Chapter 2 of 7 · 3982 words · ~20 min read

Part 2

This hanging map depicts the coast and place, And resuscitates therewith our unexpected troublous case All distinctly to my sight, And her tension, and the aspect of her face.

Weeks and weeks we had loved beneath that blazing blue, Which had lost the art of raining, as her eyes to-day had too, While she told what, as by sleight, Shot our firmament with rays of ruddy hue.

For the wonder and the wormwood of the whole Was that what in realms of reason would have joyed our double soul Wore a torrid tragic light Under order-keeping’s rigorous control.

So, the map revives her words, the spot, the time, And the thing we found we had to face before the next year’s prime; The charted coast stares bright, And its episode comes back in pantomime.

WHERE THE PICNIC WAS

WHERE we made the fire, In the summer time, Of branch and briar On the hill to the sea I slowly climb Through winter mire, And scan and trace The forsaken place Quite readily.

Now a cold wind blows, And the grass is gray, But the spot still shows As a burnt circle—aye, And stick-ends, charred, Still strew the sward Whereon I stand, Last relic of the band Who came that day!

Yes, I am here Just as last year, And the sea breathes brine From its strange straight line Up hither, the same As when we four came. —But two have wandered far From this grassy rise Into urban roar Where no picnics are, And one—has shut her eyes For evermore.

THE SCHRECKHORN (_With thoughts of Leslie Stephen_) (June 1897)

ALOOF, as if a thing of mood and whim; Now that its spare and desolate figure gleams Upon my nearing vision, less it seems A looming Alp-height than a guise of him Who scaled its horn with ventured life and limb, Drawn on by vague imaginings, maybe, Of semblance to his personality In its quaint glooms, keen lights, and rugged trim.

At his last change, when Life’s dull coils unwind, Will he, in old love, hitherward escape, And the eternal essence of his mind Enter this silent adamantine shape, And his low voicing haunt its slipping snows When dawn that calls the climber dyes them rose?

A SINGER ASLEEP (_Algernon Charles Swinburne_, 1837–1909)

In this fair niche above the unslumbering sea, That sentrys up and down all night, all day, From cove to promontory, from ness to bay, The Fates have fitly bidden that he should be Pillowed eternally.

—It was as though a garland of red roses Had fallen about the hood of some smug nun When irresponsibly dropped as from the sun, In fulth of numbers freaked with musical closes, Upon Victoria’s formal middle time His leaves of rhythm and rhyme.

III

O that far morning of a summer day When, down a terraced street whose pavements lay Glassing the sunshine into my bent eyes, I walked and read with a quick glad surprise New words, in classic guise,—

The passionate pages of his earlier years, Fraught with hot sighs, sad laughters, kisses, tears; Fresh-fluted notes, yet from a minstrel who Blew them not naïvely, but as one who knew Full well why thus he blew.

I still can hear the brabble and the roar At those thy tunes, O still one, now passed through That fitful fire of tongues then entered new! Their power is spent like spindrift on this shore; Thine swells yet more and more.

—His singing-mistress verily was no other Than she the Lesbian, she the music-mother Of all the tribe that feel in melodies; Who leapt, love-anguished, from the Leucadian steep Into the rambling world-encircling deep Which hides her where none sees.

VII

And one can hold in thought that nightly here His phantom may draw down to the water’s brim, And hers come up to meet it, as a dim Lone shine upon the heaving hydrosphere, And mariners wonder as they traverse near, Unknowing of her and him.

VIII

One dreams him sighing to her spectral form: “O teacher, where lies hid thy burning line; Where are those songs, O poetess divine Whose very arts are love incarnadine?” And her smile back: “Disciple true and warm, Sufficient now are thine.” . . .

So here, beneath the waking constellations, Where the waves peal their everlasting strains, And their dull subterrene reverberations Shake him when storms make mountains of their plains— Him once their peer in sad improvisations, And deft as wind to cleave their frothy manes— I leave him, while the daylight gleam declines Upon the capes and chines.

