GHOSTS AT CHALDON HERRING
Hush, my dear, hush!
Who are these that pass
Up Shady Lane?
Their feet don’t brush
Any dew from the grass
And they are silent, too.
Hand in kind hand
Go some, and closelier linked
Another twain;
And others stand
As a-drouse, indistinct
Beneath the darkening boughs.
Ghosts, ghosts are these!—
Long-dead lasses, each
Beside her swain—
Between the trees
Pacing slow, without speech,
As they were wont to go.
Strange, some should choose
Thus their mouldered dears
To meet again,
Whom long misuse
Of marriage, taunts and tears,
And the slow grudge of age
Warped and estranged;
Sure, this place above
All others fain
They’d leave unranged,
Lest a gaunt dead love
Them, like a dead child, haunt.
Ah, but not so
These who in true-love-knot
Their arms enchain.
Dead long ago
Are they all, and forgot
The life that held them thrall.
Nought now exists
Save fancies nursed apart.
And of all this train
Scarce one that trysts
With a seeming sweetheart
But walks beside a dream.