Late Lyrics and Earlier, With Many Other Verses

THE SUN’S LAST LOOK ON THE COUNTRY GIRL

(M. H.)

The sun threw down a radiant spot   On the face in the winding-sheet —The face it had lit when a babe’s in its cot;And the sun knew not, and the face knew not   That soon they would no more meet.Now that the grave has shut its door,   And lets not in one ray,Do they wonder that they meet no more —That face and its beaming visitor —   That met so many a day? December 1915.

IN A LONDON FLAT

I“You look like a widower,” she saidThrough the folding-doors with a laugh from the bed,As he sat by the fire in the outer room,Reading late on a night of gloom,And a cab-hack’s wheeze, and the clap of its feetIn its breathless pace on the smooth wet street,Were all that came to them now and then.“You really do!” she quizzed again.IIAnd the Spirits behind the curtains heard,And also laughed, amused at her word,And at her light-hearted view of him.“Let’s get him made so – just for a whim!”Said the Phantom Ironic.  “’Twould serve her rightIf we coaxed the Will to do it some night.”“O pray not!” pleaded the younger one,The Sprite of the Pities.  “She said it in fun!”IIIBut so it befell, whatever the cause,That what she had called him he next year was;And on such a night, when she lay elsewhere,He, watched by those Phantoms, again sat there,And gazed, as if gazing on far faint shores,At the empty bed through the folding-doorsAs he remembered her words; and weptThat she had forgotten them where she slept.

DRAWING DETAILS IN AN OLD CHURCH

I hear the bell-rope sawing,And the oil-less axle grind,As I sit alone here drawingWhat some Gothic brain designed;And I catch the toll that follows   From the lagging bell,Ere it spreads to hills and hollowsWhere the parish people dwell.I ask not whom it tolls for,Incurious who he be;So, some morrow, when those knolls forOne unguessed, sound out for me,A stranger, loitering under   In nave or choir,May think, too, “Whose, I wonder?”But care not to inquire.

RAKE-HELL MUSES

Yes; since she knows not need,   Nor walks in blindness,I may without unkindness   A true thing tell:Which would be truth, indeed,   Though worse in speaking,Were her poor footsteps seeking   A pauper’s cell.I judge, then, better far   She now have sorrow,Than gladness that to-morrow   Might know its knell. —It may be men there are   Could make of unionA lifelong sweet communion —   A passioned spell;But I, to save her nameAnd bring salvationBy altar-affirmationAnd bridal bell;I, by whose rash unshame   These tears come to her: —My faith would more undo her   Than my farewell!Chained to me, year by year   My moody madnessWould wither her old gladness   Like famine fell.She’ll take the ill that’s near,   And bear the blaming.’Twill pass.  Full soon her shaming   They’ll cease to yell.Our unborn, first her moan,   Will grow her guerdon,Until from blot and burden   A joyance swell;In that therein she’ll own   My good part wholly,My evil staining solely   My own vile vell.Of the disgrace, may be   “He shunned to share it,Being false,” they’ll say.  I’ll bear it;   Time will dispelThe calumny, and prove   This much about me,That she lives best without me   Who would live well.That, this once, not self-love   But good intentionPleads that against convention   We two rebel.For, is one moonlight dance,   One midnight passion,A rock whereon to fashion   Life’s citadel?Prove they their power to prance   Life’s miles togetherFrom upper slope to nether   Who trip an ell?– Years hence, or now apace,   May tongues be callingNews of my further falling   Sinward pell-mell:Then this great good will grace   Our lives’ division,She’s saved from more misprision   Though I plumb hell.189–

THE COLOUR

(The following lines are partly made up, partly remembered from a Wessex folk-rhyme)“What shall I bring you?Please will white doBest for your wearing   The long day through?”“ – White is for weddings,Weddings, weddings,White is for weddings,   And that won’t do.”“What shall I bring you?Please will red doBest for your wearing   The long day through?”“ – Red is for soldiers,Soldiers, soldiers,Red is for soldiers,   And that won’t do.”“What shall I bring you?Please will blue doBest for your wearing   The long day through?”“ – Blue is for sailors,Sailors, sailors,Blue is for sailors,   And that won’t do.“What shall I bring you?Please will green doBest for your wearing   The long day through?”“ – Green is for mayings,Mayings, mayings,Green is for mayings,   And that won’t do.”“What shall I bring youThen?  Will black doBest for your wearing   The long day through?”“ – Black is for mourning,Mourning, mourning,Black is for mourning,   And black will do.”

