Alone!

I

Alone and built of a pallid stone

Across the levels looked her house

And tattered plot, where nought had grown

But withered trees which creaked their boughs.

No fruit or blossom or petal blown

Was there to gladden mournful eyes,

But all was drab and monotone

Beneath a reign of leaden skies.

A red, red weed was all the flower,

Which crawled serpiginous about

The marsh, unchanged from hour to hour

Until the evening blotted out

The landscape which she called her own.

And, save for a ridge of bent and sand,

Which rose between them and the sea,

The marshes stretched on either hand,

And, ever looking, wearied she

Of low sad purple and sombre brown

And, where the rivulets trickled down,

Moss-tracks of vivid green,

And stiff grey grasses which bend and sigh,

As the marsh wind wails and passes by,

And quagmires in between

The firmer ground—and over all

She heard the curlews' dreary call

As they piped eternally.

II

In the days of grace, in the good days gone,

She had set him up on a golden throne,

The face of a god and a heart of stone,

But now she must live alone,

Alone, alone, alone

In a little grey house of stone

Which stares o'er the marshes towards the sea

Where the great grey waves roll sullenly

Night and day for ever and aye

With mournful voices which seem to say

"Alone, alone, alone."

III

She laid her down on a sandy ledge,

Alone,

And buried her face amid the sedge

And mourned till eve for a broken pledge,

Alone,

And the great grey sea began to moan

Gathering noise from depths unknown

And boomed with a hollow undertone

"Alone, alone, alone."

IV

Up came the night with funeral wing

The ominous depths o'ershadowing,

But she lay a dumb insentient thing—

Alone with a heart of stone,

With neither tears nor hopes nor fears

And the booming swell like a monstrous knell

Tolled strongly in her ears.

V

Alone, alone, alone,

She who had loved and known

On other nights like this

Strong arms about her and many a kiss

And words of gentle tone.

Alone, alone, alone,

A woman she had known

Like a figure carved from stone

Held a letter in her hand

She scarce could understand

Of words which hardly could be read

"Goodbye—There is nothing to be said."

Ah! God, if she had known.

Alone, alone, alone,

She who had longed for love by stealth

As a gold-mad miser longs for wealth

Or a poet longs for fame,

Her seared numb body had just an ache

For a pitiful pitiless last mistake

And the smirch upon her name.

VI

A shrill chill wind blew out of the West

As a young child wails for a Mother's breast,

It broke the swell and whitened each crest

And moaned "I come with a strange behest;

The dead are happier. They are at rest

Alone, alone, alone,

Each under a graven stone,

Where the poppies are red

In the homes of the dead

And their scarlet petals spill

And the seabirds scream

As they wheel and gleam

And the seawinds whistle shrill.

The dead are happy, for they are free

They have said farewell to misery,

Alone

Each under a stone;

But the hearts which mourn for a faithless friend

Can never, never, never mend,

And so they break for friendship's sake

Alone, alone, alone."

VII

The sea wind blew like a wild lament

For loved ones dying or love mis-spent

And still in her hollow of sand and bent

She lay alone, alone,

And stared out into the keening blast

Not heeding the future or mourning the past,

For past and future were one.

VIII

Ah! pity her, who needed it most—

But in the village along the coast

Are those who tremble and moan,

Seeming to wait alone

For a dreadful something unknown,

As the tempest travels gathering force

And sobs and howls and raves and roars

And laughs like a demon band,

And the great waves clamber into the bay

With voices triumphant which seem to say

"Hurrah! Hurrah! we have found a prey

But we seek another on land."

Ah! shivering fisherwife in your shawl,

Perhaps they have found a prey

Who leap and shout in the bay,

And you will weep for the grief of it all

For many and many a day.

IX

All night the moon peered wan and pale

Thro' rifts in a scudding storm-rent veil

O'er a moving mountainous waste.

All night did the climbers rear and roar

And fall with a crash upon the shore,

League on league of them coming in haste

Till they broke and leapt no more,

Leaping and shouting until they broke

Upon the screaming shore.

And the simple hardy fisherfolk

Kept watch and slept no more,

As the wicked wind raved down the street

With gouts of foam and slings of sleet

And battered at every door.

All night the tiles like chips of straw

Were borne, and the air was filled with the roar

Of the monstrous symphony.

But its music lulled as the morning came

And touched the East with a rosy flame,

And whitened a hard clear sky,

And the tide drew out far far to the sea

Which shouted less tumultuously,

Tho' its voices were heard for a sign,

As it beat upon the barrier rocks

With the baffled rage of the Equinox

In a spouting misty line.

X

After a night so fierce and foul

What wonder such a day?

The wind, which shrieked like a tortured soul

Last night across the bay,

Blew high and keen like a violin

And dashed the blue with spray.

After a night so mad and wild

An afternoon of blue,

Of glinting, winking, glad blue waters

And breakers only a few,

Of light and azure undefiled

With scarce a cloud in view.

And at the hour of evening prayer

Came three who roamed the shore,

The sea was older, colder, and greyer,

And moved and murmured more.

Amid the waste of heaven and sea

A body lay alone,

Half in a pool and half on the knee

Of an ancient mossy stone.

The sea had saved a poor little fool

From life and all its harms,

Her body lay in a lonely pool—

Not in a lover's arms.

And on her cheek the mask of peace

And on her lips the smile

Of those who mourn and find release,

Who know, not love, the vile.

The Wraith.

A pale wraith stood in the dim grey dawn

Beside his old love's bed

Wavering like a film of lawn

And wrang his hands and said,

"Oh! I have come to make my prayer

For I cannot take my rest

When I think of the red crown I called your hair

And the cold stone in your breast.

"Out of the eyeless hopeless dark

The nights that are black and grey

Never a moon or faint star-spark

Or a lonely glimmer of day.

