Part 21

“’Tis in the comedy of things That such should be,” returned the one of Doom; “Charge now the scene with brightest blazonings, And he shall call them gloom.”

She gave the word: the sun outbroke, All Froomside shone, the hedgebirds raised a song; And later Hodge, upon the midday stroke, Returned the lane along,

Low murmuring: “O this bitter scene, And thrice accurst horizon hung with gloom! How deadly like this sky, these fields, these treen, To trappings of the tomb!”

The Beldame then: “The fool and blind! Such mad perverseness who may apprehend?”— “Nay; there’s no madness in it; thou shalt find Thy law there,” said her friend.

“When Hodge went forth ’twas to his Love, To make her, ere this eve, his wedded prize, And Earth, despite the heaviness above, Was bright as Paradise.

“But I sent on my messenger, With cunning arrows poisonous and keen, To take forthwith her laughing life from her, And dull her little een,

“And white her cheek, and still her breath, Ere her too buoyant Hodge had reached her side; So, when he came, he clasped her but in death, And never as his bride.

“And there’s the humour, as I said; Thy dreary dawn he saw as gleaming gold, And in thy glistening green and radiant red Funereal gloom and cold.”

THE TREE AN OLD MAN’S STORY

Its roots are bristling in the air Like some mad Earth-god’s spiny hair; The loud south-wester’s swell and yell Smote it at midnight, and it fell. Thus ends the tree Where Some One sat with me.

Its boughs, which none but darers trod, A child may step on from the sod, And twigs that earliest met the dawn Are lit the last upon the lawn. Cart off the tree Beneath whose trunk sat we!

III

Yes, there we sat: she cooed content, And bats ringed round, and daylight went; The gnarl, our seat, is wrenched and sunk, Prone that queer pocket in the trunk Where lay the key To her pale mystery.

“Years back, within this pocket-hole I found, my Love, a hurried scrawl Meant not for me,” at length said I; “I glanced thereat, and let it lie: The words were three— ‘Beloved, I agree.’

“Who placed it here; to what request It gave assent, I never guessed. Some prayer of some hot heart, no doubt, To some coy maiden hereabout, Just as, maybe, With you, Sweet Heart, and me.”

She waited, till with quickened breath She spoke, as one who banisheth Reserves that lovecraft heeds so well, To ease some mighty wish to tell: “’Twas I,” said she, “Who wrote thus clinchingly.

VII

“My lover’s wife—aye, wife!—knew nought Of what we felt, and bore, and thought . . . He’d said: ‘I wed with thee or die: She stands between, ’tis true. But why? Do thou agree, And—she shalt cease to be.’

VIII

“How I held back, how love supreme Involved me madly in his scheme Why should I say? . . . I wrote assent (You found it hid) to his intent . . . She—died . . . But he Came not to wed with me.

“O shrink not, Love!—Had these eyes seen But once thine own, such had not been! But we were strangers . . . Thus the plot Cleared passion’s path.—Why came he not To wed with me? . . . He wived the gibbet-tree.”

—Under that oak of heretofore Sat Sweetheart mine with me no more: By many a Fiord, and Strom, and Fleuve Have I since wandered . . . Soon, for love, Distraught went she— ’Twas said for love of me.

HER LATE HUSBAND (KING’S-HINTOCK, 182–.)

“No—not where I shall make my own; But dig his grave just by The woman’s with the initialed stone— As near as he can lie— After whose death he seemed to ail, Though none considered why.

“And when I also claim a nook, And your feet tread me in, Bestow me, under my old name, Among my kith and kin, That strangers gazing may not dream I did a husband win.”

“Widow, your wish shall be obeyed; Though, thought I, certainly You’d lay him where your folk are laid, And your grave, too, will be, As custom hath it; you to right, And on the left hand he.”

“Aye, sexton; such the Hintock rule, And none has said it nay; But now it haps a native here Eschews that ancient way . . . And it may be, some Christmas night, When angels walk, they’ll say:

“‘O strange interment! Civilized lands Afford few types thereof; Here is a man who takes his rest Beside his very Love, Beside the one who was his wife In our sight up above!’”