第18章

The rain imprinted the step's wet shine With target-circles that quivered and crossed As I was leaving this porch of mine;When from within there swelled and paused A song's sweet note;And back I turned, and thought, "Here I'll abide."The step shines wet beneath the rain, Which prints its circles as heretofore;I watch them from the porch again, But no song-notes within the door Now call to me To shun the dripping lea And forth I stride.

Jan. 1914.

SIGNS AND TOKENS

Said the red-cloaked crone In a whispered moan:

"The dead man was limp When laid in his chest;Yea, limp; and why But to signify That the grave will crimp Ere next year's sun Yet another one Of those in that house -It may be the best -

For its endless drowse!"

Said the brown-shawled dame To confirm the same:

"And the slothful flies On the rotting fruit Have been seen to wear While crawling there Crape scarves, by eyes That were quick and acute;As did those that had pitched On the cows by the pails, And with flaps of their tails Were far away switched."Said the third in plaid, Each word being weighed:

"And trotting does In the park, in the lane, And just outside The shuttered pane, Have also been heard -Quick feet as light As the feet of a sprite -And the wise mind knows What things may betide When such has occurred."Cried the black-craped fourth, Cold faced as the north:

"O, though giving such Some head-room, I smile At your falterings When noting those things Round your domicile!

For what, what can touch One whom, riven of all That makes life gay, No hints can appal Of more takings away!"PATHS OF FORMER TIME

No; no;

It must not be so:

They are the ways we do not go.

Still chew The kine, and moo In the meadows we used to wander through;Still purl The rivulets and curl Towards the weirs with a musical swirl;Haymakers As in former years Rake rolls into heaps that the pitchfork rears;Wheels crack On the turfy track The waggon pursues with its toppling pack.

"Why then shun -

Since summer's not done -

All this because of the lack of one?"

Had you been Sharer of that scene You would not ask while it bites in keen Why it is so We can no more go By the summer paths we used to know!

1913.

THE CLOCK OF THE YEARS

"A spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up."And the Spirit said, "I can make the clock of the years go backward, But am loth to stop it where you will."And I cried, "Agreed To that. Proceed:

It's better than dead!"

He answered, "Peace";

And called her up--as last before me;

Then younger, younger she freshed, to the year I first had known Her woman-grown, And I cried, "Cease! -"Thus far is good -

It is enough--let her stay thus always!"

But alas for me. He shook his head:

No stop was there;

And she waned child-fair, And to babyhood.

Still less in mien To my great sorrow became she slowly, And smalled till she was nought at all In his checkless griff;And it was as if She had never been.

"Better," I plained, "She were dead as before! The memory of her Had lived in me; but it cannot now!"And coldly his voice:

"It was your choice To mar the ordained."1916.

AT THE PIANO

A woman was playing, A man looking on;

And the mould of her face, And her neck, and her hair, Which the rays fell upon Of the two candles there, Sent him mentally straying In some fancy-place Where pain had no trace.

A cowled Apparition Came pushing between;And her notes seemed to sigh, And the lights to burn pale, As a spell numbed the scene.

But the maid saw no bale, And the man no monition;And Time laughed awry, And the Phantom hid nigh.

THE SHADOW ON THE STONE

I went by the Druid stone That broods in the garden white and lone, And I stopped and looked at the shifting shadows That at some moments fall thereon From the tree hard by with a rhythmic swing, And they shaped in my imagining To the shade that a well-known head and shoulders Threw there when she was gardening.

I thought her behind my back, Yea, her I long had learned to lack, And I said: "I am sure you are standing behind me, Though how do you get into this old track?"And there was no sound but the fall of a leaf As a sad response; and to keep down grief I would not turn my head to discover That there was nothing in my belief.

Yet I wanted to look and see That nobody stood at the back of me;But I thought once more: "Nay, I'll not unvision A shape which, somehow, there may be."So I went on softly from the glade, And left her behind me throwing her shade, As she were indeed an apparition -My head unturned lest my dream should fade.

Begun 1913: finished 1916.

IN THE GARDEN

(M. H.)

We waited for the sun To break its cloudy prison (For day was not yet done, And night still unbegun)Leaning by the dial.

After many a trial -

We all silent there -

It burst as new-arisen, Throwing a shade to where Time travelled at that minute.

Little saw we in it, But this much I know, Of lookers on that shade, Her towards whom it made Soonest had to go.

1915.

THE TREE AND THE LADY

I have done all I could For that lady I knew! Through the heats I have shaded her, Drawn to her songsters when summer has jaded her, Home from the heath or the wood.

At the mirth-time of May, When my shadow first lured her, I'd donned my new bravery Of greenth: 'twas my all. Now I shiver in slavery, Icicles grieving me gray.

Plumed to every twig's end I could tempt her chair under me. Much did I treasure her During those days she had nothing to pleasure her;Mutely she used me as friend.

I'm a skeleton now, And she's gone, craving warmth. The rime sticks like a skin to me;Through me Arcturus peers; Nor'lights shoot into me;Gone is she, scorning my bough!

AN UPBRAIDING

Now I am dead you sing to me The songs we used to know, But while I lived you had no wish Or care for doing so.

Now I am dead you come to me In the moonlight, comfortless;Ah, what would I have given alive To win such tenderness!

When you are dead, and stand to me Not differenced, as now, But like again, will you be cold As when we lived, or how?

THE YOUNG GLASS-STAINER