Her Dilemma   
   
   
THE TWO were silent in a sunless church,      
  Whose mildewed walls, uneven paving-stones,      
And wasted carvings passed antique research;      
  And nothing broke the clock’s dull monotones.      
   
Leaning against a wormy poppy-head,           5   
  So wan and worn that he could scarcely stand,      
—For he was soon to die,—he softly said,      
  “Tell me you love me!”—holding hard her hand.      
   
She would have given a world to breathe “yes” truly,      
  So much his life seemed hanging on her mind,           10   
And hence she lied, her heart persuaded throughly,      
  ’Twas worth her soul to be a moment kind.      
   
But the sad need thereof, his nearing death,      
  So mocked humanity that she shamed to prize      
A world conditioned thus, or care for breath           15   
  Where Nature such dilemmas could devise.


1866.

 Revulsion   
   
   
THOUGH I waste watches framing words to fetter      
  Some spirit to mine own in clasp and kiss,      
Out of the night there looms a sense ’twere better      
  To fail obtaining whom one fails to miss.      
   
For winning love we win the risk of losing,           5   
  And losing love is as one’s life were riven;      
It cuts like contumely and keen ill-using      
  To cede what was superfluously given.      
   
Let me then feel no more the fateful thrilling      
  That devastates the love-worn wooer’s frame,           10   
The hot ado of fevered hopes, the chilling      
  That agonizes disappointed aim!      
So may I live no junctive law fulfilling,      
  And my heart’s table bear no woman’s name.


1866

She, to Him. I   
   
   
WHEN you shall see me lined by tool of Time,      
  My lauded beauties carried off from me,      
My eyes no longer stars as in their prime,      
  My name forgot of Maiden Fair and Free;      
   
When in your being heart concedes to mind,           5   
  And judgment, though you scarce its process know,      
Recalls the excellencies I once enshrined,      
  And you are irked that they have withered so:      
   
Remembering that with me lies not the blame,      
  That Sportsman Time but rears his brood to kill,           10   
Knowing me in my soul the very same—      
  One who would die to spare you touch of ill!—      
Will you not grant to old affection’s claim      
  The hand of friendship down Life’s sunless hill?


1866

She, to Him. II   
   
   
PERHAPS, long hence, when I have passed away,      
  Some other’s feature, accent, thought like mine,      
Will carry you back to what I used to say,      
  And bring some memory of your love’s decline.      
   
Then you may pause awhile and think, “Poor jade!”           5   
  And yield a sigh to me—as gift benign,      
Not as the tittle of a debt unpaid      
  To one who could to you her all resign—      
   
And thus reflecting, you will never see      
  That your thin thought, in two small words conveyed,           10   
Was no such fleeting phantom-thought to me,      
  But the Whole Life wherein my part was played;      
And you amid its fitful masquerade      
  A Thought—as I in yours but seem to be.


1866.

 She, to Him. III   
   
   
I WILL be faithful to thee; aye, I will!      
  And Death shall choose me with a wondering eye      
That he did not discern and domicile      
  One his by right ever since that last Good-bye!      
   
I have no care for friends, or kin, or prime           5   
  Of manhood who deal gently with me here;      
Amid the happy people of my time      
  Who work their love’s fulfilment, I appear      
   
Numb as a vane that cankers on its point,      
  True to the wind that kissed ere canker came;           10   
Despised by souls of Now, who would disjoint      
  The mind from memory, and make Life all aim,      
   
My old dexterities of hue quite gone,      
And nothing left for Love to look upon.


1866.

She, to Him. IV   
   
   
THIS love puts all humanity from me;      
  I can but maledict her, pray her dead,      
For giving love and getting love of thee—      
  Feeding a heart that else mine own had fed!      
   
How much I love I know not, life not known,           5   
  Save as some unit I would add love by;      
But this I know, my being is but thine own—      
  Fused from its separateness by ecstasy.      
   
