Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with Miscellaneous Pieces

A KING’S SOLILOQUY ON THE NIGHT OF HIS FUNERAL

From the slow march and muffled drum   And crowds distrest,And book and bell, at length I have come   To my full rest.A ten years’ rule beneath the sun   Is wound up here,And what I have done, what left undone,   Figures out clear.Yet in the estimate of such   It grieves me moreThat I by some was loved so much   Than that I bore,From others, judgment of that hue   Which over-hopeBreeds from a theoretic view   Of regal scope.For kingly opportunities   Right many have sighed;How best to bear its devilries   Those learn who have tried!I have eaten the fat and drunk the sweet,   Lived the life outFrom the first greeting glad drum-beat   To the last shout.What pleasure earth affords to kings   I have enjoyedThrough its long vivid pulse-stirrings   Even till it cloyed.What days of drudgery, nights of stress   Can cark a throne,Even one maintained in peacefulness,   I too have known.And so, I think, could I step back   To life again,I should prefer the average track   Of average men,Since, as with them, what kingship would   It cannot do,Nor to first thoughts however good   Hold itself true.Something binds hard the royal hand,   As all that be,And it is That has shaped, has planned   My acts and me. May 1910.

THE CORONATION

At Westminster, hid from the light of day,Many who once had shone as monarchs lay.Edward the Pious, and two Edwards more,The second Richard, Henrys three or four;That is to say, those who were called the Third,Fifth, Seventh, and Eighth (the much self-widowered),And James the Scot, and near him Charles the Second,And, too, the second George could there be reckoned.Of women, Mary and Queen Elizabeth,And Anne, all silent in a musing death;And William’s Mary, and Mary, Queen of Scots,And consort-queens whose names oblivion blots;And several more whose chronicle one seesAdorning ancient royal pedigrees.– Now, as they drowsed on, freed from Life’s old thrall,And heedless, save of things exceptional,Said one: “What means this throbbing thudding soundThat reaches to us here from overground;“A sound of chisels, augers, planes, and saws,Infringing all ecclesiastic laws?“And these tons-weight of timber on us pressed,Unfelt here since we entered into rest?“Surely, at least to us, being corpses royal,A meet repose is owing by the loyal?”“ – Perhaps a scaffold!” Mary Stuart sighed,“If such still be.  It was that way I died.”“ – Ods!  Far more like,” said he the many-wived,“That for a wedding ’tis this work’s contrived.“Ha-ha!  I never would bow down to Rimmon,But I had a rare time with those six women!”“Not all at once?” gasped he who loved confession.“Nay, nay!” said Hal.  “That would have been transgression.”“ – They build a catafalque here, black and tall,Perhaps,” mused Richard, “for some funeral?”And Anne chimed in: “Ah, yes: it maybe so!”“Nay!” squeaked Eliza.  “Little you seem to know —“Clearly ’tis for some crowning here in state,As they crowned us at our long bygone date;“Though we’d no such a power of carpentry,But let the ancient architecture be;“If I were up there where the parsons sit,In one of my gold robes, I’d see to it!”“But you are not,” Charles chuckled.  “You are here,And never will know the sun again, my dear!”“Yea,” whispered those whom no one had addressed;“With slow, sad march, amid a folk distressed,We were brought here, to take our dusty rest.“And here, alas, in darkness laid below,We’ll wait and listen, and endure the show.Clamour dogs kingship; afterwards not so!”1911.

AQUAE SULIS

The chimes called midnight, just at interlune,And the daytime talk of the Roman investigationsWas checked by silence, save for the husky tuneThe bubbling waters played near the excavations.And a warm air came up from underground,And a flutter, as of a filmy shape unsepulchred,That collected itself, and waited, and looked around:Nothing was seen, but utterances could be heard:Those of the goddess whose shrine was beneath the pileOf the God with the baldachined altar overhead:“And what did you get by raising this nave and aisleClose on the site of the temple I tenanted?“The notes of your organ have thrilled down out of viewTo the earth-clogged wrecks of my edifice many a year,Though stately and shining once – ay, long ere youHad set up crucifix and candle here.“Your priests have trampled the dust of mine without rueing,Despising the joys of man whom I so much loved,Though my springs boil on by your Gothic arcades and pewing,And sculptures crude.. Would Jove they could be removed!”“ – Repress, O lady proud, your traditional ires;You know not by what a frail thread we equally hang;It is said we are images both – twitched by people’s desires;And that I, like you, fail as a song men yesterday sang!”* * * * *And the olden dark hid the cavities late laid bare,And all was suspended and soundless as before,Except for a gossamery noise fading off in the air,And the boiling voice of the waters’ medicinal pour.Bath.

