Through human orbits thy discourse to-day,
Despite thy formal pilgrimage, throbs on
In harmonies that cow Oblivion,
And, like the wind, with all-uncared effect
Maintain a sway
Not fore-desired, in tracks unchosen and unchecked.
And yet, at thy last breath, with mindless note
The borough clocks but samely tongued the hour,
The Avon just as always glassed the tower,
Thy age was published on thy passing-bell
But in due rote
With other dwellers’ deaths accorded a like knell.
And at the strokes some townsman (met, maybe,
And thereon queried by some squire’s good dame
Driving in shopward) may have given thy name,
With, “Yes, a worthy man and well-to-do;
Though, as for me,
I knew him but by just a neighbour’s nod, ’tis true.
“I’ faith, few knew him much here, save by word,
He having elsewhere led his busier life;
Though to be sure he left with us his wife.”
—“Ah, one of the tradesmen’s sons, I now recall . . .
Witty, I’ve heard . . .
We did not know him . . . Well, good-day. Death comes to all.”
So, like a strange bright bird we sometimes find
To mingle with the barn-door brood awhile,
Then vanish from their homely domicile—
Into man’s poesy, we wot not whence,
Flew thy strange mind,
Lodged there a radiant guest, and sped for ever thence.
1916.
QUID HIC AGIS?
I
When I weekly knew
An ancient pew,
And murmured there
The forms of prayer
And thanks and praise
In the ancient ways,
And heard read out
During August drought
That chapter from Kings
Harvest-time brings;
—How the prophet, broken
By griefs unspoken,
Went heavily away
To fast and to pray,
And, while waiting to die,
The Lord passed by,
And a whirlwind and fire
Drew nigher and nigher,
And a small voice anon
Bade him up and be gone,—
I did not apprehend
As I sat to the end
And watched for her smile
Across the sunned aisle,
That this tale of a seer
Which came once a year
Might, when sands were heaping,
Be like a sweat creeping,
Or in any degree
Bear on her or on me!
II