THE PINK FROCK

443

THE PINK FROCK

"O MY pretty pink frock,
I sha'n't be able to wear it!
Why is he dying just now?

I hardly can bear it!

"He might have contrived to live on ; But they say there's no hope whatever : And must I shut myself up,

And go out never?

"O my pretty pink frock?
Puff-sleeved and accordion-pleated!
He might have passed in July,
And not so cheated!"

TRANSFORMATIONS

PORTION of this yew

Is a man my grandsire knew,
Bosomed here at its foot :
This branch may be his wife,
A ruddy human life

Now turned to a green shoot.

These grasses must be made
Of her who often prayed,
Last century, for repose;
And the fair girl long ago
Whom I often tried to know
May be entering this rose.

So, they are not underground,
But as nerves and veins abound
In the growths of upper air,
And they feel the sun and rain,
And the energy again

That made them what they were!

IN HER PRECINCTS

HER house looked cold from the foggy lea,

And the square of each window a dull black blur
Where showed no stir :

Yes, her gloom within at the lack of me
Seemed matching mine at the lack of her.

The black squares grew to be squares of light
As the eveshade swathed the house and lawn,
And viols gave tone;

There was glee within. And I found that night
The gloom of severance mine alone.

KINGSTON-MAURWARD PARK.

THE LAST SIGNAL

(Oct. 11, 1886)

A MEMORY OF WILLIAM BARNES

SILENTLY I footed by an uphill road

That led from my abode to a spot yew-boughed ;
Yellowly the sun sloped low down to westward,
And dark was the east with cloud.

Then, below the shadow of that livid sad east, Where the light was least, and a gate stood wide, Flashed back the fire of the sun that was facing it, Like a brief blaze on that side.

Looking hard and harder I knew what it meantThe sudden shine sent from the livid east scene; It meant the west mirrored by the coffin of my friend there, Turning to the road from his green,

To take his last journey forth-he who in his prime Trudged so many a time from that gate athwart the land! Thus a farewell to me he signalled on his grave-way,

As with a wave of his hand.

WINTERBORNE CAME PATH.

THE HOUSE OF SILENCE

445

THE HOUSE OF SILENCE

"THAT is a quiet place

That house in the trees with the shady lawn."
"—If, child, you knew what there goes on
You would not call it a quiet place.

Why, a phantom abides there, the last of its race,
And a brain spins there till dawn."

"But I see nobody there,-
Nobody moves about the green,
Or wanders the heavy trees between."
"Ah, that's because you do not bear
The visioning powers of souls who dare
To pierce the material screen.

"Morning, noon, and night,

Mid those funereal shades that seem
The uncanny scenery of a dream,
Figures dance to a mind with sight,
And music and laughter like floods of light
Make all the precincts gleam.

"It is a poet's bower,

Through which there pass, in fleet arrays,
Long teams of all the years and days,
Of joys and sorrows, of earth and heaven,
That meet mankind in its ages seven,
An aion in an hour."

GREAT THINGS

SWEET cyder is a great thing,
A great thing to me,
Spinning down to Weymouth town
By Ridgway thirstily,
And maid and mistress summoning

Who tend the hostelry:

O cyder is a great thing,

A great thing to me!

The dance it is a great thing,
A great thing to me,
With candles lit and partners fit
For night-long revelry;
And going home when day-dawning
Peeps pale upon the lea:
O dancing is a great thing,
A great thing to me!

Love is, yea, a great thing,

A great thing to me,

When, having drawn across the lawn
In darkness silently,

A figure flits like one a-wing
Out from the nearest tree :
O love is, yes, a great thing,
Aye, greatest thing to me!
Will these be always great things,
Greatest things to me? . . .
Let it befall that One will call,

"Soul, I have need of thee":

What then? Joy-jaunts, impassioned flings, Love, and its ecstasy,

Will always have been great things,

Greatest things to me!

THE CHIMES

THAT morning when I trod the town
The twitching chimes of long renown
Played out to me

The sweet Sicilian sailors' tune,
And I knew not if late or soon
My day would be:

A day of sunshine beryl-bright
And windless; yea, think as I might,
I could not say,

Even to within years' measure, when
One would be at my side who then

Was far away.

THE CHIMES

When hard utilitarian times

Had stilled the sweet Saint-Peter's chimes
I learnt to see

That bale may spring where blisses are,
And one desired might be afar
Though near to me.

447

THE FIGURE IN THE SCENE

IT pleased her to step in front and sit Where the cragged slope was green, While I stood back that I might pencil it With her amid the scene;

Till it gloomed and rained;
But I kept on, despite the drifting wet
That fell and stained

My draught, leaving for curious quizzings yet
The blots engrained.

And thus I drew her there alone,
Seated amid the gauze

Of moisture, hooded, only her outline shown,
With rainfall marked across.

-Soon passed our stay;

Yet her rainy form is the Genius still of the spot,

Immutable, yea,

Though the place now knows her no more, and has known her not Ever since that day.

From an old note.

"WHY DID I SKETCH"

WHY did I sketch an upland green,
And put the figure in

Of one on the spot with me?—

For now that one has ceased to be seen

The picture waxes akin

To a wordless irony.