Part 19

Tired, tired am I Of this earthly air, And my wraith asks: Why, Since these calm lie, Are not Five out there?

December 1915.

AT A SEASIDE TOWN IN 1869 (Young Lover’s Reverie)

I WENT and stood outside myself, Spelled the dark sky And ship-lights nigh, And grumbling winds that passed thereby.

Then next inside myself I looked, And there, above All, shone my Love, That nothing matched the image of.

Beyond myself again I ranged; And saw the free Life by the sea, And folk indifferent to me.

O ’twas a charm to draw within Thereafter, where But she was; care For one thing only, her hid there!

But so it chanced, without myself I had to look, And then I took More heed of what I had long forsook:

The boats, the sands, the esplanade, The laughing crowd; Light-hearted, loud Greetings from some not ill-endowed;

The evening sunlit cliffs, the talk, Hailings and halts, The keen sea-salts, The band, the Morgenblätter Waltz.

Still, when at night I drew inside Forward she came, Sad, but the same As when I first had known her name.

Then rose a time when, as by force, Outwardly wooed By contacts crude, Her image in abeyance stood . . .

At last I said: This outside life Shall not endure; I’ll seek the pure Thought-world, and bask in her allure.

Myself again I crept within, Scanned with keen care The temple where She’d shone, but could not find her there.

I sought and sought. But O her soul Has not since thrown Upon my own One beam! Yea, she is gone, is gone.

From an old note.

THE GLIMPSE

SHE sped through the door And, following in haste, And stirred to the core, I entered hot-faced; But I could not find her, No sign was behind her. “Where is she?” I said: —“Who?” they asked that sat there; “Not a soul’s come in sight.” —“A maid with red hair.” —“Ah.” They paled. “She is dead. People see her at night, But you are the first On whom she has burst In the keen common light.”

It was ages ago, When I was quite strong: I have waited since,—O, I have waited so long! —Yea, I set me to own The house, where now lone I dwell in void rooms Booming hollow as tombs! But I never come near her, Though nightly I hear her. And my cheek has grown thin And my hair has grown gray With this waiting therein; But she still keeps away!

THE PEDESTRIAN AN INCIDENT OF 1883

“SIR, will you let me give you a ride? Nox Venit, and the heath is wide.” —My phaeton-lantern shone on one Young, fair, even fresh, But burdened with flesh: A leathern satchel at his side, His breathings short, his coat undone.

’Twas as if his corpulent figure slopped With the shake of his walking when he stopped, And, though the night’s pinch grew acute, He wore but a thin Wind-thridded suit, Yet well-shaped shoes for walking in, Artistic beaver, cane gold-topped.

“Alas, my friend,” he said with a smile, “I am daily bound to foot ten mile— Wet, dry, or dark—before I rest. Six months to live My doctors give Me as my prospect here, at best, Unless I vamp my sturdiest!”

His voice was that of a man refined, A man, one well could feel, of mind, Quite winning in its musical ease; But in mould maligned By some disease; And I asked again. But he shook his head; Then, as if more were due, he said:—

“A student was I—of Schopenhauer, Kant, Hegel,—and the fountained bower Of the Muses, too, knew my regard: But ah—I fear me The grave gapes near me! . . . Would I could this gross sheath discard, And rise an ethereal shape, unmarred!”

How I remember him!—his short breath, His aspect, marked for early death, As he dropped into the night for ever; One caught in his prime Of high endeavour; From all philosophies soon to sever Through an unconscienced trick of Time!

“WHO’S IN THE NEXT ROOM?”

“WHO’S in the next room?—who? I seemed to see Somebody in the dawning passing through, Unknown to me.” “Nay: you saw nought. He passed invisibly.”