Oh! my love, I have come, love,

From the ebony gates of death

For the sake of the red crown I called your hair

And the jasmine of your breath."

But his voice was lost like a mouse's scream

In a lonely empty house,

And the woman lay in a tender dream

Of love and orchard boughs,

Her cheeks were flushed and twice she sighed

As she turned upon her bed

And she had no thought for the thing that cried

Or the utterance of the dead.

The Two Murderers.

"Yes, it was I that killed her

I did it with this knife,

Her that was more to me once....

Well, just the whole of my life.

Take me away and hide me,

Or kill me afore I'm mad....

It's rummy to think of me hanging

Who was such a quiet lad.

"I met her here on the tow-path,

Same as I used in May,

There wasn't no moon yet, only

The scent of the new-mown hay,

And I says—well—I thought for a moment

The happy times was near,

'The light that shineth in darkness

Is the light of your eyes, my dear.'

"Murder! a court full of lawyers....

And justice guaranteed....

And the judge will hang the prisoner

'For a cowardly cruel deed.'...

Murder!—excuse my laughing!...

It's a kind of catch in the breath....

'But there's words more harsh than a rope is

And looks more bitter than death.'

"Murder! My Lud, if ever

Their ledgers are balanced true

Which of the pair?... Oh! I reckon

That she killed something too.

... Is it the scent of a woman's hair

Or the scent of new-mown hay?...

Don't stand there shaking and staring,

For God's sake take me away."

The Wind and the Hills.

We will carry our ills

To a height of the hills,

Lying down, lying still

In the lap of a hill.

The wind blowing keen

Shall again make us clean,

Both body and spirit;

As it passes we shall hear it.

The time is of thunder

And fields new turned under,

Of budding and waking;

Of thorn-blossom flaking.

Of longing and questing;

Of carol and nesting;

Of white birds on the wing

Over seas blue with spring.

But you read in the pages

Of the books of the sages,

And save that dark curtain

They know nothing certain,

Except that dark portal

Which waits all things mortal—

And conqueror or prophet

Comprehend no more of it.

Yet the wind travels so

That it surely must know;

It has gone the world round

Till it came to our ground.

And the hills, which stood fast

Ere the first axe was cast

And have seen so much history,

May have fathomed the mystery.

But the hills on our borders

Are silent old warders,

And the winds which rejoice

No articulate voice.

Oh! ye pure larger airs

Ye will scatter our cares—

Mighty bastions of ours,

Uplift that which cowers,

For behind your grave brows

Are a thousand strong "Nows—"

And the wind has a "must"

In its rude healthy gust.

How it braces and rightens

That wind to make Titans!

Its strenuous wooing

Says, "Up, lads, and doing."

So leaving the high down

Like giants we stride down;

While the valleys before us

Resound to our chorus.

Having been each a seer

To whom all things were near,

Not resenting or grieving

But simply believing.

The Happy Ones.

They awaited with head erect

Whatever fate could befall them;

Tried but the good to recollect,

Cried for the truth to call them.

To be loved by the children of other suns

And send a message to find them,

This is the fate of the happiest ones

Tho' the mortar of life may grind them.

They were like swimmers breasting the waves

In the troughs of a stormy channel,

They are silent now in their lonely graves,

But the world has become the panel.

They wore the truth like a bridal dress

And sorrow like wedding apparel,

Tho' the placid laughed at their foolishness

And the cynic sneered from his barrel.

Or like the wandering Ishmaelites,

Who found no city to dwell in,

Whose lonely hearts ached for pleasant sights,

Whose graves were the places they fell in,

Rock their pillow and sand their bed,

As the sun of the desert paints them;

The fierce kites screaming overhead,

And the hands of all men against them.

But a word goes out and over the earth,

From the silent burying-places,

Like a gentle rain in a land of dearth,

And lights up the tired faces.

It brings a roof and a sweet abode

To many a soul that is vagrant;

Their names are blossoms along the road

And their lives are for ever fragrant.

We who sorrow are brothers of theirs,

Because of their beautiful sorrows,

Wheat will grow up among the tares,

And young corn grow in the furrows.

A Question.

Why do you prate to me

Of deeds unjust and just,

Moved by a story of good

Or a monstrous tale of crimes—

Me that can have no loves

But star-eyed queens long dust,

Me that can mourn no griefs

But the tears in poets' rhymes?

The Earth.

The Earth and her travail are ancient,

Her gods have but reigned for a while—

The moon-crowned Queen Astarte,

The barking god of the Nile.

Her temples were raised and builded,

And crumbled again to the dust—

Her worships have been and vanished—

But the heart of the Earth is just.

Aspirations.

For that Thou pointest further still

Than that dumb hand upon the hour

Nor givest the boon to sap the will,

I thank Thee, wise and tender power.

For that Thou givest my soul some pride,

Not grudging sorrow for a mate,

For this my wild and lovely bride

I thank Thee, just, compassionate.

For that Thou givest my soul some strength

Of that high strength which rules the stars,

To brave the time and wait the length,

I bless Thy name and kiss my scars.

Romance.

Know the decree that natures such as mine

Must clasp the World and find her half-divine,

Hyperion-souls which need no anodyne.

Once more, once more ye come, ye lovely shapes,

Voicing the magic "Ye are Gods, not Apes."

And oh! the Glory over seas and capes.

In memory only!—What that memory gave

Of our young day, so brief and yet so brave,

Will lead us half reluctant to the grave.

Tho' it existed not—lived never—only came

From some vast depth of dateless woe and shame

Striving to give its high desire a name,

The glory dies not; leaves us tired and still;

We cannot follow, even if we will;

The Afterglow! Ah! there—beyond the hill.