Wessex Poems and Other Verses

Heiress and Architect

For A. W. B.

She sought the Studios, beckoning to her side

An arch-designer, for she planned to build.

He was of wise contrivance, deeply skilled

In every intervolve of high and wide--

Well fit to be her guide.

"Whatever it be,"

Responded he,

With cold, clear voice, and cold, clear view,

"In true accord with prudent fashionings

For such vicissitudes as living brings,

And thwarting not the law of stable things,

That will I do."

"Shape me," she said, "high walls with tracery

And open ogive-work, that scent and hue

Of buds, and travelling bees, may come in through,

The note of birds, and singings of the sea,

For these are much to me."

"An idle whim!"

Broke forth from him

Whom nought could warm to gallantries:

"Cede all these buds and birds, the zephyr's call,

And scents, and hues, and things that falter all,

And choose as best the close and surly wall,

For winter's freeze."

"Then frame," she cried, "wide fronts of crystal glass,

That I may show my laughter and my light--

Light like the sun's by day, the stars' by night--

Till rival heart-queens, envying, wail, 'Alas,

Her glory!' as they pass."

"O maid misled!"

He sternly said,

Whose facile foresight pierced her dire;

"Where shall abide the soul when, sick of glee,

It shrinks, and hides, and prays no eye may see?

Those house them best who house for secrecy,

For you will tire."

"A little chamber, then, with swan and dove

Ranged thickly, and engrailed with rare device

Of reds and purples, for a Paradise

Wherein my Love may greet me, I my Love,

When he shall know thereof?"

"This, too, is ill,"

He answered still,

The man who swayed her like a shade.

"An hour will come when sight of such sweet nook

Would bring a bitterness too sharp to brook,

When brighter eyes have won away his look;

For you will fade."

Then said she faintly: "O, contrive some way--

Some narrow winding turret, quite mine own,

To reach a loft where I may grieve alone!

It is a slight thing; hence do not, I pray,

This last dear fancy slay!"

"Such winding ways

Fit not your days,"

Said he, the man of measuring eye;

"I must even fashion as my rule declares,

To wit: Give space (since life ends unawares)

To hale a coffined corpse adown the stairs;

For you will die."

  1867.     8 ADELPHI TERRACE.

The Two Men

There were two youths of equal age,

Wit, station, strength, and parentage;

They studied at the selfsame schools,

And shaped their thoughts by common rules.

One pondered on the life of man,

His hopes, his endings, and began

To rate the Market's sordid war

As something scarce worth living for.

"I'll brace to higher aims," said he,

"I'll further Truth and Purity;

Thereby to mend and mortal lot

And sweeten sorrow. Thrive I not,

"Winning their hearts, my kind will give

Enough that I may lowly live,

And house my Love in some dim dell,

For pleasing them and theirs so well."

Idly attired, with features wan,

In secret swift he labored on;

Such press of power had brought much gold

Applied to things of meaner mould.

Sometimes he wished his aims had been

To gather gains like other men;

Then thanked his God he'd traced his track

Too far for wish to drag him back.

He looked down from his loft one day

To where his slighted garden lay;

Nettles and hemlock hid each lawn,

And every flower was starved and gone.

He fainted in his heart, whereon

He rose, and sought his plighted one,

Resolved to loose her bond withal,

Lest she should perish in his fall.

He met her with a careless air,

As though he'd ceased to find her fair,

And said: "True love is dust to me;

I cannot kiss: I tire of thee!"

(That she might scorn him was he fain,

To put her sooner out of pain;

For incensed love breathes quick and dies,

When famished love a-lingering lies.)

Once done, his soul was so betossed,

It found no more the force it lost:

Hope was his only drink and food,

And hope extinct, decay ensued.

And, living long so closely penned,

He had not kept a single friend;

He dwindled thin as phantoms be,

And drooped to death in poverty. . . .

Meantime his schoolmate had gone out

To join the fortune-finding rout;

He liked the winnings of the mart,

But wearied of the working part.

He turned to seek a privy lair,

Neglecting note of garb and hair,

And day by day reclined and thought

How he might live by doing nought.

"I plan a valued scheme," he said

To some. "But lend me of your bread,

And when the vast result looms nigh,

In profit you shall stand as I."

Yet they took counsel to restrain

Their kindness till they saw the gain;

And, since his substance now had run,

He rose to do what might be done.

He went unto his Love by night,

And said: "My Love, I faint in fight:

Deserving as thou dost a crown,

My cares shall never drag thee down."

(He had descried a maid whose line

Would hand her on much corn and wine,

And held her far in worth above

One who could only pray and love.)

But this Fair read him; whence he failed

To do the deed so blithely hailed;

He saw his projects wholly marred,

And gloom and want oppressed him hard;

Till, living to so mean an end,

Whereby he'd lost his every friend,

He perished in a pauper sty,

Where his old mate lay dying nigh.

And moralists, reflecting, said,

As "dust to dust" in burial read

Was echoed from each coffin-lid,

"These men were like in all they did."

1866.

Lines

Spoken by Miss ADA REHAN at the Lyceum Theatre, July 23, 1890, at a performance on behalf of Lady Jeune's Holiday Fund for City Children.

Before we part to alien thoughts and aims,

Permit the one brief word the occasion claims;

--When mumming and grave projects are allied,

Perhaps an Epilogue is justified.

Our under-purpose has, in truth, to-day

Commanded most our musings; least the play:

A purpose futile but for your good-will

Swiftly responsive to the cry of ill:

A purpose all too limited!--to aid

Frail human flowerets, sicklied by the shade,

In winning some short spell of upland breeze,

Or strengthening sunlight on the level leas.

Who has not marked, where the full cheek should be,

Incipient lines of lank flaccidity,

Lymphatic pallor where the pink should glow,

And where the throb of transport, pulses low?--

Most tragical of shapes from Pole to Line,

O wondering child, unwitting Time's design,

Why should Art add to Nature's quandary,

And worsen ill by thus immuring thee?

--That races can do despite to their own,

That Might supernal do indeed condone

Wrongs individual for the general ease,

Instance the proof in victims such as these.

Launched into thoroughfares too thronged before,

Mothered by those whose protest is "No more!"

Vitalized without option: who shall say

That did Life hang on choosing--Yea or Nay--

They had not scorned it with such penalty,

And nothingness implored of Destiny?

And yet behind the horizon smile serene

The down, the cornland, and the stretching green--

Space--the child's heaven: scenes which at least ensure

Some palliative for ill they cannot cure.

Dear friends--now moved by this poor show of ours

To make your own long joy in buds and bowers

For one brief while the joy of infant eyes,

Changing their urban murk to paradise--

You have our thanks!--may your reward include

More than our thanks, far more: their gratitude.

SAVILE CLUB, Midnight, July 1890.

"I Look Into My Glass"

I look into my glass,

And view my wasting skin,

And say, "Would God it came to pass

My heart had shrunk as thin!"

For then, I, undistrest

By hearts grown cold to me,

Could lonely wait my endless rest

With equanimity.

But Time, to make me grieve,

Part steals, lets part abide;

And shakes this fragile frame at eve

With throbbings of noontide.