Florence on a Certain Night, and Other Poems

by Coningsby Dawson

TO ENGLAND'S GREATEST SATIRIST

Untriend to man and darkly passionate,

Sneering in solitude, wide-winged for flight

Lest one, from all our world, should read thee right

And pity thee thy self-lured madman's fate,

Why did'st thou strive so well to tempt our hate?

Are we not comrades through the self-same night?

The Caravan of Kindness, out of sight,

We also follow—and arrive o'erlate.

Thou, having failed thy Heaven, did'st scoff in

Hell.

Fiercely disguising, too much thou did'st dare;

We caught the jangle of the cap and bell,

And seeking, saw a quivering heart laid bare

When thou wast dead—a sequel which did spell

The pangs of love—"only a woman's hair."

[N. B. "In a note in his biography, Scott says that his friend, Doctor Tuke of Dublin, has a lock of Stella's hair, enclosed in a paper by Swift, on which are written, in the Dean's hand, the words: 'Only a woman's hair.' An instance, says Scott, of the Dean's desire to veil his feelings under the mask of cynical indifference."—Thackeray in his Essay on Dean Swift.]

Years hence we two—I who wept yesterday,

You who with death-chilled hands unheeding lay—

Gazing from Heaven adown the sky's wild face,

Seeing this pigmy planet churning space,

Do you remember?" then we two shall say,

Quite in the dear old-fashioned worldly way,

Do you remember, in a former age,

What happened in that girdled finite cage?"

And you, through joy having forgot your pain,

Laughing will shake your head and rack your brain,

Clasping my hand and thinking all in vain.

No," you will say, "it is a distant way

From grief to God; my memories go astray."

Then, I, staring athwart the jewelled pit

Which God hath dug between the infinite

And the great little loss of death's decay,

Will tell you all that happened yesterday.

Don't you recall, dear, how the fierce blow came?

Earth was at Spring-tide, all the fields aflame;

Hope was just freed from Winter's servitude

And songsters through the tree-tops he had strewed,

And promises of greenness in the wood,

While you, dear, grew in grace to womanhood."

Then you: "I would remember if I could,

But all is vague. Faint, like a far off strain,

I catch the rustle of field-flowers again

And hear the muffled skirmish of the rain."

Don't you recall, dear, anything of pain?"

Nothing," you whisper.

Then I tell to you

How in a week from life to death you grew,

Your spirit yearning Godward, as did fail

The strength of your white body, lily-pale;

How through long nights and seven too brief

days

I held you fast, and flattered God with praise,

Calling Him every kind endearing name,

Hoping my love would fill His heart with shame

Of doing that deed which He meant to do.

What happened?"

God was wise and He took you."

Strange!"

"Ah yes, dearest, human loves are strange;

Change seems so final in a world of change.

Through the last night I watched your fluttering

breath,

Desperate lest the unseen hand of Death

Should touch you, still you e'er I was aware,

Leaving me nothing save your golden hair

And the wide doors of an abandoned place,

And the wise smiling of your quiet face—

The perishable chalice of your grace.

"'In Heaven they all are serious,' so you said

In your delirium. You shake your head,

Denying what I surely heard you say.

Since then you've seen the boys and girls at

play

Climbing the knees of God.

"Listen again.

Far out across the gulf you see a stain—

Follow my hand—a smudge, a blur of gray;

That is the world. Though you forget the day,

We lived there once, suffered, had joy, laughed,

loved,

And in sweet worship of each other moved.

Then you fell sick and, while I held your hand,

One took you ....

"Ah, you do not understand!

Only field-flowers you remember well.

This seems an idle fable that I tell;

Then never trouble, dear; forget the pain.

See, here comes God; perhaps He will explain."

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