Satires of Circumstance Part 13

n.o.body calls to mind that here Upon Boterel Hill, where the carters skid, With cheeks whose airy flush outbid Fresh fruit in bloom, and free of fear, She cantered down, as if she must fall (Though she never did), To the charm of all.

Nay: one there is to whom these things, That n.o.body else's mind calls back, Have a savour that scenes in being lack, And a presence more than the actual brings; To whom to-day is beneaped and stale, And its urgent clack But a vapid tale.

PLYMOUTH, March 1913.

THE PHANTOM HORSEWOMAN

I

Queer are the ways of a man I know: He comes and stands In a careworn craze, And looks at the sands And the seaward haze, With moveless hands And face and gaze, Then turns to go . . .

And what does he see when he gazes so?

II

They say he sees as an instant thing More clear than to-day, A sweet soft scene That once was in play By that briny green; Yes, notes alway Warm, real, and keen, What his back years bring - A phantom of his own figuring.

III

Of this vision of his they might say more: Not only there Does he see this sight, But everywhere In his brain--day, night, As if on the air It were drawn rose bright - Yea, far from that sh.o.r.e Does he carry this vision of heretofore:

IV

A ghost-girl-rider. And though, toil-tried, He withers daily, Time touches her not, But she still rides gaily In his rapt thought On that s.h.a.gged and shaly Atlantic spot, And as when first eyed Draws rein and sings to the swing of the tide.

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES

THE WISTFUL LADY

'Love, while you were away there came to me - From whence I cannot tell - A plaintive lady pale and pa.s.sionless, Who bent her eyes upon me critically, And weighed me with a wearing wistfulness, As if she knew me well."

"I saw no lady of that wistful sort As I came riding home.

Perhaps she was some dame the Fates constrain By memories sadder than she can support, Or by unhappy vacancy of brain, To leave her roof and roam?"

"Ah, but she knew me. And before this time I have seen her, lending ear To my light outdoor words, and pondering each, Her frail white finger swayed in pantomime, As if she fain would close with me in speech, And yet would not come near.

"And once I saw her beckoning with her hand As I came into sight At an upper window. And I at last went out; But when I reached where she had seemed to stand, And wandered up and down and searched about, I found she had vanished quite."

Then thought I how my dead Love used to say, With a small smile, when she Was waning wan, that she would hover round And show herself after her pa.s.sing day To any newer Love I might have found, But show her not to me.

THE WOMAN IN THE RYE

"Why do you stand in the dripping rye, Cold-lipped, unconscious, wet to the knee, When there are firesides near?" said I.

"I told him I wished him dead," said she.

"Yea, cried it in my haste to one Whom I had loved, whom I well loved still; And die he did. And I hate the sun, And stand here lonely, aching, chill;

"Stand waiting, waiting under skies That blow reproach, the while I see The rooks sheer off to where he lies Wrapt in a peace withheld from me."

THE CHEVAL-GLa.s.s

Why do you harbour that great cheval-gla.s.s Filling up your narrow room?

You never preen or plume, Or look in a week at your full-length figure - Picture of bachelor gloom!

"Well, when I dwelt in ancient England, Renting the valley farm, Thoughtless of all heart-harm, I used to gaze at the parson's daughter, A creature of nameless charm.

"Thither there came a lover and won her, Carried her off from my view.

O it was then I knew Misery of a cast undreamt of - More than, indeed, my due!

"Then far rumours of her ill-usage Came, like a chilling breath When a man languisheth; Followed by news that her mind lost balance, And, in a s.p.a.ce, of her death.

"Soon sank her father; and next was the auction - Everything to be sold: Mid things new and old Stood this gla.s.s in her former chamber, Long in her use, I was told.

"Well, I awaited the sale and bought it . . .

There by my bed it stands, And as the dawn expands Often I see her pale-faced form there Brus.h.i.+ng her hair's bright bands.

"There, too, at pallid midnight moments Quick she will come to my call, Smile from the frame withal Ponderingly, as she used to regard me Pa.s.sing her father's wall.

"So that it was for its revelations I brought it oversea, And drag it about with me . . .

Anon I shall break it and bury its fragments Where my grave is to be."

THE RE-ENACTMENT

Between the folding sea-downs, In the gloom Of a wailful wintry nightfall, When the boom Of the ocean, like a hammering in a hollow tomb,

Throbbed up the copse-clothed valley From the sh.o.r.e To the chamber where I darkled, Sunk and sore With gray ponderings why my Loved one had not come before