LITMIR.BIZ

      I sometimes think as here I sit

         Of things I have done,

      Which seemed in doing not unfit

         To face the sun:

      Yet never a soul has paused a whit

         On such – not one.

      There was that eager strenuous press

         To sow good seed;

      There was that saving from distress

         In the nick of need;

      There were those words in the wilderness:

         Who cared to heed?

      Yet can this be full true, or no?

         For one did care,

      And, spiriting into my house, to, fro,

         Like wind on the stair,

      Cares still, heeds all, and will, even though

         I may despair.

      Did they catch as it were in a Vision at shut of the day —

      When their cavalry smote through the ancient Esdraelon Plain,

      And they crossed where the Tishbite stood forth in his enemy’s way —

      His gaunt mournful Shade as he bade the King haste off amain?

      On war-men at this end of time – even on Englishmen’s eyes —

      Who slay with their arms of new might in that long-ago place,

      Flashed he who drove furiously?.. Ah, did the phantom arise

      Of that queen, of that proud Tyrian woman who painted her face?

      Faintly marked they the words “Throw her down!” rise from Night eerily,

      Spectre-spots of the blood of her body on some rotten wall?

      And the thin note of pity that came: “A King’s daughter is she,”

      As they passed where she trodden was once by the chargers’ footfall?

      Could such be the hauntings of men of to-day, at the cease

      Of pursuit, at the dusk-hour, ere slumber their senses could seal?

      Enghosted seers, kings – one on horseback who asked “Is it peace?”.

      Yea, strange things and spectral may men have beheld in Jezreel!

         Who were the twain that trod this track

            So many times together

               Hither and back,

      In spells of certain and uncertain weather?

         Commonplace in conduct they

            Who wandered to and fro here

               Day by day:

      Two that few dwellers troubled themselves to know here.

         The very gravel-path was prim

            That daily they would follow:

               Borders trim:

      Never a wayward sprout, or hump, or hollow.

         Trite usages in tamest style

            Had tended to their plighting.

               “It’s just worth while,

      Perhaps,” they had said.  “And saves much sad good-nighting.”

         And petty seemed the happenings

            That ministered to their joyance:

               Simple things,

      Onerous to satiate souls, increased their buoyance.

         Who could those common people be,

            Of days the plainest, barest?

               They were we;

      Yes; happier than the cleverest, smartest, rarest.

         The curtains now are drawn,

         And the spindrift strikes the glass,

         Blown up the jagged pass

         By the surly salt sou’-west,

         And the sneering glare is gone

         Behind the yonder crest,

            While she sings to me:

      “O the dream that thou art my Love, be it thine,

      And the dream that I am thy Love, be it mine,

      And death may come, but loving is divine.”

         I stand here in the rain,

         With its smite upon her stone,

         And the grasses that have grown

         Over women, children, men,

         And their texts that “Life is vain”;

         But I hear the notes as when

            Once she sang to me:

      “O the dream that thou art my Love, be it thine,

      And the dream that I am thy Love, be it mine,

      And death may come, but loving is divine.”

      When moiling seems at cease

         In the vague void of night-time,

         And heaven’s wide roomage stormless

         Between the dusk and light-time,

         And fear at last is formless,

      We call the allurement Peace.

      Peace, this hid riot, Change,

         This revel of quick-cued mumming,

         This never truly being,

         This evermore becoming,

         This spinner’s wheel onfleeing

      Outside perception’s range.

         I was not he – the man

      Who used to pilgrim to your gate,

      At whose smart step you grew elate,

         And rosed, as maidens can,

            For a brief span.

         It was not I who sang

      Beside the keys you touched so true

      With note-bent eyes, as if with you

         It counted not whence sprang

            The voice that rang.

         Yet

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