SEVENTY-FOUR AND TWENTY

Here goes a man of seventy-four,Who sees not what life means for him,And here another in years a scoreWho reads its very figure and trim.The one who shall walk to-day with meIs not the youth who gazes far,But the breezy wight who cannot seeWhat Earth’s ingrained conditions are.

THE ELOPEMENT

“A woman never agreed to it!” said my knowing friend to me.“That one thing she’d refuse to do for Solomon’s mines in fee:No woman ever will make herself look older than she is.”I did not answer; but I thought, “you err there, ancient Quiz.”It took a rare one, true, to do it; for she was surely rare —As rare a soul at that sweet time of her life as she was fair.And urging motives, too, were strong, for ours was a passionate case,Yea, passionate enough to lead to freaking with that young face.I have told no one about it, should perhaps make few believe,But I think it over now that life looms dull and years bereave,How blank we stood at our bright wits’ end, two frail barks in distress,How self-regard in her was slain by her large tenderness.I said: “The only chance for us in a crisis of this kindIs going it thorough!” – “Yes,” she calmly breathed.  “Well, I don’t mind.”And we blanched her dark locks ruthlessly: set wrinkles on her brow;Ay – she was a right rare woman then, whatever she may be now.That night we heard a coach drive up, and questions asked below.“A gent with an elderly wife, sir,” was returned from the bureau.And the wheels went rattling on, and free at last from public kenWe washed all off in her chamber and restored her youth again.How many years ago it was!  Some fifty can it beSince that adventure held us, and she played old wife to me?But in time convention won her, as it wins all women at last,And now she is rich and respectable, and time has buried the past.

“I ROSE UP AS MY CUSTOM IS”

I rose up as my custom is   On the eve of All-Souls’ day,And left my grave for an hour or soTo call on those I used to know   Before I passed away.I visited my former Love   As she lay by her husband’s side;I asked her if life pleased her, nowShe was rid of a poet wrung in brow,   And crazed with the ills he eyed;Who used to drag her here and there   Wherever his fancies led,And point out pale phantasmal things,And talk of vain vague purposings   That she discredited.She was quite civil, and replied,   “Old comrade, is that you?Well, on the whole, I like my life. —I know I swore I’d be no wife,   But what was I to do?“You see, of all men for my sex   A poet is the worst;Women are practical, and theyCrave the wherewith to pay their way,   And slake their social thirst.“You were a poet – quite the ideal   That we all love awhile:But look at this man snoring here —He’s no romantic chanticleer,   Yet keeps me in good style.“He makes no quest into my thoughts,   But a poet wants to knowWhat one has felt from earliest days,Why one thought not in other ways,   And one’s Loves of long ago.”Her words benumbed my fond frail ghost;   The nightmares neighed from their stallsThe vampires screeched, the harpies flew,And under the dim dawn I withdrew   To Death’s inviolate halls.

A WEEK

On Monday night I closed my door,And thought you were not as heretofore,And little cared if we met no more.I seemed on Tuesday night to traceSomething beyond mere commonplaceIn your ideas, and heart, and face.On Wednesday I did not opineYour life would ever be one with mine,Though if it were we should well combine.On Thursday noon I liked you well,And fondly felt that we must dwellNot far apart, whatever befell.On Friday it was with a thrillIn gazing towards your distant villI owned you were my dear one still.I saw you wholly to my mindOn Saturday – even one who shrinedAll that was best of womankind.As wing-clipt sea-gull for the seaOn Sunday night I longed for thee,Without whom life were waste to me!

HAD YOU WEPT

Had you wept; had you but neared me with a frail uncertain ray,Dewy as the face of the dawn, in your large and luminous eye,Then would have come back all the joys the tidings had slain that day,And a new beginning, a fresh fair heaven, have smoothed the things awry.But you were less feebly human, and no passionate need for clingingPossessed your soul to overthrow reserve when I came near;Ay, though you suffer as much as I from storms the hours are bringingUpon your heart and mine, I never see you shed a tear.The deep strong woman is weakest, the weak one is the strong;The weapon of all weapons best for winning, you have not used;Have you never been able, or would you not, through the evil times and long?Has not the gift been given you, or such gift have you refused?When I bade me not absolve you on that evening or the morrow,Why did you not make war on me with those who weep like rain?You felt too much, so gained no balm for all your torrid sorrow,And hence our deep division, and our dark undying pain.

