O the old wall here! How I could pass
Life in a long midsummer day,
My feet confined to a plot of grass,
My eyes from a wall not once away!
And lush and lithe do the creepers clothe
Yon wall I watch, with a wealth of green:
Its bald red bricks draped, nothing loath,
In lappets of tangle they laugh between.
Now, what is it makes pulsate the robe?
10 Why tremble the sprays? What life o'erbrims
The body,—the house no eye can probe,—
Divined, as beneath a robe, the limbs?
And there again! But my heart may guess
Who tripped behind; and she sang, perhaps:
So the old wall throbbed, and it's life's excess
Died out and away in the leafy wraps.
Wall upon wall are between us: life
And song should away from heart to heart!
I—prison-bird, with a ruddy strife
20 At breast, and a lip whence storm-notes start—
Hold on, hope hard in the subtle thing
[page 51] That's spirit: tho' cloistered fast, soar free;
Account as wood, brick, stone, this ring
Of the rueful neighbours, and—forth to thee!
[CONFESSIONS][°]
What is he buzzing in my ears?
"Now that I come to die,
Do I view the world as a vale of tears?"
Ah, reverend sir, not I!
What I viewed there once, what I view again
Where the physic bottles stand
On the table's edge,—is a suburb lane,
With a wall to my bedside hand.
That lane sloped, much as the bottles do,
10 From a house you could descry
O'er the garden-wall: is the curtain blue
Or green to a healthy eye?
To mine, it serves for the old June weather
Blue above lane and wall;
And that farthest bottle labelled "Ether"
[page 52] Is the house o'er-topping all.
At a terrace, somewhere near the stopper,
There watched for me, one June,
A girl: I know, sir, it's improper,
20 My poor mind's out of tune.
Only, there was a way ... you crept
Close by the side, to dodge
Eyes in the house, two eyes except:
They styled their house "The Lodge."
What right had a lounger up their lane?
But, by creeping very close,
With the good wall's help,—their eyes might strain
And stretch themselves to Oes,
Yet never catch her and me together,
30 As she left the attic, there,
By the rim of the bottle labelled "Ether,"
And stole from stair to stair
And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas,
We loved, sir—used to meet;
How sad and bad and mad it was—
But then, how it was sweet!
A WOMAN'S LAST [WORD][°]
Let's contend no more, Love,
Strive nor weep:
All be as before, Love,
—Only sleep!
What so wild as words are?
I and thou
In debate, as birds are,
Hawk on bough!
See the creature stalking
10 While we speak!
Hush and hide the talking,
Cheek on cheek.
What so false as truth is,
False to thee?
Where the serpent's tooth is,
Shun the tree—
Where the apple reddens,
Never pry—
Lest we lose our Edens,
20 Eve and I.
Be a god and hold me
[page 54] With a charm!
Be a man and fold me
With thine arm!
Teach me, only teach, Love!
As I ought
I will speak thy speech, Love,
Think thy thought—
Meet, if thou require it,
30 Both demands,
Laying flesh and spirit
In thy hands.
That shall be to-morrow,
Not to-night:
I must bury sorrow
Out of sight:
—Must a little weep, Love,
(Foolish me!)
And so fall asleep, Love,
40 Loved by thee.