BONCHURCH, 1910.

A PLAINT TO MAN

WHEN you slowly emerged from the den of Time, And gained percipience as you grew, And fleshed you fair out of shapeless slime,

Wherefore, O Man, did there come to you The unhappy need of creating me— A form like your own—for praying to?

My virtue, power, utility, Within my maker must all abide, Since none in myself can ever be,

One thin as a shape on a lantern-slide Shown forth in the dark upon some dim sheet, And by none but its showman vivified.

“Such a forced device,” you may say, “is meet For easing a loaded heart at whiles: Man needs to conceive of a mercy-seat

Somewhere above the gloomy aisles Of this wailful world, or he could not bear The irk no local hope beguiles.”

—But since I was framed in your first despair The doing without me has had no play In the minds of men when shadows scare;

And now that I dwindle day by day Beneath the deicide eyes of seers In a light that will not let me stay,

And to-morrow the whole of me disappears, The truth should be told, and the fact be faced That had best been faced in earlier years:

The fact of life with dependence placed On the human heart’s resource alone, In brotherhood bonded close and graced

With loving-kindness fully blown, And visioned help unsought, unknown.

1909–10.

GOD’S FUNERAL

I saw a slowly-stepping train— Lined on the brows, scoop-eyed and bent and hoar— Following in files across a twilit plain A strange and mystic form the foremost bore.

And by contagious throbs of thought Or latent knowledge that within me lay And had already stirred me, I was wrought To consciousness of sorrow even as they.

III

The fore-borne shape, to my blurred eyes, At first seemed man-like, and anon to change To an amorphous cloud of marvellous size, At times endowed with wings of glorious range.

And this phantasmal variousness Ever possessed it as they drew along: Yet throughout all it symboled none the less Potency vast and loving-kindness strong.

Almost before I knew I bent Towards the moving columns without a word; They, growing in bulk and numbers as they went, Struck out sick thoughts that could be overheard:—

“O man-projected Figure, of late Imaged as we, thy knell who shall survive? Whence came it we were tempted to create One whom we can no longer keep alive?

VII

“Framing him jealous, fierce, at first, We gave him justice as the ages rolled, Will to bless those by circumstance accurst, And longsuffering, and mercies manifold.

VIII

“And, tricked by our own early dream And need of solace, we grew self-deceived, Our making soon our maker did we deem, And what we had imagined we believed.

“Till, in Time’s stayless stealthy swing, Uncompromising rude reality Mangled the Monarch of our fashioning, Who quavered, sank; and now has ceased to be.

“So, toward our myth’s oblivion, Darkling, and languid-lipped, we creep and grope Sadlier than those who wept in Babylon, Whose Zion was a still abiding hope.

“How sweet it was in years far hied To start the wheels of day with trustful prayer, To lie down liegely at the eventide And feel a blest assurance he was there!

XII

“And who or what shall fill his place? Whither will wanderers turn distracted eyes For some fixed star to stimulate their pace Towards the goal of their enterprise?” . . .

XIII

Some in the background then I saw, Sweet women, youths, men, all incredulous, Who chimed as one: “This figure is of straw, This requiem mockery! Still he lives to us!”

XIV

I could not prop their faith: and yet Many I had known: with all I sympathized; And though struck speechless, I did not forget That what was mourned for, I, too, once had prized.

Still, how to bear such loss I deemed The insistent question for each animate mind, And gazing, to my growing sight there seemed A pale yet positive gleam low down behind,

XVI

Whereof to lift the general night, A certain few who stood aloof had said, “See you upon the horizon that small light— Swelling somewhat?” Each mourner shook his head.

XVII

And they composed a crowd of whom Some were right good, and many nigh the best . . . Thus dazed and puzzled ’twixt the gleam and gloom Mechanically I followed with the rest.

1908–10.

SPECTRES THAT GRIEVE

“IT is not death that harrows us,” they lipped, “The soundless cell is in itself relief, For life is an unfenced flower, benumbed and nipped At unawares, and at its best but brief.”

