Part 26

“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

“THESE Gothic windows, how they wear me out With cusp and foil, and nothing straight or square, Crude colours, leaden borders roundabout, And fitting in Peter here, and Matthew there!

“What a vocation! Here do I draw now The abnormal, loving the Hellenic norm; Martha I paint, and dream of Hera’s brow, Mary, and think of Aphrodite’s form.”

Nov. 1893.