Who shall read the years O! -
Out of the past there rises a week Enringed with a purple zone.
Out of the past there rises a week When thoughts were strung too thick to speak, And the magic of its lineaments remains with me alone.
In that week there was heard a singing -
Who shall spell the years, the years! -
In that week there was heard a singing, And the white owl wondered why.
In that week, yea, a voice was ringing, And forth from the casement were candles flinging Radiance that fell on the deodar and lit up the path thereby.
Could that song have a mocking note? -
Who shall unroll the years O! -
Could that song have a mocking note To the white owl's sense as it fell?
Could that song have a mocking note As it trilled out warm from the singer's throat, And who was the mocker and who the mocked when two felt all was well?
In a tedious trampling crowd yet later -
Who shall bare the years, the years! -
In a tedious trampling crowd yet later, When silvery singings were dumb;In a crowd uncaring what time might fate her, Mid murks of night I stood to await her, And the twanging of iron wheels gave out the signal that she was come.
She said with a travel-tired smile -
Who shall lift the years O! -
She said with a travel-tired smile, Half scared by scene so strange;She said, outworn by mile on mile, The blurred lamps wanning her face the while, "O Love, I am here; I am with you!" . . . Ah, that there should have come a change!
O the doom by someone spoken -
Who shall unseal the years, the years! -
O the doom that gave no token, When nothing of bale saw we:
O the doom by someone spoken, O the heart by someone broken, The heart whose sweet reverberances are all time leaves to me.
Jan.-Feb. 1913.
SITTING ON THE BRIDGE
(Echo of an old song)
Sitting on the bridge Past the barracks, town and ridge, At once the spirit seized us To sing a song that pleased us -As "The Fifth" were much in rumour;
It was "Whilst I'm in the humour, Take me, Paddy, will you now?"And a lancer soon drew nigh, And his Royal Irish eye Said, "Willing, faith, am I, O, to take you anyhow, dears, To take you anyhow."But, lo!--dad walking by, Cried, "What, you lightheels! Fie!
Is this the way you roam And mock the sunset gleam?"And he marched us straightway home, Though we said, "We are only, daddy, Singing, 'Will you take me, Paddy?'"--Well, we never saw from then If we sang there anywhen, The soldier dear again, Except at night in dream-time, Except at night in dream.
Perhaps that soldier's fighting In a land that's far away, Or he may be idly plighting Some foreign hussy gay;Or perhaps his bones are whiting In the wind to their decay! . . .
Ah!--does he mind him how The girls he saw that day On the bridge, were sitting singing At the time of curfew-ringing, "Take me, Paddy; will you now, dear?
Paddy, will you now?"
GREY'S BRIDGE.
THE YOUNG CHURCHWARDEN
When he lit the candles there, And the light fell on his hand, And it trembled as he scanned Her and me, his vanquished air Hinted that his dream was done, And I saw he had begun To understand.
When Love's viol was unstrung, Sore I wished the hand that shook Had been mine that shared her book While that evening hymn was sung, His the victor's, as he lit Candles where he had bidden us sit With vanquished look.
Now her dust lies listless there, His afar from tending hand, What avails the victory scanned?
Does he smile from upper air:
"Ah, my friend, your dream is done;
And 'tis YOU who have begun To understand!
"I TRAVEL AS A PHANTOM NOW"
I travel as a phantom now, For people do not wish to see In flesh and blood so bare a bough As Nature makes of me.
And thus I visit bodiless Strange gloomy households often at odds, And wonder if Man's consciousness Was a mistake of God's.
And next I meet you, and I pause, And think that if mistake it were, As some have said, O then it was One that I well can bear!
1915.
LINES
TO A MOVEMENT IN MOZART'S E-FLAT SYMPHONYShow me again the time When in the Junetide's prime We flew by meads and mountains northerly! -Yea, to such freshness, fairness, fulness, fineness, freeness, Love lures life on.
Show me again the day When from the sandy bay We looked together upon the pestered sea! -Yea, to such surging, swaying, sighing, swelling, shrinking, Love lures life on.
Show me again the hour When by the pinnacled tower We eyed each other and feared futurity! -Yea, to such bodings, broodings, beatings, blanchings, blessings, Love lures life on.
Show me again just this:
The moment of that kiss Away from the prancing folk, by the strawberry-tree! -Yea, to such rashness, ratheness, rareness, ripeness, richness, Love lures life on.
Begun November 1898.
"IN THE SEVENTIES"
"Qui deridetur ab amico suo sicut ego."--JOB.
In the seventies I was bearing in my breast, Penned tight, Certain starry thoughts that threw a magic light On the worktimes and the soundless hours of rest In the seventies; aye, I bore them in my breast Penned tight.
In the seventies when my neighbours--even my friend -Saw me pass, Heads were shaken, and I heard the words, "Alas, For his onward years and name unless he mend!"In the seventies, when my neighbours and my friend Saw me pass.
In the seventies those who met me did not know Of the vision That immuned me from the chillings of mis-prision And the damps that choked my goings to and fro In the seventies; yea, those nodders did not know Of the vision.
In the seventies nought could darken or destroy it, Locked in me, Though as delicate as lamp-worm's lucency;Neither mist nor murk could weaken or alloy it In the seventies!--could not darken or destroy it, Locked in me.
THE PEDIGREE
I
I bent in the deep of night Over a pedigree the chronicler gave As mine; and as I bent there, half-unrobed, The uncurtained panes of my window-square let in the watery light Of the moon in its old age:
And green-rheumed clouds were hurrying past where mute and cold it globed Like a drifting dolphin's eye seen through a lapping wave.
II
