Part 15

Frail-witted, illuded they call me; I may be. ’Tis better To dream than to own the debasement Of sweet Cicely.

Moreover I rate it unseemly To hold that kind Heaven Could work such device—to her ruin And my misery.

So, lest I disturb my choice vision, I shun the West Highway, Even now, when the knaps ring with rhythms From blackbird and bee;

And feel that with slumber half-conscious She rests in the church-hay, Her spirit unsoiled as in youth-time When lovers were we.

* * * * *

HER IMMORTALITY

UPON a noon I pilgrimed through A pasture, mile by mile, Unto the place where I last saw My dead Love’s living smile.

And sorrowing I lay me down Upon the heated sod: It seemed as if my body pressed The very ground she trod.

I lay, and thought; and in a trance She came and stood me by— The same, even to the marvellous ray That used to light her eye.

“You draw me, and I come to you, My faithful one,” she said, In voice that had the moving tone It bore ere breath had fled.

She said: “’Tis seven years since I died: Few now remember me; My husband clasps another bride; My children’s love has she.

“My brethren, sisters, and my friends Care not to meet my sprite: Who prized me most I did not know Till I passed down from sight.”

I said: “My days are lonely here; I need thy smile alway: I’ll use this night my ball or blade, And join thee ere the day.”

A tremor stirred her tender lips, Which parted to dissuade: “That cannot be, O friend,” she cried; “Think, I am but a Shade!

“A Shade but in its mindful ones Has immortality; By living, me you keep alive, By dying you slay me.

“In you resides my single power Of sweet continuance here; On your fidelity I count Through many a coming year.”

—I started through me at her plight, So suddenly confessed: Dismissing late distaste for life, I craved its bleak unrest.

“I will not die, my One of all!— To lengthen out thy days I’ll guard me from minutest harms That may invest my ways!”

She smiled and went. Since then she comes Oft when her birth-moon climbs, Or at the seasons’ ingresses Or anniversary times;

But grows my grief. When I surcease, Through whom alone lives she, Ceases my Love, her words, her ways, Never again to be!

THE IVY-WIFE

I LONGED to love a full-boughed beech And be as high as he: I stretched an arm within his reach, And signalled unity. But with his drip he forced a breach, And tried to poison me.

I gave the grasp of partnership To one of other race— A plane: he barked him strip by strip From upper bough to base; And me therewith; for gone my grip, My arms could not enlace.

In new affection next I strove To coll an ash I saw, And he in trust received my love; Till with my soft green claw I cramped and bound him as I wove . . . Such was my love: ha-ha!

By this I gained his strength and height Without his rivalry. But in my triumph I lost sight Of afterhaps. Soon he, Being bark-bound, flagged, snapped, fell outright, And in his fall felled me!

A MEETING WITH DESPAIR

AS evening shaped I found me on a moor Which sight could scarce sustain: The black lean land, of featureless contour, Was like a tract in pain.

“This scene, like my own life,” I said, “is one Where many glooms abide; Toned by its fortune to a deadly dun— Lightless on every side.