BEREFT, SHE THINKS SHE DREAMS

I dream that the dearest I ever knew   Has died and been entombed.I am sure it’s a dream that cannot be true,   But I am so overgloomedBy its persistence, that I would gladly   Have quick death take me,Rather than longer think thus sadly;   So wake me, wake me!It has lasted days, but minute and hour   I expect to get arousedAnd find him as usual in the bower   Where we so happily housed.Yet stays this nightmare too appalling,   And like a web shakes me,And piteously I keep on calling,   And no one wakes me!

IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM

“What do you see in that time-touched stone,   When nothing is thereBut ashen blankness, although you give it   A rigid stare?“You look not quite as if you saw,   But as if you heard,Parting your lips, and treading softly   As mouse or bird.“It is only the base of a pillar, they’ll tell you,   That came to usFrom a far old hill men used to name   Areopagus.”– “I know no art, and I only view   A stone from a wall,But I am thinking that stone has echoed   The voice of Paul,“Paul as he stood and preached beside it   Facing the crowd,A small gaunt figure with wasted features,   Calling out loud“Words that in all their intimate accents   Pattered uponThat marble front, and were far reflected,   And then were gone.“I’m a labouring man, and know but little,   Or nothing at all;But I can’t help thinking that stone once echoed   The voice of Paul.”

IN THE SERVANTS’ QUARTERS

“Man, you too, aren’t you, one of these rough followers of the criminal?All hanging hereabout to gather how he’s going to bearExamination in the hall.”  She flung disdainful glances onThe shabby figure standing at the fire with others there,   Who warmed them by its flare.“No indeed, my skipping maiden: I know nothing of the trial here,Or criminal, if so he be. – I chanced to come this way,And the fire shone out into the dawn, and morning airs are cold now;I, too, was drawn in part by charms I see before me play,   That I see not every day.”“Ha, ha!” then laughed the constables who also stood to warm themselves,The while another maiden scrutinized his features hard,As the blaze threw into contrast every line and knot that wrinkled them,Exclaiming, “Why, last night when he was brought in by the guard,   You were with him in the yard!”“Nay, nay, you teasing wench, I say!  You know you speak mistakenly.Cannot a tired pedestrian who has footed it afarHere on his way from northern parts, engrossed in humble marketings,Come in and rest awhile, although judicial doings are   Afoot by morning star?”“O, come, come!” laughed the constables.  “Why, man, you speak the dialectHe uses in his answers; you can hear him up the stairs.So own it.  We sha’n’t hurt ye.  There he’s speaking now!  His syllablesAre those you sound yourself when you are talking unawares,   As this pretty girl declares.”“And you shudder when his chain clinks!” she rejoined.  “O yes, I noticed it.And you winced, too, when those cuffs they gave him echoed to us here.They’ll soon be coming down, and you may then have to defend yourselfUnless you hold your tongue, or go away and keep you clear   When he’s led to judgment near!”“No!  I’ll be damned in hell if I know anything about the man!No single thing about him more than everybody knows!Must not I even warm my hands but I am charged with blasphemies?”.– His face convulses as the morning cock that moment crows,   And he stops, and turns, and goes.

