When we as strangers sought Their catering care, Veiled smiles bespoke their thought Of what we were. They warmed as they opined Us more than friends – That we had all resigned For love’s dear ends. And that swift sympathy With living love Which quicks the world–maybe The spheres above, Made them our ministers, Moved […]

(AT A CATHEDRAL SERVICE) That from this bright believing band An outcast I should be, That faiths by which my comrades stand Seem fantasies to me, And mirage-mists their Shining Land, Is a drear destiny. Why thus my soul should be consigned To infelicity, Why always I must feel as blind To sights my brethren […]

When I look forth at dawning, pool, Field, flock, and lonely tree, All seem to gaze at me Like chastened children sitting silent in a school; Their faces dulled, constrained, and worn, As though the master’s ways Through the long teaching days Their first terrestrial zest had chilled and overborne. And on them stirs, in […]

I He sees the world as a boisterous place Where all things bear a laughing face, And humorous scenes go hourly on, Does John. II They find the world a pleasant place Where all is ecstasy and grace, Where a light has risen that cannot wane, Do John and Jane. III They see as a […]

In the black winter morning No light will be struck near my eyes While the clock in the stairway is warning For five, when he used to rise. Leave the door unbarred, The clock unwound, Make my lone bed hard – Would ’twere underground! When the summer dawns clearly, And the appletree-tops seem alight, Who […]

Here we broached the Christmas barrel, Pushed up the charred log-ends; Here we sang the Christmas carol, And called in friends. Time has tired me since we met here When the folk now dead were young, Since the viands were outset here And quaint songs sung. And the worm has bored the viol That used […]

(circa 186-) I bore a daughter flower-fair, In Pydel Vale, alas for me; I joyed to mother one so rare, But dead and gone I now would be. Men looked and loved her as she grew, And she was won, alas for me; She told me nothing, but I knew, And saw that sorrow was […]

I The dubious daylight ended, And I walked the Town alone, unminding whither bound and why, As from each gaunt street and gaping square a mist of light ascended And dispersed upon the sky. II Files of evanescent faces Passed each other without heeding, in their travail, teen, or joy, Some in void unvisioned listlessness […]

(182-) I From Wynyard’s Gap the livelong day, The livelong day, We beat afoot the northward way We had travelled times before. The sun-blaze burning on our backs, Our shoulders sticking to our packs, By fosseway, fields, and turnpike tracks We skirted sad Sedge-Moor. II Full twenty miles we jaunted on, We jaunted on, – […]

As I lay awake at night-time In an ancient country barrack known to ancient cannoneers, And recalled the hopes that heralded each seeming brave and bright time Of my primal purple years, Much it haunted me that, nigh there, I had borne my bitterest loss–when One who went, came not again; In a joyless hour […]

I look into my glass, And view my wasting skin, And say, “Would God it came to pass My heart had shrunk as thin!” For then, I, undistrest By hearts grown cold to me, Could lonely wait my endless rest With equanimity. But Time, to make me grieve; Part steals, lets part abide; And shakes […]

They hail me as one living, But don’t they know That I have died of late years, Untombed although? I am but a shape that stands here, A pulseless mould, A pale past picture, screening Ashes gone cold. Not at a minute’s warning, Not in a loud hour, For me ceased Time’s enchantments In hall […]

I Who now remembers Almack’s balls – Willis’s sometime named – In those two smooth-floored upper halls For faded ones so famed? Where as we trod to trilling sound The fancied phantoms stood around, Or joined us in the maze, Of the powdered Dears from Georgian years, Whose dust lay in sightless sealed-up biers, The […]

Close up the casement, draw the blind, Shut out that stealing moon, She wears too much the guise she wore Before our lutes were strewn With years-deep dust, and names we read On a white stone were hewn. Step not out on the dew-dashed lawn To view the Lady’s Chair, Immense Orion’s glittering form, The […]

Here by the baring bough Raking up leaves, Often I ponder how Springtime deceives, – I, an old woman now, Raking up leaves. Here in the avenue Raking up leaves, Lords’ ladies pass in view, Until one heaves Sighs at life’s russet hue, Raking up leaves! Just as my shape you see Raking up leaves, […]

I If seasons all were summers, And leaves would never fall, And hopping casement-comers Were foodless not at all, And fragile folk might be here That white winds bid depart; Then one I used to see here Would warm my wasted heart! II One frail, who, bravely tilling Long hours in gripping gusts, Was mastered […]

We shall see her no more On the balcony, Smiling, while hurt, at the roar As of surging sea From the stormy sturdy band Who have doomed her lord’s cause, Though she waves her little hand As it were applause. Here will be candidates yet, And candidates’ wives, Fervid with zeal to set Their ideals […]

(17–) Here alone by the logs in my chamber, Deserted, decrepit – Spent flames limning ghosts on the wainscot Of friends I once knew – My drama and hers begins weirdly Its dumb re-enactment, Each scene, sigh, and circumstance passing In spectral review. – Wealth was mine beyond wish when I met her – The […]

A WORKHOUSE IRONY I I thought they’d be strangers aroun’ me, But she’s to be there! Let me jump out o’ waggon and go back and drown me At Pummery or Ten-Hatches Weir. II I thought: “Well, I’ve come to the Union – The workhouse at last – After honest hard work all the week, […]

Here are the tracks upon the sand Where stood last evening she and I – Pressed heart to heart and hand to hand; The morning sun has baked them dry. I kissed her wet face–wet with rain, For arid grief had burnt up tears, While reached us as in sleeping pain The distant gurgling of […]