The speakers, sundry phantoms of the gone, Had risen like filmy flames of phosphor dye, As if the palest of sheet lightnings shone From the sward near me, as from a nether sky.

And much surprised was I that, spent and dead, They should not, like the many, be at rest, But stray as apparitions; hence I said, “Why, having slipped life, hark you back distressed?

“We are among the few death sets not free, The hurt, misrepresented names, who come At each year’s brink, and cry to History To do them justice, or go past them dumb.

“We are stript of rights; our shames lie unredressed, Our deeds in full anatomy are not shown, Our words in morsels merely are expressed On the scriptured page, our motives blurred, unknown.”

Then all these shaken slighted visitants sped Into the vague, and left me musing there On fames that well might instance what they had said, Until the New-Year’s dawn strode up the air.

“AH, ARE YOU DIGGING ON MY GRAVE?”

“AH, are you digging on my grave My loved one?—planting rue?” —“No: yesterday he went to wed One of the brightest wealth has bred. ‘It cannot hurt her now,’ he said, ‘That I should not be true.’”

“Then who is digging on my grave? My nearest dearest kin?” —“Ah, no; they sit and think, ‘What use! What good will planting flowers produce? No tendance of her mound can loose Her spirit from Death’s gin.’”

“But some one digs upon my grave? My enemy?—prodding sly?” —“Nay: when she heard you had passed the Gate That shuts on all flesh soon or late, She thought you no more worth her hate, And cares not where you lie.”

“Then, who is digging on my grave? Say—since I have not guessed!” —“O it is I, my mistress dear, Your little dog, who still lives near, And much I hope my movements here Have not disturbed your rest?”

“Ah, yes! _You_ dig upon my grave . . . Why flashed it not on me That one true heart was left behind! What feeling do we ever find To equal among human kind A dog’s fidelity!”

“Mistress, I dug upon your grave To bury a bone, in case I should be hungry near this spot When passing on my daily trot. I am sorry, but I quite forgot It was your resting-place.”

SATIRES OF CIRCUMSTANCES IN FIFTEEN GLIMPSES

I AT TEA

THE kettle descants in a cozy drone, And the young wife looks in her husband’s face, And then at her guest’s, and shows in her own Her sense that she fills an envied place; And the visiting lady is all abloom, And says there was never so sweet a room.

And the happy young housewife does not know That the woman beside her was first his choice, Till the fates ordained it could not be so . . . Betraying nothing in look or voice The guest sits smiling and sips her tea, And he throws her a stray glance yearningly.

II IN CHURCH

“AND now to God the Father,” he ends, And his voice thrills up to the topmost tiles: Each listener chokes as he bows and bends, And emotion pervades the crowded aisles. Then the preacher glides to the vestry-door, And shuts it, and thinks he is seen no more.

The door swings softly ajar meanwhile, And a pupil of his in the Bible class, Who adores him as one without gloss or guile, Sees her idol stand with a satisfied smile And re-enact at the vestry-glass Each pulpit gesture in deft dumb-show That had moved the congregation so.

III BY HER AUNT’S GRAVE

“SIXPENCE a week,” says the girl to her lover, “Aunt used to bring me, for she could confide In me alone, she vowed. ’Twas to cover The cost of her headstone when she died. And that was a year ago last June; I’ve not yet fixed it. But I must soon.”

“And where is the money now, my dear?” “O, snug in my purse . . . Aunt was _so_ slow In saving it—eighty weeks, or near.” . . . “Let’s spend it,” he hints. “For she won’t know. There’s a dance to-night at the Load of Hay.” She passively nods. And they go that way.

IV IN THE ROOM OF THE BRIDE-ELECT

“WOULD it had been the man of our wish!” Sighs her mother. To whom with vehemence she In the wedding-dress—the wife to be— “Then why were you so mollyish As not to insist on him for me!” The mother, amazed: “Why, dearest one, Because you pleaded for this or none!”