MURMURS IN THE GLOOM

(NOCTURNE)

I wayfared at the nadir of the sunWhere populations meet, though seen of none;   And millions seemed to sigh around   As though their haunts were nigh around,   And unknown throngs to cry around      Of things late done.“O Seers, who well might high ensample show”(Came throbbing past in plainsong small and slow),   “Leaders who lead us aimlessly,   Teachers who train us shamelessly,   Why let ye smoulder flamelessly      The truths ye trow?“Ye scribes, that urge the old medicament,Whose fusty vials have long dried impotent,   Why prop ye meretricious things,   Denounce the sane as vicious things,   And call outworn factitious things      Expedient?“O Dynasties that sway and shake us so,Why rank your magnanimities so low   That grace can smooth no waters yet,   But breathing threats and slaughters yet   Ye grieve Earth’s sons and daughters yet      As long ago?“Live there no heedful ones of searching sight,Whose accents might be oracles that smite   To hinder those who frowardly   Conduct us, and untowardly;   To lead the nations vawardly      From gloom to light?” September 22, 1899.

EPITAPH

I never cared for Life: Life cared for me,And hence I owed it some fidelity.It now says, “Cease; at length thou hast learnt to grindSufficient toll for an unwilling mind,And I dismiss thee – not without regardThat thou didst ask no ill-advised reward,Nor sought in me much more than thou couldst find.”

AN ANCIENT TO ANCIENTS

Where once we danced, where once sang,      Gentlemen,The floors are sunken, cobwebs hang,And cracks creep; worms have fed uponThe doors.  Yea, sprightlier times were thenThan now, with harps and tabrets gone,      Gentlemen!Where once we rowed, where once we sailed,      Gentlemen,And damsels took the tiller, veiledAgainst too strong a stare (God wotTheir fancy, then or anywhen!)Upon that shore we are clean forgot,      Gentlemen!We have lost somewhat, afar and near,      Gentlemen,The thinning of our ranks each yearAffords a hint we are nigh undone,That we shall not be ever againThe marked of many, loved of one,      Gentlemen.In dance the polka hit our wish,      Gentlemen,The paced quadrille, the spry schottische,“Sir Roger.” – And in opera spheresThe “Girl” (the famed “Bohemian”),And “Trovatore,” held the ears,      Gentlemen.This season’s paintings do not please,      Gentlemen,Like Etty, Mulready, Maclise;Throbbing romance has waned and wanned;No wizard wields the witching penOf Bulwer, Scott, Dumas, and Sand,      Gentlemen.The bower we shrined to Tennyson,      Gentlemen,Is roof-wrecked; damps there drip uponSagged seats, the creeper-nails are rust,The spider is sole denizen;Even she who read those rhymes is dust,      Gentlemen!We who met sunrise sanguine-souled,      Gentlemen,Are wearing weary.  We are old;These younger press; we feel our routIs imminent to Aïdes’ den, —That evening’s shades are stretching out,      Gentlemen!And yet, though ours be failing frames,      Gentlemen,So were some others’ history names,Who trode their track light-limbed and fastAs these youth, and not alienFrom enterprise, to their long last,      Gentlemen.Sophocles, Plato, Socrates,      Gentlemen,Pythagoras, Thucydides,Herodotus, and Homer, – yea,Clement, Augustin, Origen,Burnt brightlier towards their setting-day,      Gentlemen.And ye, red-lipped and smooth-browed; list,      Gentlemen;Much is there waits you we have missed;Much lore we leave you worth the knowing,Much, much has lain outside our ken:Nay, rush not: time serves: we are going,      Gentlemen.

AFTER READING PSALMS

XXXIX., XL., ETC

Simple was I and was young;   Kept no gallant tryst, I;Even from good words held my tongue,   Quoniam Tu fecisti!Through my youth I stirred me not,   High adventure missed I,Left the shining shrines unsought;   Yet —me deduxisti!At my start by Helicon   Love-lore little wist I,Worldly less; but footed on;   Why?  Me suscepisti!When I failed at fervid rhymes,   “Shall,” I said, “persist I?”“Dies” (I would add at times)“Meos posuisti!”So I have fared through many suns;   Sadly little grist IBring my mill, or any one’s,   Domine, Tu scisti!And at dead of night I call:   “Though to prophets list I,Which hath understood at all?   Yea: Quem elegisti?”187–

SURVIEW

“Cogitavi vias meas”

A cry from the green-grained sticks of the fireMade me gaze where it seemed to be:’Twas my own voice talking therefrom to meOn how I had walked when my sun was higher —My heart in its arrogancy.“You held not to whatsoever was true,”Said my own voice talking to me:“Whatsoever was just you were slack to see;Kept not things lovely and pure in view,”Said my own voice talking to me.“You slighted her that endureth all,”Said my own voice talking to me;“Vaunteth not, trusteth hopefully;That suffereth long and is kind withal,”Said my own voice talking to me.“You taught not that which you set about,”Said my own voice talking to me;“That the greatest of things is Charity.. ”– And the sticks burnt low, and the fire went out,And my voice ceased talking to me.

1

Quadrilles danced early in the nineteenth century.

2

It was said her real name was Eve Trevillian or Trevelyan; and that she was the handsome mother of two or three illegitimate children, circa 1784–95.