She told of that far-back day when they learnt astounded
Of the death of the King of France:
Of the Terror; and then of Bonaparte’s unbounded
Ambition and arrogance.
Of how his threats woke warlike preparations
Along the southern strand,
And how each night brought tremors and trepidations
Lest morning should see him land.
She said she had often heard the gibbet creaking
As it swayed in the lightning flash,
Had caught from the neighbouring town a small child’s shrieking
At the cart-tail under the lash . . .
With cap-framed face and long gaze into the embers—
We seated around her knees—
She would dwell on such dead themes, not as one who remembers,
But rather as one who sees.
She seemed one left behind of a band gone distant
So far that no tongue could hail:
Past things retold were to her as things existent,
Things present but as a tale.
May 20, 1902.
SHE HEARS THE STORM
There was a time in former years—
While my roof-tree was his—
When I should have been distressed by fears
At such a night as this!
I should have murmured anxiously,
“The pricking rain strikes cold;
His road is bare of hedge or tree,
And he is getting old.”
But now the fitful chimney-roar,
The drone of Thorncombe trees,
The Froom in flood upon the moor,
The mud of Mellstock Leaze,