This branch may be his wife, A ruddy human life Now turned to a green shoot.
These grasses must be made Of her who often prayed, Last century, for repose;And the fair girl long ago Whom I often tried to know May be entering this rose.
So, they are not underground, But as nerves and veins abound In the growths of upper air, And they feel the sun and rain, And the energy again That made them what they were!
IN HER PRECINCTS
Her house looked cold from the foggy lea, And the square of each window a dull black blur Where showed no stir:
Yes, her gloom within at the lack of me Seemed matching mine at the lack of her.
The black squares grew to be squares of light As the eyeshade swathed the house and lawn, And viols gave tone;There was glee within. And I found that night The gloom of severance mine alone.
KINGSTON-MAURWARD PARK.
THE LAST SIGNAL
(Oct. 11, 1886)
A MEMORY OF WILLIAM BARNES
Silently I footed by an uphill road That led from my abode to a spot yew-boughed;Yellowly the sun sloped low down to westward, And dark was the east with cloud.
Then, amid the shadow of that livid sad east, Where the light was least, and a gate stood wide, Something flashed the fire of the sun that was facing it, Like a brief blaze on that side.
Looking hard and harder I knew what it meant -The sudden shine sent from the livid east scene;It meant the west mirrored by the coffin of my friend there, Turning to the road from his green, To take his last journey forth--he who in his prime Trudged so many a time from that gate athwart the land!
Thus a farewell to me he signalled on his grave-way, As with a wave of his hand.
WINTERBORNE-CAME PATH.
THE HOUSE OF SILENCE
"That is a quiet place -
That house in the trees with the shady lawn.""--If, child, you knew what there goes on You would not call it a quiet place.
Why, a phantom abides there, the last of its race, And a brain spins there till dawn.""But I see nobody there, -
Nobody moves about the green, Or wanders the heavy trees between.""--Ah, that's because you do not bear The visioning powers of souls who dare To pierce the material screen.
"Morning, noon, and night, Mid those funereal shades that seem The uncanny scenery of a dream, Figures dance to a mind with sight, And music and laughter like floods of light Make all the precincts gleam.
"It is a poet's bower, Through which there pass, in fleet arrays, Long teams of all the years and days, Of joys and sorrows, of earth and heaven, That meet mankind in its ages seven, An aion in an hour."GREAT THINGS
Sweet cyder is a great thing, A great thing to me, Spinning down to Weymouth town By Ridgway thirstily, And maid and mistress summoning Who tend the hostelry:
O cyder is a great thing, A great thing to me!
The dance it is a great thing, A great thing to me, With candles lit and partners fit For night-long revelry;And going home when day-dawning Peeps pale upon the lea:
O dancing is a great thing, A great thing to me!
Love is, yea, a great thing, A great thing to me, When, having drawn across the lawn In darkness silently, A figure flits like one a-wing Out from the nearest tree:
O love is, yes, a great thing, A great thing to me!
Will these be always great things, Great things to me? . . .
Let it befall that One will call, "Soul, I have need of thee:"What then? Joy-jaunts, impassioned flings, Love, and its ecstasy, Will always have been great things, Great things to me!
THE CHIMES
That morning when I trod the town The twitching chimes of long renown Played out to me The sweet Sicilian sailors' tune, And I knew not if late or soon My day would be:
A day of sunshine beryl-bright And windless; yea, think as I might, I could not say, Even to within years' measure, when One would be at my side who then Was far away.
When hard utilitarian times Had stilled the sweet Saint-Peter's chimes I learnt to see That bale may spring where blisses are, And one desired might be afar Though near to me.
THE FIGURE IN THE SCENE
It pleased her to step in front and sit Where the cragged slope was green, While I stood back that I might pencil it With her amid the scene;Till it gloomed and rained;
But I kept on, despite the drifting wet That fell and stained My draught, leaving for curious quizzings yet The blots engrained.
And thus I drew her there alone, Seated amid the gauze Of moisture, hooded, only her outline shown, With rainfall marked across.
--Soon passed our stay;
Yet her rainy form is the Genius still of the spot, Immutable, yea, Though the place now knows her no more, and has known her not Ever since that day.
From an old note.
"WHY DID I SKETCH"
Why did I sketch an upland green, And put the figure in Of one on the spot with me? -For now that one has ceased to be seen The picture waxes akin To a wordless irony.
If you go drawing on down or cliff Let no soft curves intrude Of a woman's silhouette, But show the escarpments stark and stiff As in utter solitude;So shall you half forget.
Let me sooner pass from sight of the sky Than again on a thoughtless day Limn, laugh, and sing, and rhyme With a woman sitting near, whom IPaint in for love, and who may Be called hence in my time!
From an old note.
CONJECTURE
If there were in my kalendar No Emma, Florence, Mary, What would be my existence now -A hermit's?--wanderer's weary? -
How should I live, and how Near would be death, or far?
Could it have been that other eyes Might have uplit my highway?
That fond, sad, retrospective sight Would catch from this dim byway Prized figures different quite From those that now arise?
With how strange aspect would there creep The dawn, the night, the daytime, If memory were not what it is In song-time, toil, or pray-time. -O were it else than this, I'd pass to pulseless sleep!
THE BLOW
That no man schemed it is my hope -
Yea, that it fell by will and scope Of That Which some enthrone, And for whose meaning myriads grope.
For I would not that of my kind There should, of his unbiassed mind, Have been one known Who such a stroke could have designed;Since it would augur works and ways Below the lowest that man assays To have hurled that stone Into the sunshine of our days!
