

Through chinks in boughs

When they do not rouse

In sudden dread,

But stay on cooing, as if they said:

‘Oh; it's only he.’

I am the passer when up-eared hares,

Stirred as they eat

The new-sprung wheat,

Their munch resume

As if they thought; ‘He is one for whom

Nobody cares.’

Wet-eyed mourners glance at me

As in train they pass

Along the grass

To a hollowed spot,

And think: ‘No matter; he quizzes not

Our misery.’

I hear above: ‘We stars must lend

No fierce regard

To his gaze, so hard

Bent on us thus,—

Must scathe him not. He is one with us

Beginning and end.’

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