How empty seems the town now you are gone!
A wilderness of sad streets, where gaunt walls Hide nothing to desire; sunshine falls Eery, distorted, as it long had shone On white, dead faces tombed in halls of stone.
The whir of motors, stricken through with calls Of playing boys, floats up at intervals; But all these noises blur to one long moan.
What quest is worth pursuing? And how strange That other men still go accustomed ways!
I hate their interest in the things they do.
A spectre-horde repeating without change An old routine. Alone I know the days Are still-born, and the world stopped, lacking you.
Crepuscule du Matin
All night I wrestled with a memory Which knocked insurgent at the gates of thought.
The crumbled wreck of years behind has wrought Its disillusion; now I only cry For peace, for power to forget the lie Which hope too long has whispered. So I sought The sleep which would not come, and night was fraught With old emotions weeping silently.
I heard your voice again, and knew the things Which you had promised proved an empty vaunt.
I felt your clinging hands while night"s broad wings Cherished our love in darkness. From the lawn A sudden, quivering birdnote, like a taunt.
My arms held nothing but the empty dawn.
Aftermath
I learnt to write to you in happier days, And every letter was a piece I chipped From off my heart, a fragment newly clipped From the mosaic of life; its blues and grays, Its throbbing reds, I gave to earn your praise.
To make a pavement for your feet I stripped My soul for you to walk upon, and slipped Beneath your steps to soften all your ways.
But now my letters are like blossoms pale We strew upon a grave with hopeless tears.
I ask no recompense, I shall not fail Although you do not heed; the long, sad years Still pa.s.s, and still I scatter flowers frail, And whisper words of love which no one hears.
The End
Throughout the echoing chambers of my brain I hear your words in mournful cadence toll Like some slow pa.s.sing-bell which warns the soul Of sundering darkness. Unrelenting, fain To batter down resistance, fall again Stroke after stroke, insistent diastole, The bitter blows of truth, until the whole Is hammered into fact made strangely plain.
Where shall I look for comfort? Not to you.
Our worlds are drawn apart, our spirit"s suns Divided, and the light of mine burnt dim.
Now in the haunted twilight I must do Your will. I grasp the cup which over-runs, And with my trembling lips I touch the rim.
The Starling
""I can"t get out", said the starling."
Sterne"s "Sentimental Journey".
Forever the impenetrable wall Of self confines my poor rebellious soul, I never see the towering white clouds roll Before a st.u.r.dy wind, save through the small Barred window of my jail. I live a thrall With all my outer life a clipped, square hole, Rectangular; a fraction of a scroll Unwound and winding like a worsted ball.
My thoughts are grown uneager and depressed Through being always mine, my fancy"s wings Are moulted and the feathers blown away.
I weary for desires never guessed, For alien pa.s.sions, strange imaginings, To be some other person for a day.
Market Day
White, glittering sunlight fills the market square, Spotted and sprigged with shadows. Double rows Of bartering booths spread out their tempting shows Of globed and golden fruit, the morning air Smells sweet with ripeness, on the pavement there A wicker basket gapes and overflows Spilling out cool, blue plums. The market glows, And flaunts, and clatters in its busy care.
A stately minster at the northern side Lifts its twin spires to the distant sky, Pinnacled, carved and b.u.t.tressed; through the wide Arched doorway peals an organ, suddenly -- Crashing, triumphant in its pregnant tide, Quenching the square in vibrant harmony.
Epitaph in a Church-Yard in Charleston, South Carolina
GEORGE AUGUSTUS CLOUGH A NATIVE OF LIVERPOOL, DIED SUDDENLY OF "STRANGER"S FEVER"
NOV"R 5th 1843 AGED 22
He died of "Stranger"s Fever" when his youth Had scarcely melted into manhood, so The chiselled legend runs; a brother"s woe Laid bare for epitaph. The savage ruth Of a sunny, bright, but alien land, uncouth With cruel caressing dealt a mortal blow, And by this summer sea where flowers grow In tropic splendor, witness to the truth Of ineradicable race he lies.
The law of duty urged that he should roam, Should sail from fog and chilly airs to skies Clear with deceitful welcome. He had come With proud resolve, but still his lonely eyes Ached with fatigue at never seeing home.
Francis II, King of Naples
Written after reading Trevelyan"s "Garibaldi and the making of Italy"
Poor foolish monarch, vacillating, vain, Decaying victim of a race of kings, Swift Destiny shook out her purple wings And caught him in their shadow; not again Could furtive plotting smear another stain Across his tarnished honour. Smoulderings Of sacrificial fires burst their rings And blotted out in smoke his lost domain.
Bereft of courtiers, only with his queen, From empty palace down to empty quay.
No challenge screamed from hostile carabine.
A single vessel waited, shadowy; All night she ploughed her solitary way Beneath the stars, and through a tranquil sea.
To John Keats
Great master! Boyish, sympathetic man!
Whose orbed and ripened genius lightly hung From life"s slim, twisted tendril and there swung In crimson-sphered completeness; guardian Of crystal portals through whose openings fan The spiced winds which blew when earth was young, Scattering wreaths of stars, as Jove once flung A golden shower from heights cerulean.
Crumbled before thy majesty we bow.
Forget thy empurpled state, thy panoply Of greatness, and be merciful and near; A youth who trudged the highroad we tread now Singing the miles behind him; so may we Faint throbbings of thy music overhear.