Between the folding sea-downs, In the gloom Of a wailful wintry nightfall, When the boom Of the ocean, like a hammering in a hollow tomb, Throbbed up the copse-clothed valley From the shore To the chamber where I darkled, Sunk and sore With gray ponderings why my Loved one had not come before To salute me in the dwelling That of late I had hired to waste a while in -
Vague of date, Quaint, and remote--wherein I now expectant sate;
On the solitude, unsignalled, Broke a man Who, in air as if at home there, Seemed to scan Every fire-flecked nook of the apartment span by span.
A stranger's and no lover's Eyes were these, Eyes of a man who measures What he sees But vaguely, as if wrapt in filmy phantasies.
Yea, his bearing was so absent As he stood, It bespoke a chord so plaintive In his mood, That soon I judged he would not wrong my quietude.
"Ah--the supper is just ready,"
Then he said, "And the years'-long binned Madeira Flashes red!"
(There was no wine, no food, no supper-table spread.)
"You will forgive my coming, Lady fair?
I see you as at that time Rising there, The self-same curious querying in your eyes and air.
"Yet no. How so? You wear not The same gown, Your locks show woful difference, Are not brown:
What, is it not as when I hither came from town?
"And the place . . . But you seem other -
Can it be?
What's this that Time is doing Unto me?
YOU dwell here, unknown woman? . . . Whereabouts, then, is she?
"And the house--things are much shifted. -
Put them where They stood on this night's fellow;
Shift her chair:
Here was the couch: and the piano should be there."
I indulged him, verily nerve-strained Being alone, And I moved the things as bidden, One by one, And feigned to push the old piano where he had shown.
"Aha--now I can see her!
Stand aside:
Don't thrust her from the table Where, meek-eyed, She makes attempt with matron-manners to preside.
"She serves me: now she rises, Goes to play . . .
But you obstruct her, fill her With dismay, And embarrassed, scared, she vanishes away!"
And, as 'twere useless longer To persist, He sighed, and sought the entry Ere I wist, And retreated, disappearing soundless in the mist.
That here some mighty passion Once had burned, Which still the walls enghosted, I discerned, And that by its strong spell mine might be overturned.
I sat depressed; till, later, My Love came;
But something in the chamber Dimmed our flame, -
An emanation, ****** our due words fall tame, As if the intenser drama Shown me there Of what the walls had witnessed Filled the air, And left no room for later passion anywhere.
So came it that our fervours Did quite fail Of future consummation -
Being made quail By the weird witchery of the parlour's hidden tale, Which I, as years passed, faintly Learnt to trace, -
One of sad love, born full-winged In that place Where the predestined sorrowers first stood face to face.
And as that month of winter Circles round, And the evening of the date-day Grows embrowned, I am conscious of those presences, and sit spellbound.
There, often--lone, forsaken -
Queries breed Within me; whether a phantom Had my heed On that strange night, or was it some wrecked heart indeed?
HER SECRET
That love's dull smart distressed my heart He shrewdly learnt to see, But that I was in love with a dead man Never suspected he.
He searched for the trace of a pictured face, He watched each missive come, And a note that seemed like a love-line Made him look frozen and glum.
He dogged my feet to the city street, He followed me to the sea, But not to the neighbouring churchyard Did he dream of following me.
"SHE CHARGED ME"
She charged me with having said this and that To another woman long years before, In the very parlour where we sat, -
Sat on a night when the endless pour Of rain on the roof and the road below Bent the spring of the spirit more and more . . .
- So charged she me; and the Cupid's bow Of her mouth was hard, and her eyes, and her face, And her white forefinger lifted slow.
Had she done it gently, or shown a trace That not too curiously would she view A folly passed ere her reign had place, A kiss might have ended it. But I knew From the fall of each word, and the pause between, That the curtain would drop upon us two Ere long, in our play of slave and queen.