THE OBLITERATE TOMB

   “More than half my life longDid they weigh me falsely, to my bitter wrong,But they all have shrunk away into the silence   Like a lost song.   “And the day has dawned and comeFor forgiveness, when the past may hold it dumbOn the once reverberate words of hatred uttered   Half in delirium.   “With folded lips and handsThey lie and wait what next the Will commands,And doubtless think, if think they can: ‘Let discord   Sink with Life’s sands!’   “By these late years their names,Their virtues, their hereditary claims,May be as near defacement at their grave-place   As are their fames.”   – Such thoughts bechanced to seizeA traveller’s mind – a man of memories —As he set foot within the western city   Where had died these   Who in their lifetime deemedHim their chief enemy – one whose brain had schemedTo get their dingy greatness deeplier dingied   And disesteemed.   So, sojourning in their town,He mused on them and on their once renown,And said, “I’ll seek their resting-place to-morrow   Ere I lie down,   “And end, lest I forget,Those ires of many years that I regret,Renew their names, that men may see some liegeness   Is left them yet.”   Duly next day he wentAnd sought the church he had known them to frequent,And wandered in the precincts, set on eyeing   Where they lay pent,   Till by remembrance ledHe stood at length beside their slighted bed,Above which, truly, scarce a line or letter   Could now be read.   “Thus years obliterateTheir graven worth, their chronicle, their date!At once I’ll garnish and revive the record   Of their past state,   “That still the sage may sayIn pensive progress here where they decay,‘This stone records a luminous line whose talents   Told in their day.’”   While speaking thus he turned,For a form shadowed where they lay inurned,And he beheld a stranger in foreign vesture,   And tropic-burned.   “Sir, I am right pleased to viewThat ancestors of mine should interest you,For I have come of purpose here to trace them.   They are time-worn, true,   “But that’s a fault, at most,Sculptors can cure.  On the Pacific coastI have vowed for long that relics of my forbears   I’d trace ere lost,   “And hitherward I come,Before this same old Time shall strike me numb,To carry it out.” – “Strange, this is!” said the other;   “What mind shall plumb   “Coincident design!Though these my father’s enemies were and mine,I nourished a like purpose – to restore them   Each letter and line.”   “Such magnanimityIs now not needed, sir; for you will seeThat since I am here, a thing like this is, plainly,   Best done by me.”   The other bowed, and left,Crestfallen in sentiment, as one bereftOf some fair object he had been moved to cherish,   By hands more deft.   And as he slept that nightThe phantoms of the ensepulchred stood up-rightBefore him, trembling that he had set him seeking   Their charnel-site.   And, as unknowing his ruth,Asked as with terrors founded not on truthWhy he should want them.  “Ha,” they hollowly hackered,   “You come, forsooth,   “By stealth to obliterateOur graven worth, our chronicle, our date,That our descendant may not gild the record   Of our past state,   “And that no sage may sayIn pensive progress near where we decay:‘This stone records a luminous line whose talents   Told in their day.’”   Upon the morrow he wentAnd to that town and churchyard never bentHis ageing footsteps till, some twelvemonths onward,   An accident   Once more detained him there;And, stirred by hauntings, he must needs repairTo where the tomb was.  Lo, it stood still wasting   In no man’s care.   “The travelled man you metThe last time,” said the sexton, “has not yetAppeared again, though wealth he had in plenty.   – Can he forget?   “The architect was hiredAnd came here on smart summons as desired,But never the descendant came to tell him   What he required.”   And so the tomb remainedUntouched, untended, crumbling, weather-stained,And though the one-time foe was fain to right it   He still refrained.   “I’ll set about it whenI am sure he’ll come no more.  Best wait till then.”But so it was that never the stranger entered   That city again.   And the well-meaner diedWhile waiting tremulously unsatisfiedThat no return of the family’s foreign scion   Would still betide.   And many years slid by,And active church-restorers cast their eyeUpon the ancient garth and hoary building   The tomb stood nigh.   And when they had scraped each wall,Pulled out the stately pews, and smartened all,“It will be well,” declared the spruce church-warden,   “To overhaul   “And broaden this path where shown;Nothing prevents it but an old tombstonePertaining to a family forgotten,   Of deeds unknown.   “Their names can scarce be read,Depend on’t, all who care for them are dead.”So went the tomb, whose shards were as path-paving   Distributed.   Over it and aboutMen’s footsteps beat, and wind and water-spout,Until the names, aforetime gnawed by weathers,   Were quite worn out.   So that no sage can sayIn pensive progress near where they decay,“This stone records a luminous line whose talents   Told in their day.”

“REGRET NOT ME”

      Regret not me;   Beneath the sunny treeI lie uncaring, slumbering peacefully.      Swift as the light   I flew my faery flight;Ecstatically I moved, and feared no night.      I did not know   That heydays fade and go,But deemed that what was would be always so.      I skipped at morn   Between the yellowing corn,Thinking it good and glorious to be born.      I ran at eves   Among the piled-up sheaves,Dreaming, “I grieve not, therefore nothing grieves.”      Now soon will come   The apple, pear, and plumAnd hinds will sing, and autumn insects hum.      Again you will fare   To cider-makings rare,And junketings; but I shall not be there.      Yet gaily sing   Until the pewter ringThose songs we sang when we went gipsying.      And lightly dance   Some triple-timed romanceIn coupled figures, and forget mischance;      And mourn not me   Beneath the yellowing tree;For I shall mind not, slumbering peacefully.

