Part 6

Yet at midnight if here walking, When the moon sheets wall and tree, I see forms of old time talking, Who smile on me.

BEREFT

IN the black winter morning No light will be struck near my eyes While the clock in the stairway is warning For five, when he used to rise. Leave the door unbarred, The clock unwound, Make my lone bed hard— Would ’twere underground!

When the summer dawns clearly, And the appletree-tops seem alight, Who will undraw the curtain and cheerly Call out that the morning is bright?

When I tarry at market No form will cross Durnover Lea In the gathering darkness, to hark at Grey’s Bridge for the pit-pat o’ me.

When the supper crock’s steaming, And the time is the time of his tread, I shall sit by the fire and wait dreaming In a silence as of the dead. Leave the door unbarred, The clock unwound, Make my lone bed hard— Would ’twere underground!

1901.

JOHN AND JANE

HE sees the world as a boisterous place Where all things bear a laughing face, And humorous scenes go hourly on, Does John.

They find the world a pleasant place Where all is ecstasy and grace, Where a light has risen that cannot wane, Do John and Jane.

III

They see as a palace their cottage-place, Containing a pearl of the human race, A hero, maybe, hereafter styled, Do John and Jane with a baby-child.

They rate the world as a gruesome place, Where fair looks fade to a skull’s grimace,— As a pilgrimage they would fain get done— Do John and Jane with their worthless son.

THE CURATE’S KINDNESS A WORKHOUSE IRONY

I THOUGHT they’d be strangers aroun’ me, But she’s to be there! Let me jump out o’ waggon and go back and drown me At Pummery or Ten-Hatches Weir.

I thought: “Well, I’ve come to the Union— The workhouse at last— After honest hard work all the week, and Communion O’ Zundays, these fifty years past.

III

“’Tis hard; but,” I thought, “never mind it: There’s gain in the end: And when I get used to the place I shall find it A home, and may find there a friend.

“Life there will be better than t’other. For peace is assured. The men in one wing and their wives in another Is strictly the rule of the Board.”

Just then one young Pa’son arriving Steps up out of breath To the side o’ the waggon wherein we were driving To Union; and calls out and saith:

“Old folks, that harsh order is altered, Be not sick of heart! The Guardians they poohed and they pished and they paltered When urged not to keep you apart.

VII

“‘It is wrong,’ I maintained, ‘to divide them, Near forty years wed.’ ‘Very well, sir. We promise, then, they shall abide them In one wing together,’ they said.”

VIII

Then I sank—knew ’twas quite a foredone thing That misery should be To the end! . . . To get freed of her there was the one thing Had made the change welcome to me.

To go there was ending but badly; ’Twas shame and ’twas pain; “But anyhow,” thought I, “thereby I shall gladly Get free of this forty years’ chain.”

I thought they’d be strangers aroun’ me, But she’s to be there! Let me jump out o’ waggon and go back and drown me At Pummery or Ten-Hatches Weir.

THE FLIRT’S TRAGEDY (17–)