THE MARBLE TABLET
There it stands, though alas, what a little of her Shows in its cold white look!
Not her glance, glide, or smile; not a t.i.ttle of her Voice like the purl of a brook; Not her thoughts, that you read like a book.
It may stand for her once in November When first she breathed, witless of all; Or in heavy years she would remember When circ.u.mstance held her in thrall; Or at last, when she answered her call!
Nothing more. The still marble, date-graven, Gives all that it can, tersely lined; That one has at length found the haven Which every one other will find; With silence on what shone behind.
St. Juliot: September 8, 1916.
THE MASTER AND THE LEAVES
I
We are budding, Master, budding, We of your favourite tree; March drought and April flooding Arouse us merrily, Our stemlets newly studding; And yet you do not see!
II
We are fully woven for summer In stuff of limpest green, The twitterer and the hummer Here rest of nights, unseen, While like a long-roll drummer The nightjar thrills the treen.
III
We are turning yellow, Master, And next we are turning red, And faster then and faster Shall seek our rooty bed, All wasted in disaster!
But you lift not your head.
IV
- "I mark your early going, And that you"ll soon be clay, I have seen your summer showing As in my youthful day; But why I seem unknowing Is too sunk in to say!"
1917.
LAST WORDS TO A DUMB FRIEND
Pet was never mourned as you, Purrer of the spotless hue, Plumy tail, and wistful gaze While you humoured our queer ways, Or outshrilled your morning call Up the stairs and through the hall - Foot suspended in its fall - While, expectant, you would stand Arched, to meet the stroking hand; Till your way you chose to wend Yonder, to your tragic end.
Never another pet for me!
Let your place all vacant be; Better blankness day by day Than companion torn away.
Better bid his memory fade, Better blot each mark he made, Selfishly escape distress By contrived forgetfulness, Than preserve his prints to make Every morn and eve an ache.
From the chair whereon he sat Sweep his fur, nor wince thereat; Rake his little pathways out Mid the bushes roundabout; Smooth away his talons" mark From the claw-worn pine-tree bark, Where he climbed as dusk embrowned, Waiting us who loitered round.
Strange it is this speechless thing, Subject to our mastering, Subject for his life and food To our gift, and time, and mood; Timid pensioner of us Powers, His existence ruled by ours, Should--by crossing at a breath Into safe and shielded death, By the merely taking hence Of his insignificance - Loom as largened to the sense, Shape as part, above man"s will, Of the Imperturbable.
As a prisoner, flight debarred, Exercising in a yard, Still retain I, troubled, shaken, Mean estate, by him forsaken; And this home, which scarcely took Impress from his little look, By his faring to the Dim Grows all eloquent of him.
Housemate, I can think you still Bounding to the window-sill, Over which I vaguely see Your small mound beneath the tree, Showing in the autumn shade That you moulder where you played.
October 2, 1904.
A DRIZZLING EASTER MORNING
And he is risen? Well, be it so . . .
And still the pensive lands complain, And dead men wait as long ago, As if, much doubting, they would know What they are ransomed from, before They pa.s.s again their sheltering door.
I stand amid them in the rain, While bl.u.s.ters vex the yew and vane; And on the road the weary wain Plods forward, laden heavily; And toilers with their aches are fain For endless rest--though risen is he.
ON ONE WHO LIVED AND DIED WHERE HE WAS BORN
When a night in November Blew forth its bleared airs An infant descended His birth-chamber stairs For the very first time, At the still, midnight chime; All unapprehended His mission, his aim. - Thus, first, one November, An infant descended The stairs.
On a night in November Of weariful cares, A frail aged figure Ascended those stairs For the very last time: All gone his life"s prime, All vanished his vigour, And fine, forceful frame: Thus, last, one November Ascended that figure Upstairs.
On those nights in November - Apart eighty years - The babe and the bent one Who traversed those stairs From the early first time To the last feeble climb - That fresh and that spent one - Were even the same: Yea, who pa.s.sed in November As infant, as bent one, Those stairs.
Wise child of November!
From birth to blanched hairs Descending, ascending, Wealth-wantless, those stairs; Who saw quick in time As a vain pantomime Life"s tending, its ending, The worth of its fame.
Wise child of November, Descending, ascending Those stairs!
THE SECOND NIGHT (BALLAD)
I missed one night, but the next I went; It was gusty above, and clear; She was there, with the look of one ill-content, And said: "Do not come near!"
- "I am sorry last night to have failed you here, And now I have travelled all day; And it"s long rowing back to the West-Hoe Pier, So brief must be my stay."