LITMIR.BIZ

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we possess.”

      W. D.—“Ye mid burn the wold bass-viol that I set such vallie by.” Squire.—“You may hold the manse in fee, You may wed my spouse, my children’s memory of me may decry.”

      Lady.—“You may have my rich brocades, my laces; take each household key; Ransack coffer, desk, bureau; Quiz the few poor treasures hid there, con the letters kept by me.”

      Far.—“Ye mid zell my favourite heifer, ye mid let the charlock grow, Foul the grinterns, give up thrift.” Wife.—“If ye break my best blue china, children, I shan’t care or ho.”

      All. —“We’ve no wish to hear the tidings, how the people’s fortunes shift; What your daily doings are; Who are wedded, born, divided; if your lives beat slow or swift.

      “Curious not the least are we if our intents you make or mar,

       If you quire to our old tune,

       If the City stage still passes, if the weirs still roar afar.”

      —Thus, with very gods’ composure, freed those crosses late and soon

       Which, in life, the Trine allow

       (Why, none witteth), and ignoring all that haps beneath the moon,

      William Dewy, Tranter Reuben, Farmer Ledlow late at plough,

       Robert’s kin, and John’s, and Ned’s,

       And the Squire, and Lady Susan, murmur mildly to me now.

      To Outer Nature

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      Show thee as I thought thee

       When I early sought thee,

       Omen-scouting,

       All undoubting

       Love alone had wrought thee—

      Wrought thee for my pleasure,

       Planned thee as a measure

       For expounding

       And resounding

       Glad things that men treasure.

      O for but a moment

       Of that old endowment—

       Light to gaily

       See thy daily

       Irisèd embowment!

      But such re-adorning

       Time forbids with scorning—

       Makes me see things

       Cease to be things

       They were in my morning.

      Fad’st thou, glow-forsaken,

       Darkness-overtaken!

       Thy first sweetness,

       Radiance, meetness,

       None shall re-awaken.

      Why not sempiternal

       Thou and I? Our vernal

       Brightness keeping,

       Time outleaping;

       Passed the hodiernal!

      Thoughts of Phena

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      AT NEWS OF HER DEATH

      Not a line of her writing have I,

       Not a thread of her hair,

       No mark of her late time as dame in her dwelling, whereby

       I may picture her there;

       And in vain do I urge my unsight

       To conceive my lost prize

       At her close, whom I knew when her dreams were upbrimming with light,

       And with laughter her eyes.

      What scenes spread around her last days,

       Sad, shining, or dim?

       Did her gifts and compassions enray and enarch her sweet ways

       With an aureate nimb?

       Or did life-light decline from her years,

       And mischances control

       Her full day-star; unease, or regret, or forebodings, or fears

       Disennoble her soul?

      Thus I do but the phantom retain

       Of the maiden of yore

       As my relic; yet haply the best of her—fined in my brain

       It maybe the more

       That no line of her writing have I,

       Nor a thread of her hair,

       No mark of her late time as dame in her dwelling, whereby

       I may picture her there.

      March 1890.

      Middle-Age Enthusiasms

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      To M. H.

      We passed where flag and flower

       Signalled a jocund throng;

       We said: “Go to, the hour

       Is apt!”—and joined the song;

       And, kindling, laughed at life and care,

       Although we knew no laugh lay there.

      We walked where shy birds stood

       Watching us, wonder-dumb;

       Their friendship met our mood;

       We cried: “We’ll often come:

       We’ll come morn, noon, eve, everywhen!”

       —We doubted we should come again.

      We joyed to see strange sheens

       Leap from quaint leaves in shade;

       A secret light of greens

       They’d for their pleasure made.

       We said: “We’ll set such sorts as these!”

       —We knew with night the wish would cease.

      “So sweet the place,” we said,

       “Its tacit tales so dear,

       Our thoughts, when breath has sped,

       Will meet and mingle here!” . . .

       “Words!” mused we. “Passed the mortal door,

       Our thoughts will reach this nook no more.”

      In a Wood

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      See “The Woodlanders”

      Pale beech and pine-tree blue,

      

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