Late Lyrics and Earlier, With Many Other Verses Part 15

I do to-day What I would not then; and the chill old keys, Like a skull's brown teeth Loose in their sheath, Freeze my touch; yes, freeze."

"I LOOK IN HER FACE"

(SONG: Minor)

I look in her face and say, "Sing as you used to sing About Love's blossoming"; But she hints not Yea or Nay.

"Sing, then, that Love's a pain, If, Dear, you think it so, Whether it be or no;"

But dumb her lips remain.

I go to a far-off room, A faint song ghosts my ear; WHICH song I cannot hear, But it seems to come from a tomb.

AFTER THE WAR

Last Post sounded Across the mead To where he loitered With absent heed.

Five years before In the evening there Had flown that call To him and his Dear.

"You'll never come back; Good-bye!" she had said; "Here I'll be living, And my Love dead!"

Those closing minims Had been as shafts darting Through him and her pressed In that last parting; They thrilled him not now, In the selfsame place With the selfsame sun On his war-seamed face.

"Lurks a G.o.d's laughter In this?" he said, "That I am the living And she the dead!"

"IF YOU HAD KNOWN"

If you had known When listening with her to the far-down moan Of the white-selvaged and empurpled sea, And rain came on that did not hinder talk, Or damp your flas.h.i.+ng facile gaiety In turning home, despite the slow wet walk By crooked ways, and over stiles of stone; If you had known

You would lay roses, Fifty years thence, on her monument, that discloses Its graying shape upon the luxuriant green; Fifty years thence to an hour, by chance led there, What might have moved you?--yea, had you foreseen That on the tomb of the selfsame one, gone where The dawn of every day is as the close is, You would lay roses!

1920.

THE CHAPEL-ORGANIST (A.D. 185-)

I've been thinking it through, as I play here to-night, to play never again, By the light of that lowering sun peering in at the window-pane, And over the back-street roofs, throwing shades from the boys of the ch.o.r.e In the gallery, right upon me, sitting up to these keys once more . .

How I used to hear tongues ask, as I sat here when I was new: "Who is she playing the organ? She touches it mightily true!"

"She travels from Havenpool Town," the deacon would softly speak, "The stipend can hardly cover her fare hither twice in the week."

(It fell far short of doing, indeed; but I never told, For I have craved minstrelsy more than lovers, or beauty, or gold.)

'Twas so he answered at first, but the story grew different later: "It cannot go on much longer, from what we hear of her now!"

At the meaning wheeze in the words the inquirer would s.h.i.+ft his place Till he could see round the curtain that screened me from people below.

"A handsome girl," he would murmur, upstaring, (and so I am).

"But--too much s.e.x in her build; fine eyes, but eyelids too heavy; A bosom too full for her age; in her lips too voluptuous a look."

(It may be. But who put it there? a.s.suredly it was not I.)

I went on playing and singing when this I had heard, and more, Though tears half-blinded me; yes, I remained going on and on, Just as I used me to chord and to sing at the selfsame time! . . .

For it's a contralto--my voice is; they'll hear it again here to- night In the psalmody notes that I love more than world or than flesh or than life.

Well, the deacon, in fact, that day had learnt new tidings about me; They troubled his mind not a little, for he was a worthy man.

(He trades as a chemist in High Street, and during the week he had sought His fellow-deacon, who throve as a book-binder over the way.) "These are strange rumours," he said. "We must guard the good name of the chapel.

If, sooth, she's of evil report, what else can we do but dismiss her?"

"--But get such another to play here we cannot for double the price!"

It settled the point for the time, and I triumphed awhile in their strait, And my much-beloved grand semibreves went living on under my fingers.

At length in the congregation more head-shakes and murmurs were rife, And my dismissal was ruled, though I was not warned of it then.

But a day came when they declared it. The news entered me as a sword; I was broken; so pallid of face that they thought I should faint, they said.

I rallied. "O, rather than go, I will play you for nothing!" said I.

'Twas in much desperation I spoke it, for bring me to forfeit I could not Those melodies chorded so richly for which I had laboured and lived.

They paused. And for nothing I played at the chapel through Sundays anon, Upheld by that art which I loved more than blandishments lavished of men.

But it fell that murmurs again from the flock broke the pastor's peace.

Some member had seen me at Havenpool, comrading close a sea-captain.

(Yes; I was thereto constrained, lacking means for the fare to and fro.) Yet G.o.d knows, if aught He knows ever, I loved the Old-Hundredth, Saint Stephen's, Mount Zion, New Sabbath, Miles-Lane, Holy Rest, and Arabia, and Eaton, Above all embraces of body by wooers who sought me and won! . . .

Next week 'twas declared I was seen coming home with a lover at dawn.

The deacons insisted then, strong; and forgiveness I did not implore.

I saw all was lost for me, quite, but I made a last bid in my throbs.

High love had been beaten by l.u.s.t; and the senses had conquered the soul, But the soul should die game, if I knew it! I turned to my masters and said: "I yield, Gentlemen, without parlance. But--let me just hymn you ONCE more!

It's a little thing, Sirs, that I ask; and a pa.s.sion is music with me!"

They saw that consent would cost nothing, and show as good grace, as knew I, Though tremble I did, and feel sick, as I paused thereat, dumb for their words.

They gloomily nodded a.s.sent, saying, "Yes, if you care to. Once more, And only once more, understand." To that with a bend I agreed.

- "You've a fixed and a far-reaching look," spoke one who had eyed me awhile.

"I've a fixed and a far-reaching plan, and my look only showed it,"

said I.

This evening of Sunday is come--the last of my functioning here.

"She plays as if she were possessed!" they exclaim, glancing upward and round.

"Such harmonies I never dreamt the old instrument capable of!"

Meantime the sun lowers and goes; shades deepen; the lights are turned up, And the people voice out the last singing: tune Tallis: the Evening Hymn.

(I wonder Dissenters sing Ken: it shows them more liberal in spirit At this little chapel down here than at certain new others I know.) I sing as I play. Murmurs some one: "No woman's throat richer than hers!"

"True: in these parts, at least," ponder I. "But, my man, you will hear it no more."

And I sing with them onward: "The grave dread as little do I as my bed."

I lift up my feet from the pedals; and then, while my eyes are still wet From the symphonies born of my fingers, I do that whereon I am set, And draw from my "full round bosom," (their words; how can _I_ help its heave?) A bottle blue-coloured and fluted--a vinaigrette, they may conceive - And before the choir measures my meaning, reads aught in my moves to and fro, I drink from the phial at a draught, and they think it a pick-me-up; so.

Then I gather my books as to leave, bend over the keys as to pray.

When they come to me motionless, stooping, quick death will have whisked me away.