“But Father and you should have stood out strong! Since then, to my cost, I have lived to find That you were right and that I was wrong; This man is a dolt to the one declined . . . Ah!—here he comes with his button-hole rose. Good God—I must marry him I suppose!”

V AT A WATERING-PLACE

THEY sit and smoke on the esplanade, The man and his friend, and regard the bay Where the far chalk cliffs, to the left displayed, Smile sallowly in the decline of day. And saunterers pass with laugh and jest— A handsome couple among the rest.

“That smart proud pair,” says the man to his friend, “Are to marry next week . . . How little he thinks That dozens of days and nights on end I have stroked her neck, unhooked the links Of her sleeve to get at her upper arm . . . Well, bliss is in ignorance: what’s the harm!”

VI IN THE CEMETERY

“YOU see those mothers squabbling there?” Remarks the man of the cemetery. One says in tears, ‘’_Tis mine lies here_!’ Another, ‘_Nay_, _mine_, _you Pharisee_!’ Another, ‘_How dare you move my flowers_ _And put your own on this grave of ours_!’ But all their children were laid therein At different times, like sprats in a tin.

“And then the main drain had to cross, And we moved the lot some nights ago, And packed them away in the general foss With hundreds more. But their folks don’t know, And as well cry over a new-laid drain As anything else, to ease your pain!”

VII OUTSIDE THE WINDOW

“MY stick!” he says, and turns in the lane To the house just left, whence a vixen voice Comes out with the firelight through the pane, And he sees within that the girl of his choice Stands rating her mother with eyes aglare For something said while he was there.

“At last I behold her soul undraped!” Thinks the man who had loved her more than himself; “My God—’tis but narrowly I have escaped.— My precious porcelain proves it delf.” His face has reddened like one ashamed, And he steals off, leaving his stick unclaimed.

VIII IN THE STUDY

HE enters, and mute on the edge of a chair Sits a thin-faced lady, a stranger there, A type of decayed gentility; And by some small signs he well can guess That she comes to him almost breakfastless.

“I have called—I hope I do not err— I am looking for a purchaser Of some score volumes of the works Of eminent divines I own,— Left by my father—though it irks My patience to offer them.” And she smiles As if necessity were unknown; “But the truth of it is that oftenwhiles I have wished, as I am fond of art, To make my rooms a little smart.” And lightly still she laughs to him, As if to sell were a mere gay whim, And that, to be frank, Life were indeed To her not vinegar and gall, But fresh and honey-like; and Need No household skeleton at all.

IX AT THE ALTAR-RAIL

“MY bride is not coming, alas!” says the groom, And the telegram shakes in his hand. “I own It was hurried! We met at a dancing-room When I went to the Cattle-Show alone, And then, next night, where the Fountain leaps, And the Street of the Quarter-Circle sweeps.

“Ay, she won me to ask her to be my wife— ’Twas foolish perhaps!—to forsake the ways Of the flaring town for a farmer’s life. She agreed. And we fixed it. Now she says: ‘_It’s sweet of you_, _dear_, _to prepare me a nest_, _But a swift_, _short_, _gay life suits me best_. _What I really am you have never gleaned_; _I had eaten the apple ere you were weaned_.’”

X IN THE NUPTIAL CHAMBER

“O THAT mastering tune?” And up in the bed Like a lace-robed phantom springs the bride; “And why?” asks the man she had that day wed, With a start, as the band plays on outside. “It’s the townsfolks’ cheery compliment Because of our marriage, my Innocent.”

“O but you don’t know! ’Tis the passionate air To which my old Love waltzed with me, And I swore as we spun that none should share My home, my kisses, till death, save he! And he dominates me and thrills me through, And it’s he I embrace while embracing you!”

XI IN THE RESTAURANT

“BUT hear. If you stay, and the child be born, It will pass as your husband’s with the rest, While, if we fly, the teeth of scorn Will be gleaming at us from east to west; And the child will come as a life despised; I feel an elopement is ill-advised!”