And thus I grasp thy amplitudes, of her      
  Ungrasped, though helped by nigh-regarding eyes;           10   
Canst thou then hate me as an envier      
  Who see unrecked what I so dearly prize?      
Believe me, Lost One, Love is lovelier      
  The more it shapes its moans in selfish-wise.


1866.

 Ditty   
   
   
BENEATH a knap where flown      
  Nestlings play,      
Within walls of weathered stone,      
  Far away      
From the files of formal houses,           5   
By the bough the firstling browses,      
Lives a Sweet: no merchants meet,      
No man barters, no man sells      
  Where she dwells.      
   
Upon that fabric fair           10   
  “Here is she!”      
Seems written everywhere      
  Unto me.      
But to friends and nodding neighbors,      
Fellow wights in lot and labors,           15   
Who descry the times as I,      
No such lucid legend tells      
  Where she dwells.      
   
Should I lapse to what I was      
  In days by—           20   
(Such cannot be, but because      
  Some loves die      
Let me feign it)—none would notice      
That where she I know by rote is      
Spread a strange and withering change,           25   
Like a drying of the wells      
  Where she dwells.      
   
To feel I might have kissed—      
  Loved as true—      
Otherwhere, nor Mine have missed           30   
  My life through,      
Had I never wandered near her,      
Is a smart severe—severer      
In the thought that she is nought,      
Even as I, beyond the dells           35   
  Where she dwells.      
   
And Devotion droops her glance      
  To recall      
What bond-servants of Chance      
  We are all.           40   
I but found her in that, going      
On my errant path unknowing,      
I did not out-skirt the spot      
That no spot on earth excels—      
  Where she dwells!


1870.
           

The Sergeant’s Song   
   
   
WHEN Lawyers strive to heal a breach,      
And Parsons practise what they preach;      
Then Little Boney he’ll pounce down,      
And march his men on London town!      
    Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lorum,           5   
    Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lay!      
   
When Justices hold equal scales,      
And Rogues are only found in jails;      
Then Little Boney he’ll pounce down,      
And march his men on London town!           10   
    Rollicum-rorum, etc.      
   
When Rich Men find their wealth a curse,      
And fill therewith the Poor Man’s purse;      
Then Little Boney he’ll pounce down,      
And march his men on London town!           15   
    Rollicum-rorum, etc.      
   
When Husbands with their Wives agree,      
And Maids won’t wed from modesty;      
Then Little Boney he’ll pounce down,      
And march his men on London town!           20   
    Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lorum,      
    Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lay!

Valenciennes   
   
   
WE trenched, we trumpeted and drummed,      
And from our mortars tons of iron hummed      
  Ath’art the ditch, the month we bombed      
    The Town o’ Valencieën.      
   
  ’Twas in the June o’ Ninety-dree           5   
(The Duke o’ Yark our then Commander beën)      
  The German Legion, Guards, and we      
    Laid siege to Valencieën.      
   
  This was the first time in the war      
That French and English spilled each other’s gore;           10   
  —God knows what year will end the roar      
    Begun at Valencieën!      
   
  ’Twas said that we’d no business there      
A-topperèn the French for disagreën;      
  However, that’s not my affair—           15   
    We were at Valencieën.      
   
  Such snocks and slats, since war began      
Never knew raw recruit or veteràn:      
  Stone-deaf therence went many a man      
    Who served at Valencieën.           20   
   
  Into the streets, ath’art the sky,      
A hundred thousand balls and bombs were fleën;      
  And harmless townsfolk fell to die      
    Each hour at Valencieën!      
   
  And, sweatèn wi’ the bombardiers,           25   
A shell was slent to shards anighst my ears:      
  —’Twas night the end of hopes and fears      
    For me at Valencieën!      
   
  They bore my wownded frame to camp,      
And shut my gapèn skull, and washed en cleän,           30   
  And jined en wi’ a zilver clamp      
    Thik night at Valencieën.      
   
  “We’ve fetched en back to quick from dead;      
But never more on earth while rose is red      
  Will drum rouse Corpel!” Doctor said           35   
    O’ me at Valencieën.      
   