THE RECALCITRANTS

Let us off and search, and find a placeWhere yours and mine can be natural lives,Where no one comes who dissects and divesAnd proclaims that ours is a curious case,That its touch of romance can scarcely grace.You would think it strange at first, but thenEverything has been strange in its time.When some one said on a day of the primeHe would bow to no brazen god againHe doubtless dazed the mass of men.None will recognize us as a pair whose claimsTo righteous judgment we care not making;Who have doubted if breath be worth the taking,And have no respect for the current famesWhence the savour has flown while abide the names.We have found us already shunned, disdained,And for re-acceptance have not once striven;Whatever offence our course has givenThe brunt thereof we have long sustained.Well, let us away, scorned unexplained.

STARLINGS ON THE ROOF

“No smoke spreads out of this chimney-pot,The people who lived here have left the spot,And others are coming who knew them not.“If you listen anon, with an ear intent,The voices, you’ll find, will be differentFrom the well-known ones of those who went.”“Why did they go?  Their tones so blandWere quite familiar to our band;The comers we shall not understand.”“They look for a new life, rich and strange;They do not know that, let them rangeWherever they may, they will get no change.“They will drag their house-gear ever so farIn their search for a home no miseries mar;They will find that as they were they are,“That every hearth has a ghost, alack,And can be but the scene of a bivouacTill they move perforce – no time to pack!”

THE MOON LOOKS IN

II have risen again,And awhile surveyBy my chilly rayThrough your window-paneYour upturned face,As you think, “Ah-sheNow dreams of meIn her distant place!”III pierce her blindIn her far-off home:She fixes a comb,And says in her mind,“I start in an hour;Whom shall I meet?Won’t the men be sweet,And the women sour!”

THE SWEET HUSSY

In his early days he was quite surprisedWhen she told him she was compromisedBy meetings and lingerings at his whim,And thinking not of herself but him;While she lifted orbs aggrieved and roundThat scandal should so soon abound,(As she had raised them to nine or tenOf antecedent nice young men)And in remorse he thought with a sigh,How good she is, and how bad am I! —It was years before he understoodThat she was the wicked one – he the good.

THE TELEGRAM

“O he’s suffering – maybe dying – and I not there to aid,And smooth his bed and whisper to him!  Can I nohow go?Only the nurse’s brief twelve words thus hurriedly conveyed,   As by stealth, to let me know.“He was the best and brightest! – candour shone upon his brow,And I shall never meet again a soldier such as he,And I loved him ere I knew it, and perhaps he’s sinking now,   Far, far removed from me!”– The yachts ride mute at anchor and the fulling moon is fair,And the giddy folk are strutting up and down the smooth parade,And in her wild distraction she seems not to be aware   That she lives no more a maid,But has vowed and wived herself to one who blessed the ground she trodTo and from his scene of ministry, and thought her history knownIn its last particular to him – aye, almost as to God,   And believed her quite his own.So great her absentmindedness she droops as in a swoon,And a movement of aversion mars her recent spousal grace,And in silence we two sit here in our waning honeymoon   At this idle watering-place.What now I see before me is a long lane overhungWith lovelessness, and stretching from the present to the grave.And I would I were away from this, with friends I knew when young,   Ere a woman held me slave.

THE MOTH-SIGNAL

(On Egdon Heath)

“What are you still, still thinking,”   He asked in vague surmise,“That stare at the wick unblinking   With those great lost luminous eyes?”“O, I see a poor moth burning   In the candle-flame,” said she,“Its wings and legs are turning   To a cinder rapidly.”“Moths fly in from the heather,”   He said, “now the days decline.”“I know,” said she.  “The weather,   I hope, will at last be fine.“I think,” she added lightly,   “I’ll look out at the door.The ring the moon wears nightly   May be visible now no more.”She rose, and, little heeding,   Her husband then went onWith his attentive reading   In the annals of ages gone.Outside the house a figure   Came from the tumulus near,And speedily waxed bigger,   And clasped and called her Dear.“I saw the pale-winged token   You sent through the crack,” sighed she.“That moth is burnt and broken   With which you lured out me.“And were I as the moth is   It might be better farFor one whose marriage troth is   Shattered as potsherds are!”Then grinned the Ancient Briton   From the tumulus treed with pine:“So, hearts are thwartly smitten   In these days as in mine!”

SEEN BY THE WAITS

Through snowy woods and shady   We went to play a tuneTo the lonely manor-lady   By the light of the Christmas moon.We violed till, upward glancing   To where a mirror leaned,We saw her airily dancing,   Deeming her movements screened;Dancing alone in the room there,   Thin-draped in her robe of night;Her postures, glassed in the gloom there,   Were a strange phantasmal sight.She had learnt (we heard when homing)   That her roving spouse was dead;Why she had danced in the gloaming   We thought, but never said.