A plain tilt-bonnet on her head She took the path across the leaze. – Her spouse the vicar, gardening, said, “Too dowdy that, for coquetries, So I can hoe at ease. But when she had passed into the heath, And gained the wood beyond the flat, She raised her skirts, and from beneath Unpinned and […]

I opened my shutter at sunrise, And looked at the hill hard by, And I heartily grieved for the comrade Who wandered up there to die. I let in the morn on the morrow, And failed not to think of him then, As he trod up that rise in the twilight, And never came down […]

Just at the corner of the wall We met–yes, he and I – Who had not faced in camp or hall Since we bade home good-bye, And what once happened came back–all – Out of those years gone by. And that strange woman whom we knew And loved–long dead and gone, Whose poor half-perished residue, […]

Through snowy woods and shady We went to play a tune To the lonely manor-lady By the light of the Christmas moon. We violed till, upward glancing To where a mirror leaned, We saw her airily dancing, Deeming her movements screened; Dancing alone in the room there, Thin-draped in her robe of night; Her postures, […]

(On Egdon Heath) “What are you still, still thinking,” He asked in vague surmise, “That stare at the wick unblinking With those great lost luminous eyes?” “O, I see a poor moth burning In the candle-flame,” said she, Its wings and legs are turning To a cinder rapidly.” “Moths fly in from the heather,” He […]

“O he’s suffering–maybe dying–and I not there to aid, And smooth his bed and whisper to him! Can I nohow go? Only the nurse’s brief twelve words thus hurriedly conveyed, As by stealth, to let me know. “He was the best and brightest!–candour shone upon his brow, And I shall never meet again a soldier […]

In his early days he was quite surprised When she told him she was compromised By meetings and lingerings at his whim, And thinking not of herself but him; While she lifted orbs aggrieved and round That scandal should so soon abound, (As she had raised them to nine or ten Of antecedent nice young […]

(SONG OF THE SOLDIERS) What of the faith and fire within us Men who march away Ere the barn-cocks say Night is growing gray, To hazards whence no tears can win us; What of the faith and fire within us Men who march away? Is it a purblind prank, O think you, Friend with the […]

Attentive eyes, fantastic heed, Assessing minds, he does not need, Nor urgent writs to sup or dine, Nor pledges in the roseate wine. For loud acclaim he does not care By the august or rich or fair, Nor for smart pilgrims from afar, Curious on where his hauntings are. But soon or later, when you […]

I Everybody else, then, going, And I still left where the fair was? . . . Much have I seen of neighbour loungers Making a lusty showing, Each now past all knowing. II There is an air of blankness In the street and the littered spaces; Thoroughfare, steeple, bridge and highway Wizen themselves to lankness; […]

“If ever I walk to church to wed, As other maidens use, And face the gathered eyes,” she said, “I’ll go in satin shoes!” She was as fair as early day Shining on meads unmown, And her sweet syllables seemed to play Like flute-notes softly blown. The time arrived when it was meet That she […]

(To the Editor) Yes; your up-dated modern page – All flower-fresh, as it appears – Can claim a time-tried lineage, That reaches backward fifty years (Which, if but short for sleepy squires, Is much in magazines’ careers). – Here, on your cover, never tires The sower, reaper, thresher, while As through the seasons of our […]

(Inventor of the “Perpendicular” Style of Gothic Architecture) The new-vamped Abbey shaped apace In the fourteenth century of grace; (The church which, at an after date, Acquired cathedral rank and state.) Panel and circumscribing wall Of latest feature, trim and tall, Rose roundabout the Norman core In prouder pose than theretofore, Encasing magically the old […]

A BALLAD-TRAGEDY (Circa 182-) PART I “I have a Love I love too well Where Dunkery frowns on Exon Moor; I have a Love I love too well, To whom, ere she was mine, ‘Such is my love for you,’ I said, ‘That you shall have to hood your head A silken kerchief crimson-red, Wove […]

Your troubles shrink not, though I feel them less Here, far away, than when I tarried near; I even smile old smiles–with listlessness – Yet smiles they are, not ghastly mockeries mere. A thought too strange to house within my brain Haunting its outer precincts I discern: – That I will not show zeal again […]

Snow-bound in woodland, a mournful word, Dropt now and then from the bill of a bird, Reached me on wind-wafts; and thus I heard, Wearily waiting:- “I planned her a nest in a leafless tree, But the passers eyed and twitted me, And said: ‘How reckless a bird is he, Cheerily mating!’ “Fear-filled, I stayed […]

TO – When you paced forth, to wait maternity, A dream of other offspring held my mind, Compounded of us twain as Love designed; Rare forms, that corporate now will never be! Should I, too, wed as slave to Mode’s decree, And each thus found apart, of false desire, A stolid line, whom no high […]

TO – In vision I roamed the flashing Firmament, So fierce in blazon that the Night waxed wan, As though with an awed sense of such ostent; And as I thought my spirit ranged on and on In footless traverse through ghast heights of sky, To the last chambers of the monstrous Dome, Where stars […]

If but some vengeful god would call to me From up the sky, and laugh: “Thou suffering thing, Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy, That thy love’s loss is my hate’s profiting!” Then would I bear, and clench myself, and die, Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited; Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than […]

I marked her ruined hues, Her custom-straitened views, And asked, “Can there indwell My Amabel?” I looked upon her gown, Once rose, now earthen brown; The change was like the knell Of Amabel. Her step’s mechanic ways Had lost the life of May’s; Her laugh, once sweet in swell, Spoilt Amabel. I mused: “Who sings […]