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Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with Miscellaneous Pieces
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I pierce her blind
In her far-off home:
She fixes a comb,
And says in her mind,
“I start in an hour;
Whom shall I meet?
Won’t the men be sweet,
And the women sour!”
THE SWEET HUSSY
In his early days he was quite surprised
When she told him she was compromised
By meetings and lingerings at his whim,
And thinking not of herself but him;
While she lifted orbs aggrieved and round
That scandal should so soon abound,
(As she had raised them to nine or ten
Of antecedent nice young men)
And in remorse he thought with a sigh,
How good she is, and how bad am I! —
It was years before he understood
That she was the wicked one – he the good.
THE TELEGRAM
“O he’s suffering – maybe dying – and I not there to aid,
And smooth his bed and whisper to him! Can I nohow go?
Only the nurse’s brief twelve words thus hurriedly conveyed,
As by stealth, to let me know.
“He was the best and brightest! – candour shone upon his brow,
And I shall never meet again a soldier such as he,
And I loved him ere I knew it, and perhaps he’s sinking now,
Far, far removed from me!”
– The yachts ride mute at anchor and the fulling moon is fair,
And the giddy folk are strutting up and down the smooth parade,
And in her wild distraction she seems not to be aware
That she lives no more a maid,
But has vowed and wived herself to one who blessed the ground she trod
To and from his scene of ministry, and thought her history known
In its last particular to him – aye, almost as to God,
And believed her quite his own.
So great her absentmindedness she droops as in a swoon,
And a movement of aversion mars her recent spousal grace,
And in silence we two sit here in our waning honeymoon
At this idle watering-place.
What now I see before me is a long lane overhung
With lovelessness, and stretching from the present to the grave.
And I would I were away from this, with friends I knew when young,
Ere a woman held me slave.
THE MOTH-SIGNAL
(On Egdon Heath)
“What are you still, still thinking,”
He asked in vague surmise,
“That stare at the wick unblinking
With those great lost luminous eyes?”
“O, I see a poor moth burning
In the candle-flame,” said she,
“Its wings and legs are turning
To a cinder rapidly.”
“Moths fly in from the heather,”
He said, “now the days decline.”
“I know,” said she. “The weather,
I hope, will at last be fine.
“I think,” she added lightly,
“I’ll look out at the door.
The ring the moon wears nightly
May be visible now no more.”
She rose, and, little heeding,
Her husband then went on
With his attentive reading
In the annals of ages gone.
Outside the house a figure
Came from the tumulus near,
And speedily waxed bigger,
And clasped and called her Dear.
“I saw the pale-winged token
You sent through the crack,” sighed she.
“That moth is burnt and broken
With which you lured out me.
“And were I as the moth is
It might be better far
For one whose marriage troth is
Shattered as potsherds are!”
In her far-off home:
She fixes a comb,
And says in her mind,
“I start in an hour;
Whom shall I meet?
Won’t the men be sweet,
And the women sour!”
THE SWEET HUSSY
In his early days he was quite surprised
When she told him she was compromised
By meetings and lingerings at his whim,
And thinking not of herself but him;
While she lifted orbs aggrieved and round
That scandal should so soon abound,
(As she had raised them to nine or ten
Of antecedent nice young men)
And in remorse he thought with a sigh,
How good she is, and how bad am I! —
It was years before he understood
That she was the wicked one – he the good.
THE TELEGRAM
“O he’s suffering – maybe dying – and I not there to aid,
And smooth his bed and whisper to him! Can I nohow go?
Only the nurse’s brief twelve words thus hurriedly conveyed,
As by stealth, to let me know.
“He was the best and brightest! – candour shone upon his brow,
And I shall never meet again a soldier such as he,
And I loved him ere I knew it, and perhaps he’s sinking now,
Far, far removed from me!”
– The yachts ride mute at anchor and the fulling moon is fair,
And the giddy folk are strutting up and down the smooth parade,
And in her wild distraction she seems not to be aware
That she lives no more a maid,
But has vowed and wived herself to one who blessed the ground she trod
To and from his scene of ministry, and thought her history known
In its last particular to him – aye, almost as to God,
And believed her quite his own.
So great her absentmindedness she droops as in a swoon,
And a movement of aversion mars her recent spousal grace,
And in silence we two sit here in our waning honeymoon
At this idle watering-place.
What now I see before me is a long lane overhung
With lovelessness, and stretching from the present to the grave.
And I would I were away from this, with friends I knew when young,
Ere a woman held me slave.
THE MOTH-SIGNAL
(On Egdon Heath)
“What are you still, still thinking,”
He asked in vague surmise,
“That stare at the wick unblinking
With those great lost luminous eyes?”
“O, I see a poor moth burning
In the candle-flame,” said she,
“Its wings and legs are turning
To a cinder rapidly.”
“Moths fly in from the heather,”
He said, “now the days decline.”
“I know,” said she. “The weather,
I hope, will at last be fine.
“I think,” she added lightly,
“I’ll look out at the door.
The ring the moon wears nightly
May be visible now no more.”
She rose, and, little heeding,
Her husband then went on
With his attentive reading
In the annals of ages gone.
Outside the house a figure
Came from the tumulus near,
And speedily waxed bigger,
And clasped and called her Dear.
“I saw the pale-winged token
You sent through the crack,” sighed she.
“That moth is burnt and broken
With which you lured out me.
“And were I as the moth is
It might be better far
For one whose marriage troth is
Shattered as potsherds are!”
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