Читать книгу: «Poems of the Past and the Present», страница 4

MUTE OPINION

I

 
I traversed a dominion
Whose spokesmen spake out strong
Their purpose and opinion
Through pulpit, press, and song.
I scarce had means to note there
A large-eyed few, and dumb,
Who thought not as those thought there
That stirred the heat and hum.
 

II

 
When, grown a Shade, beholding
That land in lifetime trode,
To learn if its unfolding
Fulfilled its clamoured code,
I saw, in web unbroken,
Its history outwrought
Not as the loud had spoken,
But as the mute had thought.
 

TO AN UNBORN PAUPER CHILD

I

 
   Breathe not, hid Heart: cease silently,
   And though thy birth-hour beckons thee,
      Sleep the long sleep:
      The Doomsters heap
   Travails and teens around us here,
And Time-wraiths turn our songsingings to fear.
 

II

 
   Hark, how the peoples surge and sigh,
   And laughters fail, and greetings die:
      Hopes dwindle; yea,
      Faiths waste away,
   Affections and enthusiasms numb;
Thou canst not mend these things if thou dost come.
 

III

 
   Had I the ear of wombèd souls
   Ere their terrestrial chart unrolls,
      And thou wert free
      To cease, or be,
   Then would I tell thee all I know,
And put it to thee: Wilt thou take Life so?
 

IV

 
   Vain vow!  No hint of mine may hence
   To theeward fly: to thy locked sense
      Explain none can
      Life’s pending plan:
   Thou wilt thy ignorant entry make
Though skies spout fire and blood and nations quake.
 

V

 
   Fain would I, dear, find some shut plot
   Of earth’s wide wold for thee, where not
      One tear, one qualm,
      Should break the calm.
   But I am weak as thou and bare;
No man can change the common lot to rare.
 

VI

 
   Must come and bide.  And such are we —
   Unreasoning, sanguine, visionary —
      That I can hope
      Health, love, friends, scope
   In full for thee; can dream thou’lt find
Joys seldom yet attained by humankind!
 

TO FLOWERS FROM ITALY IN WINTER

 
Sunned in the South, and here to-day;
   – If all organic things
Be sentient, Flowers, as some men say,
   What are your ponderings?
 
 
How can you stay, nor vanish quite
   From this bleak spot of thorn,
And birch, and fir, and frozen white
   Expanse of the forlorn?
 
 
Frail luckless exiles hither brought!
   Your dust will not regain
Old sunny haunts of Classic thought
   When you shall waste and wane;
 
 
But mix with alien earth, be lit
   With frigid Boreal flame,
And not a sign remain in it
   To tell men whence you came.
 

ON A FINE MORNING

 
Whence comes Solace? – Not from seeing
What is doing, suffering, being,
Not from noting Life’s conditions,
Nor from heeding Time’s monitions;
   But in cleaving to the Dream,
   And in gazing at the gleam
   Whereby gray things golden seem.
 

II

 
Thus do I this heyday, holding
Shadows but as lights unfolding,
As no specious show this moment
With its irisèd embowment;
   But as nothing other than
   Part of a benignant plan;
   Proof that earth was made for man.
 

February 1899.

TO LIZBIE BROWNE

I

 
Dear Lizbie Browne,
Where are you now?
In sun, in rain? —
Or is your brow
Past joy, past pain,
Dear Lizbie Browne?
 

II

 
Sweet Lizbie Browne
How you could smile,
How you could sing! —
How archly wile
In glance-giving,
Sweet Lizbie Browne!
 

III

 
And, Lizbie Browne,
Who else had hair
Bay-red as yours,
Or flesh so fair
Bred out of doors,
Sweet Lizbie Browne?
 

IV

 
When, Lizbie Browne,
You had just begun
To be endeared
By stealth to one,
You disappeared
My Lizbie Browne!
 

V

 
Ay, Lizbie Browne,
So swift your life,
And mine so slow,
You were a wife
Ere I could show
Love, Lizbie Browne.
 

VI

 
Still, Lizbie Browne,
You won, they said,
The best of men
When you were wed.
Where went you then,
O Lizbie Browne?
 

VII

 
Dear Lizbie Browne,
I should have thought,
“Girls ripen fast,”
And coaxed and caught
You ere you passed,
Dear Lizbie Browne!
 

VIII

 
But, Lizbie Browne,
I let you slip;
Shaped not a sign;
Touched never your lip
With lip of mine,
Lost Lizbie Browne!
 

IX

 
So, Lizbie Browne,
When on a day
Men speak of me
As not, you’ll say,
“And who was he?” —
Yes, Lizbie Browne!
 

SONG OF HOPE

 
O sweet To-morrow! —
   After to-day
   There will away
This sense of sorrow.
Then let us borrow
Hope, for a gleaming
Soon will be streaming,
   Dimmed by no gray —
      No gray!
 
