TO A LADY PLAYING AND SINGING IN THE MORNING
Joyful lady, sing!
And I will lurk here listening,
Though nought be done, and nought begun,
And work-hours swift are scurrying.
Sing, O lady, still!
Aye, I will wait each note you trill,
Though duties due that press to do
This whole day long I unfulfil.
“—It is an evening tune;
One not designed to waste the noon,”
You say. I know: time bids me go—
For daytide passes too, too soon!
But let indulgence be,
This once, to my rash ecstasy:
When sounds nowhere that carolled air
My idled morn may comfort me!
“A MAN WAS DRAWING NEAR TO ME”
On that gray night of mournful drone,
A part from aught to hear, to see,
I dreamt not that from shires unknown
In gloom, alone,
By Halworthy,
A man was drawing near to me.
I’d no concern at anything,
No sense of coming pull-heart play;
Yet, under the silent outspreading
Of even’s wing
Where Otterham lay,
A man was riding up my way.
I thought of nobody—not of one,
But only of trifles—legends, ghosts—
Though, on the moorland dim and dun
That travellers shun
About these coasts,
The man had passed Tresparret Posts.
There was no light at all inland,
Only the seaward pharos-fire,
Nothing to let me understand
That hard at hand
By Hennett Byre
The man was getting nigh and nigher.