“O you realize not what it is, my dear, To a woman! Daily and hourly alarms Lest the truth should out. How can I stay here, And nightly take him into my arms! Come to the child no name or fame, Let us go, and face it, and bear the shame.”

XII AT THE DRAPER’S

“I STOOD at the back of the shop, my dear, But you did not perceive me. Well, when they deliver what you were shown _I_ shall know nothing of it, believe me!”

And he coughed and coughed as she paled and said, “O, I didn’t see you come in there— Why couldn’t you speak?”—“Well, I didn’t. I left That you should not notice I’d been there.

“You were viewing some lovely things. ‘_Soon required_ _For a widow_, _of latest fashion_’; And I knew ’twould upset you to meet the man Who had to be cold and ashen

“And screwed in a box before they could dress you ‘_In the last new note in mourning_,’ As they defined it. So, not to distress you, I left you to your adorning.”

XIII ON THE DEATH-BED

“I’LL tell—being past all praying for— Then promptly die . . . He was out at the war, And got some scent of the intimacy That was under way between her and me; And he stole back home, and appeared like a ghost One night, at the very time almost That I reached her house. Well, I shot him dead, And secretly buried him. Nothing was said.

“The news of the battle came next day; He was scheduled missing. I hurried away, Got out there, visited the field, And sent home word that a search revealed He was one of the slain; though, lying alone And stript, his body had not been known.

“But she suspected. I lost her love, Yea, my hope of earth, and of Heaven above; And my time’s now come, and I’ll pay the score, Though it be burning for evermore.”

XIV OVER THE COFFIN

THEY stand confronting, the coffin between, His wife of old, and his wife of late, And the dead man whose they both had been Seems listening aloof, as to things past date. —“I have called,” says the first. “Do you marvel or not?” “In truth,” says the second, “I do—somewhat.”

“Well, there was a word to be said by me! . . . I divorced that man because of you— It seemed I must do it, boundenly; But now I am older, and tell you true, For life is little, and dead lies he; I would I had let alone you two! And both of us, scorning parochial ways, Had lived like the wives in the patriarchs’ days.”

XV IN THE MOONLIGHT

“O LONELY workman, standing there In a dream, why do you stare and stare At her grave, as no other grave there were?

“If your great gaunt eyes so importune Her soul by the shine of this corpse-cold moon, Maybe you’ll raise her phantom soon!”

“Why, fool, it is what I would rather see Than all the living folk there be; But alas, there is no such joy for me!”

“Ah—she was one you loved, no doubt, Through good and evil, through rain and drought, And when she passed, all your sun went out?”

“Nay: she was the woman I did not love, Whom all the others were ranked above, Whom during her life I thought nothing of.”

LYRICS AND REVERIES (_continued_)

SELF-UNCONSCIOUS

ALONG the way He walked that day, Watching shapes that reveries limn, And seldom he Had eyes to see The moment that encompassed him.

Bright yellowhammers Made mirthful clamours, And billed long straws with a bustling air, And bearing their load Flew up the road That he followed, alone, without interest there.

From bank to ground And over and round They sidled along the adjoining hedge; Sometimes to the gutter Their yellow flutter Would dip from the nearest slatestone ledge.

The smooth sea-line With a metal shine, And flashes of white, and a sail thereon, He would also descry With a half-wrapt eye Between the projects he mused upon.

Yes, round him were these Earth’s artistries, But specious plans that came to his call Did most engage His pilgrimage, While himself he did not see at all.

Dead now as sherds Are the yellow birds, And all that mattered has passed away; Yet God, the Elf, Now shows him that self As he was, and should have been shown, that day.

O it would have been good Could he then have stood At a focussed distance, and conned the whole, But now such vision Is mere derision, Nor soothes his body nor saves his soul.

Not much, some may Incline to say, To see therein, had it all been seen. Nay! he is aware A thing was there That loomed with an immortal mien.

THE DISCOVERY

I WANDERED to a crude coast Like a ghost; Upon the hills I saw fires— Funeral pyres Seemingly—and heard breaking Waves like distant cannonades that set the land shaking.