  ’Twer true. No voice o’ friend or foe      
Can reach me now, or any liveèn beën;      
  And little have I power to know      
    Since then at Valencieën!           40   
   
  I never hear the zummer hums      
O’ bees; and don’t know when the cuckoo comes;      
  But night and day I hear the bombs      
    We threw at Valencieën….      
   
  As for the Duke o’ Yark in war,           45   
There be some volk whose judgment o’ en is meän;      
  But this I say—’a was not far      
    From great at Valencieën.      
   
  O’ wild wet nights, when all seems sad,      
My wownds come back, as though new wownds I’d had;           50   
  But yet—at times I’m sort o’ glad      
    I fout at Valencieën.      
   
  Well: Heaven wi’ its jasper halls      
Is now the on’y Town I care to be in….      
  Good Lord, if Nick should bomb the walls           55   
    As we did Valencieën!


1878–1897.

San Sebastian   
   
   
“WHY, Sergeant, stray on the Ivel Way,      
As though at home there were spectres rife?      
From first to last ’twas a proud career!      
And your sunny years with a gracious wife      
  Have brought you a daughter dear.           5   
   
“I watched her to-day; a more comely maid,      
As she danced in her muslin bowed with blue,      
Round a Hintock maypole never gayed.”      
—“Aye, aye; I watched her this day, too,      
  As it happens,” the Sergeant said.           10   
   
“My daughter is now,” he again began,      
“Of just such an age as one I knew      
When we of the Line, in the Foot-Guard van,      
On an August morning—a chosen few—      
  Stormed San Sebastian.           15   
   
“She’s a score less three; so about was she—      
The maiden I wronged in Peninsular days….      
You may prate of your prowess in lusty times,      
But as years gnaw inward you blink your bays,      
  And see too well your crimes!           20   
   
“We’d stormed it at night, by the vlanker-light      
Of burning towers, and the mortar’s boom:      
We’d topped the breach but had failed to stay,      
For our files were misled by the baffling gloom;      
  And we said we’d storm by day.           25   
   
“So, out of the trenches, with features set,      
On that hot, still morning, in measured pace,      
Our column climbed; climbed higher yet,      
Past the fauss’bray, scarp, up the curtain-face,      
  And along the parapet.           30   
   
“From the batteried hornwork the cannoneers      
Hove crashing balls of iron fire;      
On the shaking gap mount the volunteers      
In files, and as they mount expire      
  Amid curses, groans, and cheers.           35   
   
“Five hours did we storm, five hours re-form,      
As Death cooled those hot blood pricked on;      
Till our cause was helped by a woe within;      
They swayed from the summit we’d leapt upon,      
  And madly we entered in.           40   
   
“On end for plunder, ’mid rain and thunder      
That burst with the lull of our cannonade,      
We vamped the streets in the stifling air—      
Our hunger unsoothed, our thirst unstayed—      
  And ransacked the buildings there.           45   
   
“Down the stony steps of the house-fronts white      
We rolled rich puncheons of Spanish grape,      
Till at length, with the fire of the wine alight,      
I saw at a doorway a fair fresh shape—      
  A woman, a sylph, or sprite.           50   
   
“Afeard she fled, and with heated head      
I pursued to the chamber she called her own;      
—When might is right no qualms deter,      
And having her helpless and alone      
  I wreaked my lust on her.           55   
   
“She raised her beseeching eyes to me,      
And I heard the words of prayer she sent      
In her own soft language…. Seemingly      
I copied those eyes for my punishment      
  In begetting the girl you see!           60   
   
“So, to-day I stand with a God-set brand      
Like Cain’s, when he wandered from kindred’s ken….      
I served through the war that made Europe free;      
I wived me in peace-year. But, hid from men,      
  I bear that mark on me.           65   
   
“And I nightly stray on the Ivel Way      
As though at home there were spectres rife;      
I delight me not in my proud career;      
And ’tis coals of fire that a gracious wife      
  Should have brought me a daughter dear!”           70