Part 20

I gaze from my Grandfather's terrace wall, And then I bethink me how once I stept Through rooms where my Mother had blest me, and wept To yield them to strangers, and part with them all.

My Father, like Matthew the publican, ceased Full early from hoarding with stainless mind, To Torrington only and home inclined, Where brotherhood, cousinhood, graced his feast.

I meet his remembrance in market lane, 'Neath town-hall pillars and churchyard limes, In streets where he tried a thousand times To chasten anger and soften pain.

Ah I would there were some one that I could aid, Though lacking the simpleness, lacking the worth, Yet wanted and trusted by right of birth, Some townfellow stripling, some Torrington maid.

Oh pitiful waste! oh stubborn neglect! Oh pieties smothered for thirty years! Oh gleanings of kindness in dreams and tears! Oh drift cast up from a manhood wrecked!

There's one merry maiden hath carelessly crossed The threshold I dread, and she never discerns In keepsakes she thanks me for, lessons she learns, A sign of the grace that I squandered and lost.

My birthplace to Meg is but window and stone, My knowledge a wilderness where she can stray, To keep what she gathers or throw it away; So Meg lets me laugh with her, mourning alone.

A FELLOW PASSENGER UNKNOWN

Maiden, hastening to be wise, Maiden, reading with a rage, Envy fluttereth round the page Whereupon thy downward eyes Rove and rest, and melt maybe-- Virgin eyes one may not see, Gathering as the bee Takes from cherry tree; As the robin's bill Frets the window sill, Maiden, bird, and bee, Three from me half hid, Doing what we did When our minds were free.

Those romantic pages wist What romance is in the look. Oh, that I could be so bold, So romantic as to bold Half an hour the pensive wrist, And the burden of the book.

NUREMBERG CEMETERY

Outside quaint Albert Durer's town, Where Freedom set her stony crown, Whereof the gables red and brown Curve over peaceful forts that screen Spring bloom and garden lanes between The scarp and counter-scarp. Her feet One highday of Saint Paraclete Were led along the dolorous street By stepping stones towards love and heaven And pauses of the soul twice seven.

Beneath the flowerless trees, where May, Proud of her orchards' fine array, Abates her claim and holds no sway, Past iron tombs, the useless shields Of cousins slain in Elsass fields, The girl, with fair neck meekly bowed.

Mores bravely through a sauntering crowd, Hastening, as she was bid, to breathe Above the breathless, and enwreathe, With pansies earned by spinster thrift, And lillybells, a wooer's gift, A stone which glimmers in the shade Of yonder silent colonnade, Over against the slates that hold Marie in lines of slender gold, A token wrought by fictive fingers, A garland, last year's offering, lingers, Hung out of reach, and facing north. And lo! thereout a wren flies forth, And Gertrude, straining on toetips, Just touches with her prayerful lips The warm home which a bird unskilled In grief and hope knows how to build.

The maid can mourn, but not the wren. Birds die, death's shade belongs to men.

1877.

MORTAL THING NOT WHOLLY CLAY

J'aurai passe sur la terre, N'ayant rien aime que l'amour.

Mortal thing not wholly clay, Mellowing only to decay, Speak, for airs of spring unfold Wistful sorrows long untold.

Under a poplar turning green, Say for age that seems so bold, Oh, the saddest words to say, "This might have been."

Twenty, thirty years ago-- Woe, woe, the seasons flow-- Beatings of a zephyr's plume Might have broken down the doom.

Gossamer scruples fell between Thee and this that might have been; Now the clinging cobwebs grow; Ah! the saddest loss is this, A good maid's kiss.

Soon, full soon, they will be here, Twisting withies for the bier; Under a heathen yew-tree's shade Will a wasted heart be laid-- Heart that never dared be dear.

Leave it so, to lie unblest, Priest of love, just half confessed.

A SICK FRENCH POET'S ENGLISH FRIENDS

When apple buds began to swell, And Procne called for Philomel, Down there, where Seine caresseth sea Two lassies deigned, or chanced, to be Playmates or votaries for me, Miss Euphrasie, Miss Eulalie.

Then dates of birth dropt out of mind, For one was brave as two were kind; In cheerful vigil one designed A maze of wit for two to wind; And that grey Muse who served the three Broke daylight into reverie.

Peace lit upon a fluttering vein, And, self forgetting, on the brain, On rifts, by passion wrought, again Splashed from the sky of childhood rain; And rid of afterthought were we, And from foreboding sweetly free.