Part 21

It never looks like summer now Whatever weather’s there; But ah, it cannot anyhow, On Beeny or elsewhere!

BOSCASTLE, March 8, 1913.

EVERYTHING COMES

“THE house is bleak and cold Built so new for me! All the winds upon the wold Search it through for me; No screening trees abound, And the curious eyes around Keep on view for me.”

“My Love, I am planting trees As a screen for you Both from winds, and eyes that tease And peer in for you. Only wait till they have grown, No such bower will be known As I mean for you.”

“Then I will bear it, Love, And will wait,” she said. —So, with years, there grew a grove. “Skill how great!” she said. “As you wished, Dear?”—“Yes, I see! But—I’m dying; and for me ’Tis too late,” she said.

THE MAN WITH A PAST

THERE was merry-making When the first dart fell As a heralding,— Till grinned the fully bared thing, And froze like a spell— Like a spell.

Innocent was she, Innocent was I, Too simple we! Before us we did not see, Nearing, aught wry— Aught wry!

I can tell it not now, It was long ago; And such things cow; But that is why and how Two lives were so— Were so.

Yes, the years matured, And the blows were three That time ensured On her, which she dumbly endured; And one on me— One on me.

HE FEARS HIS GOOD FORTUNE

THERE was a glorious time At an epoch of my prime; Mornings beryl-bespread, And evenings golden-red; Nothing gray: And in my heart I said, “However this chanced to be, It is too full for me, Too rare, too rapturous, rash, Its spell must close with a crash Some day!”

The radiance went on Anon and yet anon, And sweetness fell around Like manna on the ground. “I’ve no claim,” Said I, “to be thus crowned: I am not worthy this:— Must it not go amiss?— Well . . . let the end foreseen Come duly!—I am serene.” —And it came.

HE WONDERS ABOUT HIMSELF

NO use hoping, or feeling vext, Tugged by a force above or under Like some fantocine, much I wonder What I shall find me doing next!

Shall I be rushing where bright eyes be? Shall I be suffering sorrows seven? Shall I be watching the stars of heaven, Thinking one of them looks like thee?

Part is mine of the general Will, Cannot my share in the sum of sources Bend a digit the poise of forces, And a fair desire fulfil?

Nov. 1893.

JUBILATE

“THE very last time I ever was here,” he said, “I saw much less of the quick than I saw of the dead.” —He was a man I had met with somewhere before, But how or when I now could recall no more.

“The hazy mazy moonlight at one in the morning Spread out as a sea across the frozen snow, Glazed to live sparkles like the great breastplate adorning The priest of the Temple, with Urim and Thummim aglow.

“The yew-tree arms, glued hard to the stiff stark air, Hung still in the village sky as theatre-scenes When I came by the churchyard wall, and halted there At a shut-in sound of fiddles and tambourines.

“And as I stood hearkening, dulcimers, haut-boys, and shawms, And violoncellos, and a three-stringed double-bass, Joined in, and were intermixed with a singing of psalms; And I looked over at the dead men’s dwelling-place.

“Through the shine of the slippery snow I now could see, As it were through a crystal roof, a great company Of the dead minueting in stately step underground To the tune of the instruments I had before heard sound.

“It was ‘Eden New,’ and dancing they sang in a chore, ‘We are out of it all!—yea, in Little-Ease cramped no more!’ And their shrouded figures pacing with joy I could see As you see the stage from the gallery. And they had no heed of me.

“And I lifted my head quite dazed from the churchyard wall And I doubted not that it warned I should soon have my call. But—” . . . Then in the ashes he emptied the dregs of his cup, And onward he went, and the darkness swallowed him up.

HE REVISITS HIS FIRST SCHOOL