 
While the winds wing us
   Sighs from The Gone,
   Nearer to dawn
Minute-beats bring us;
When there will sing us
Larks of a glory
Waiting our story
   Further anon —
      Anon!
 
 
Doff the black token,
   Don the red shoon,
   Right and retune
Viol-strings broken;
Null the words spoken
In speeches of rueing,
The night cloud is hueing,
   To-morrow shines soon —
      Shines soon!
 

THE WELL-BELOVED

 
I wayed by star and planet shine
   Towards the dear one’s home
At Kingsbere, there to make her mine
   When the next sun upclomb.
 
 
I edged the ancient hill and wood
   Beside the Ikling Way,
Nigh where the Pagan temple stood
   In the world’s earlier day.
 
 
And as I quick and quicker walked
   On gravel and on green,
I sang to sky, and tree, or talked
   Of her I called my queen.
 
 
– “O faultless is her dainty form,
   And luminous her mind;
She is the God-created norm
   Of perfect womankind!”
 
 
A shape whereon one star-blink gleamed
   Glode softly by my side,
A woman’s; and her motion seemed
   The motion of my bride.
 
 
And yet methought she’d drawn erstwhile
   Adown the ancient leaze,
Where once were pile and peristyle
   For men’s idolatries.
 
 
– “O maiden lithe and lone, what may
   Thy name and lineage be,
Who so resemblest by this ray
   My darling? – Art thou she?”
 
 
The Shape: “Thy bride remains within
   Her father’s grange and grove.”
– “Thou speakest rightly,” I broke in,
   “Thou art not she I love.”
 
 
– “Nay: though thy bride remains inside
   Her father’s walls,” said she,
“The one most dear is with thee here,
   For thou dost love but me.”
 
 
Then I: “But she, my only choice,
   Is now at Kingsbere Grove?”
Again her soft mysterious voice:
   “I am thy only Love.”
 
 
Thus still she vouched, and still I said,
   “O sprite, that cannot be!”.
It was as if my bosom bled,
   So much she troubled me.
 
 
The sprite resumed: “Thou hast transferred
   To her dull form awhile
My beauty, fame, and deed, and word,
   My gestures and my smile.
 
 
“O fatuous man, this truth infer,
   Brides are not what they seem;
Thou lovest what thou dreamest her;
   I am thy very dream!”
 
 
– “O then,” I answered miserably,
   Speaking as scarce I knew,
“My loved one, I must wed with thee
   If what thou say’st be true!”
 
 
She, proudly, thinning in the gloom:
   “Though, since troth-plight began,
I’ve ever stood as bride to groom,
   I wed no mortal man!”
 
 
Thereat she vanished by the Cross
   That, entering Kingsbere town,
The two long lanes form, near the fosse
   Below the faneless Down.
 
 
– When I arrived and met my bride,
   Her look was pinched and thin,
As if her soul had shrunk and died,
   And left a waste within.
 

HER REPROACH

 
Con the dead page as ’twere live love: press on!
Cold wisdom’s words will ease thy track for thee;
Aye, go; cast off sweet ways, and leave me wan
To biting blasts that are intent on me.
 
 
But if thy object Fame’s far summits be,
Whose inclines many a skeleton o’erlies
That missed both dream and substance, stop and see
How absence wears these cheeks and dims these eyes!
 
 
It surely is far sweeter and more wise
To water love, than toil to leave anon
A name whose glory-gleam will but advise
Invidious minds to quench it with their own,
 
 
And over which the kindliest will but stay
A moment, musing, “He, too, had his day!”
 

Westbourne Park Villas,

1867.

THE INCONSISTENT

 
I say, “She was as good as fair,”
   When standing by her mound;
“Such passing sweetness,” I declare,
   “No longer treads the ground.”
I say, “What living Love can catch
   Her bloom and bonhomie,
And what in newer maidens match
   Her olden warmth to me!”
 
 
– There stands within yon vestry-nook
   Where bonded lovers sign,
Her name upon a faded book
   With one that is not mine.
To him she breathed the tender vow
   She once had breathed to me,
But yet I say, “O love, even now
   Would I had died for thee!”
 

A BROKEN APPOINTMENT

 
      You did not come,
And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb. —
Yet less for loss of your dear presence there
Than that I thus found lacking in your make
That high compassion which can overbear
Reluctance for pure lovingkindness’ sake
Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum,
      You did not come.
 
 
      You love not me,
And love alone can lend you loyalty;
– I know and knew it.  But, unto the store
Of human deeds divine in all but name,
Was it not worth a little hour or more
To add yet this: Once, you, a woman, came
To soothe a time-torn man; even though it be
      You love not me?
 

“BETWEEN US NOW”

 
Between us now and here —
   Two thrown together
Who are not wont to wear
   Life’s flushest feather —
Who see the scenes slide past,
The daytimes dimming fast,
Let there be truth at last,
   Even if despair.
 
 
So thoroughly and long
   Have you now known me,
So real in faith and strong
   Have I now shown me,
That nothing needs disguise
Further in any wise,
Or asks or justifies
   A guarded tongue.
 
