“I WAS THE MIDMOST”
I was the midmost of my world
When first I frisked me free,
For though within its circuit gleamed
But a small company,
And I was immature, they seemed
To bend their looks on me.
She was the midmost of my world
When I went further forth,
And hence it was that, whether I turned
To south, east, west, or north,
Beams of an all-day Polestar burned
From that new axe of earth.
Where now is midmost in my world?
I trace it not at all:
No midmost shows it here, or there,
When wistful voices call
“We are fain! We are fain!” from everywhere
On Earth’s bewildering ball!
A SOUND IN THE NIGHT
(WOODSFORD CASTLE: 17–)
“What do I catch upon the night-wind, husband?—
What is it sounds in this house so eerily?
It seems to be a woman’s voice: each little while I hear it,
And it much troubles me!”
“’Tis but the eaves dripping down upon the plinth-slopes:
Letting fancies worry thee!—sure ’tis a foolish thing,
When we were on’y coupled half-an-hour before the noontide,
And now it’s but evening.”
“Yet seems it still a woman’s voice outside the castle, husband,
And ’tis cold to-night, and rain beats, and this is a lonely place.
Didst thou fathom much of womankind in travel or adventure
Ere ever thou sawest my face?”
“It may be a tree, bride, that rubs his arms acrosswise,
If it is not the eaves-drip upon the lower slopes,
Or the river at the bend, where it whirls about the hatches
Like a creature that sighs and mopes.”
“Yet it still seems to me like the crying of a woman,
And it saddens me much that so piteous a sound
On this my bridal night when I would get agone from sorrow
Should so ghost-like wander round!”