Yet I wanted to look and see
That nobody stood at the back of me;
But I thought once more: “Nay, I’ll not unvision
A shape which, somehow, there may be.”
So I went on softly from the glade,
And left her behind me throwing her shade,
As she were indeed an apparition—
My head unturned lest my dream should fade.
Begun 1913: finished 1916.
IN THE GARDEN
(M. H.)
We waited for the sun
To break its cloudy prison
(For day was not yet done,
And night still unbegun)
Leaning by the dial.
After many a trial—
We all silent there—
It burst as new-arisen,
Throwing a shade to where
Time travelled at that minute.
Little saw we in it,
But this much I know,
Of lookers on that shade,
Her towards whom it made
Soonest had to go.
1915.
THE TREE AND THE LADY
I have done all I could
For that lady I knew! Through the heats I have shaded her,
Drawn to her songsters when summer has jaded her,
Home from the heath or the wood.
At the mirth-time of May,
When my shadow first lured her, I’d donned my new bravery
Of greenth: ’twas my all. Now I shiver in slavery,
Icicles grieving me gray.