 
Face unto face, then, say,
   Eyes mine own meeting,
Is your heart far away,
   Or with mine beating?
When false things are brought low,
And swift things have grown slow,
Feigning like froth shall go,
   Faith be for aye.
 

“HOW GREAT MY GRIEF”
(TRIOLET)

 
How great my grief, my joys how few,
Since first it was my fate to know thee!
– Have the slow years not brought to view
How great my grief, my joys how few,
Nor memory shaped old times anew,
   Nor loving-kindness helped to show thee
How great my grief, my joys how few,
   Since first it was my fate to know thee?
 

“I NEED NOT GO”

 
I need not go
Through sleet and snow
To where I know
She waits for me;
She will wait me there
Till I find it fair,
And have time to spare
From company.
 
 
When I’ve overgot
The world somewhat,
When things cost not
Such stress and strain,
Is soon enough
By cypress sough
To tell my Love
I am come again.
 
 
And if some day,
When none cries nay,
I still delay
To seek her side,
(Though ample measure
Of fitting leisure
Await my pleasure)
She will riot chide.
 
 
What – not upbraid me
That I delayed me,
Nor ask what stayed me
So long?  Ah, no! —
New cares may claim me,
New loves inflame me,
She will not blame me,
But suffer it so.
 

THE COQUETTE, AND AFTER
(TRIOLETS)

I

 
For long the cruel wish I knew
That your free heart should ache for me
While mine should bear no ache for you;
For, long – the cruel wish! – I knew
How men can feel, and craved to view
My triumph – fated not to be
For long!.. The cruel wish I knew
That your free heart should ache for me!
 

II

 
At last one pays the penalty —
The woman – women always do.
My farce, I found, was tragedy
At last! – One pays the penalty
With interest when one, fancy-free,
Learns love, learns shame.. Of sinners two
At last one pays the penalty —
The woman – women always do!
 

A SPOT

 
   In years defaced and lost,
   Two sat here, transport-tossed,
   Lit by a living love
The wilted world knew nothing of:
      Scared momently
      By gaingivings,
      Then hoping things
      That could not be.
 
 
   Of love and us no trace
   Abides upon the place;
   The sun and shadows wheel,
Season and season sereward steal;
      Foul days and fair
      Here, too, prevail,
      And gust and gale
      As everywhere.
 
 
   But lonely shepherd souls
   Who bask amid these knolls
   May catch a faery sound
On sleepy noontides from the ground:
      “O not again
      Till Earth outwears
      Shall love like theirs
      Suffuse this glen!”
 

LONG PLIGHTED

 
      Is it worth while, dear, now,
To call for bells, and sally forth arrayed
For marriage-rites – discussed, decried, delayed
         So many years?
 
 
      Is it worth while, dear, now,
To stir desire for old fond purposings,
By feints that Time still serves for dallyings,
         Though quittance nears?
 
 
      Is it worth while, dear, when
The day being so far spent, so low the sun,
The undone thing will soon be as the done,
      And smiles as tears?
 
 
      Is it worth while, dear, when
Our cheeks are worn, our early brown is gray;
When, meet or part we, none says yea or nay,
      Or heeds, or cares?
 
 
      Is it worth while, dear, since
We still can climb old Yell’ham’s wooded mounds
Together, as each season steals its rounds
      And disappears?
 
 
      Is it worth while, dear, since
As mates in Mellstock churchyard we can lie,
Till the last crash of all things low and high
      Shall end the spheres?
 

THE WIDOW

 
By Mellstock Lodge and Avenue
   Towards her door I went,
And sunset on her window-panes
   Reflected our intent.
 
 
The creeper on the gable nigh
   Was fired to more than red
And when I came to halt thereby
   “Bright as my joy!” I said.
 
 
Of late days it had been her aim
   To meet me in the hall;
Now at my footsteps no one came;
   And no one to my call.
 
 
Again I knocked; and tardily
   An inner step was heard,
And I was shown her presence then
   With scarce an answering word.
 
 
She met me, and but barely took
   My proffered warm embrace;
Preoccupation weighed her look,
   And hardened her sweet face.
 
 
“To-morrow – could you – would you call?
   Make brief your present stay?
My child is ill – my one, my all! —
   And can’t be left to-day.”
 
 
And then she turns, and gives commands
   As I were out of sound,
Or were no more to her and hers
   Than any neighbour round.
 
 
– As maid I wooed her; but one came
   And coaxed her heart away,
And when in time he wedded her
   I deemed her gone for aye.
 
 
He won, I lost her; and my loss
   I bore I know not how;
But I do think I suffered then
   Less wretchedness than now.
 
 
For Time, in taking him, had oped
   An unexpected door
Of bliss for me, which grew to seem
   Far surer than before.
 
 
Her word is steadfast, and I know
   That plighted firm are we:
But she has caught new love-calls since
   She smiled as maid on me!