Chapter I: WENT and stood outside myself,

Spelled the dark sky
And ship-lights nigh,
And grumbling winds that passed thereby.

Then next inside myself I looked,
And there, above
All, shone my Love,
That nothing matched the image of.

Beyond myself again I ranged;
And saw the free
Life by the sea,
And folk indifferent to me.

O ’twas a charm to draw within
Thereafter, where
But she was; care
For one thing only, her hid there!

But so it chanced, without myself
I had to look,
And then I took
More heed of what I had long forsook:

The boats, the sands, the esplanade,
The laughing crowd;
Light-hearted, loud
Greetings from some not ill-endowed;

The evening sunlit cliffs, the talk,
Hailings and halts,
The keen sea-salts,
The band, the Morgenblätter Waltz.

Still, when at night I drew inside
Forward she came,
Sad, but the same
As when I first had known her name.

Then rose a time when, as by force,
Outwardly wooed
By contacts crude,
Her image in abeyance stood . . .

At last I said: This outside life
Shall not endure;
I’ll seek the pure
Thought-world, and bask in her allure.

Myself again I crept within,
Scanned with keen care
The temple where
She’d shone, but could not find her there.

I sought and sought. But O her soul
Has not since thrown
Upon my own
One beam! Yea, she is gone, is gone.

_From an old note_.

THE GLIMPSE

SHE sped through the door
And, following in haste,
And stirred to the core,
I entered hot-faced;
But I could not find her,
No sign was behind her.
“Where is she?” I said:
—“Who?” they asked that sat there;
“Not a soul’s come in sight.”
—“A maid with red hair.”
—“Ah.” They paled. “She is dead.
People see her at night,
But you are the first
On whom she has burst
In the keen common light.”

It was ages ago,
When I was quite strong:
I have waited since,—O,
I have waited so long!
—Yea, I set me to own
The house, where now lone
I dwell in void rooms
Booming hollow as tombs!
But I never come near her,
Though nightly I hear her.
And my cheek has grown thin
And my hair has grown gray
With this waiting therein;
But she still keeps away!

THE PEDESTRIAN AN INCIDENT OF 1883

“SIR, will you let me give you a ride?
_Nox Venit_, and the heath is wide.”
—My phaeton-lantern shone on one
Young, fair, even fresh,
But burdened with flesh:
A leathern satchel at his side,
His breathings short, his coat undone.

’Twas as if his corpulent figure slopped
With the shake of his walking when he stopped,
And, though the night’s pinch grew acute,
He wore but a thin
Wind-thridded suit,
Yet well-shaped shoes for walking in,
Artistic beaver, cane gold-topped.

“Alas, my friend,” he said with a smile,
“I am daily bound to foot ten mile—
Wet, dry, or dark—before I rest.
Six months to live
My doctors give
Me as my prospect here, at best,
Unless I vamp my sturdiest!”

His voice was that of a man refined,
A man, one well could feel, of mind,
Quite winning in its musical ease;
But in mould maligned
By some disease;
And I asked again. But he shook his head;
Then, as if more were due, he said:—

“A student was I—of Schopenhauer,
Kant, Hegel,—and the fountained bower
Of the Muses, too, knew my regard:
But ah—I fear me
The grave gapes near me! . . .
Would I could this gross sheath discard,
And rise an ethereal shape, unmarred!”

How I remember him!—his short breath,
His aspect, marked for early death,
As he dropped into the night for ever;
One caught in his prime
Of high endeavour;
From all philosophies soon to sever
Through an unconscienced trick of Time!

“WHO’S IN THE NEXT ROOM?”

“WHO’S in the next room?—who?
I seemed to see
Somebody in the dawning passing through,
Unknown to me.”
“Nay: you saw nought. He passed invisibly.”

“Who’s in the next room?—who?
I seem to hear
Somebody muttering firm in a language new
That chills the ear.”
“No: you catch not his tongue who has entered there.”

“Who’s in the next room?—who?
I seem to feel
His breath like a clammy draught, as if it drew
From the Polar Wheel.”
“No: none who breathes at all does the door conceal.”

“Who’s in the next room?—who?
A figure wan
With a message to one in there of something due?
Shall I know him anon?”
“Yea he; and he brought such; and you’ll know him anon.”

AT A COUNTRY FAIR

At a bygone Western country fair
I saw a giant led by a dwarf
With a red string like a long thin scarf;
How much he was the stronger there
The giant seemed unaware.

And then I saw that the giant was blind,
And the dwarf a shrewd-eyed little thing;
The giant, mild, timid, obeyed the string
As if he had no independent mind,
Or will of any kind.

Wherever the dwarf decided to go
At his heels the other trotted meekly,
(Perhaps—I know not—reproaching weakly)
Like one Fate bade that it must be so,
Whether he wished or no.

Various sights in various climes
I have seen, and more I may see yet,
But that sight never shall I forget,
And have thought it the sorriest of pantomimes,
If once, a hundred times!

THE MEMORIAL BRASS: 186–

“WHY do you weep there, O sweet lady,
Why do you weep before that brass?—
(I’m a mere student sketching the mediaeval)
Is some late death lined there, alas?—
Your father’s? . . . Well, all pay the debt that paid he!”

“Young man, O must I tell!—My husband’s! And under
His name I set mine, and my _death_!—
Its date left vacant till my heirs should fill it,
Stating me faithful till my last breath.”
—“Madam, that you are a widow wakes my wonder!”

“O wait! For last month I—remarried!
And now I fear ’twas a deed amiss.
We’ve just come home. And I am sick and saddened
At what the new one will say to this;
And will he think—think that I should have tarried?

“I may add, surely,—with no wish to harm him—
That he’s a temper—yes, I fear!
And when he comes to church next Sunday morning,
And sees that written . . . O dear, O dear!”
—“Madam, I swear your beauty will disarm him!”

HER LOVE-BIRDS

WHEN I looked up at my love-birds
That Sunday afternoon,
There was in their tiny tune
A dying fetch like broken words,
When I looked up at my love-birds
That Sunday afternoon.

When he, too, scanned the love-birds
On entering there that day,
’Twas as if he had nought to say
Of his long journey citywards,
When he, too, scanned the love-birds,
On entering there that day.

And billed and billed the love-birds,
As ’twere in fond despair
At the stress of silence where
Had once been tones in tenor thirds,
And billed and billed the love-birds
As ’twere in fond despair.

O, his speech that chilled the love-birds,
And smote like death on me,
As I learnt what was to be,
And knew my life was broke in sherds!
O, his speech that chilled the love-birds,
And smote like death on me!

PAYING CALLS