What is it waits, and wanders,
And signs with desparate hands?
What is it calls in the twilight –
Calls as its chance were vain?
The cry of a gull sent seaward
Or the voice of an ancient pain?
The red ghost of the sunset,
It walks them as its own,
These dreary and desolate reaches . . .
But O, that it walked alone!
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Do you remember
When, as the kirks were ringing in,And the grey city teemedWith Sabbath feelings and aspects,LEWIS–our LEWIS then,Now the whole world’s–and you,Young, yet in shape most like an elder, came,Laden with BALZACS(Big, yellow books, quite impudently French),The first of many timesTo that transformed back-kitchen where I laySo long, so many centuries –Or years is it!–ago?Dear CHARLES,…
Here they trysted, here they strayed,
Many a man and many a maid,And the morn was merry June.‘Death is fleet, Life is sweet,’Sang the blackbird in the may;And the hour with flying feet,While they dreamed, was yesterday.Many a maid and many a manFound the leafage close and boon;Many a destiny began –O, the morn was merry June!Dead and gone, dead and…
Laughs the happy April morn
And a shaft of sunshine pushesThro’ the shadows in the square.Dogs are tracing thro’ the grass,Crows are cawing round the chimneys,In and out among the washingGoes the West at hide-and-seek.Loud and cheerful clangs the bell.Here the nurses troop to breakfast.Handsome, ugly, all are women . . .O, the Spring-the Spring-the Spring!
While the west is paling
While the dusk is failingGlimmers up the sun.So, till darkness coverLife’s retreating gleam,Lover follows lover,Dream succeeds to dream.Stoop to my endeavour,O my love, and beOnly and for everSun and stars to me.
Under a stagnant sky,
The River, jaded and forlorn,Welters and wanders wearily–wretchedly–on;Yet in and out among the ribsOf the old skeleton bridge, as in the pilesOf some dead lake-built city, full of skulls,Worm-worn, rat-riddled, mouldy with memories,Lingers to babble to a broken tune(Once, O, the unvoiced music of my heart!)So melancholy a soliloquyIt sounds as it might tellThe secret…
Though, if you ask her name, she says ‘Elise,’
And own that, if her aspirates take their ease,She ever makes a point, in washing glass,Handling the engine, turning taps for tots,And countering change, and scorning what men say,Of posing as a dove among the pots,Nor often gives her dignity away.Her head’s a work of art, and, if her eyesBe tired and ignorant, she has…