Time's Laughingstocks and Other verses Read Online

...

VI

Now the poster stirred an ember

Still remaining from my ardours of some forty years before,

When the self-same portal on an eve it thrilled me to remember

A like announcement bore;

VII

And expectantly I had entered,

And had first beheld in human mould a Rosalind woo and plead,

On whose transcendent figuring my speedy soul had centred

As it had been she indeed. ...

VIII

So; all other plans discarding.

I resolved on entrance, bent on seeing what I once had seen,

And approached the gangway of my earlier knowledge, disregarding

The tract of time between.

IX

»The words, sir?« cried a creature

Hovering mid the shine and shade as 'twixt the live world and the tomb;

But the well-known numbers needed not for me a text or teacher

To revive and re-illume.

X

Then the play. ... But how unfitted

Was this Rosalind! – a mammet quite to me, in memories nurst,

And with chilling disappointment soon I sought the street I had quitted,

To re-ponder on the first.

XI

The hag still hawked, – I met her

Just without the colonnade. »So you don't like her, sir?« said she.

»Ah – I was once that Rosalind! – I acted her – none better –

Yes – in eighteen sixty-three.

XII

Thus I won Orlando to me

In my then triumphant days when I had charm and maidenhood,

Now some forty years ago. – I used to say, Come woo me, woo me!«

And she struck the attitude.

XIII

It was when I had gone there nightly;

And the voice – though raucous now – was yet the old one. – Clear as noon

My Rosalind was here. ... Thereon the band withinside lightly

Beat up a merry tune.

A Sunday Morning Tragedy

(circa 186–)

I bore a daughter flower-fair,

In Pydel Vale, alas for me;

I joyed to mother one so rare,

But dead and gone I now would be.

Men looked and loved her as she grew,

And she was won, alas for me;

She told me nothing, but I knew,

And saw that sorrow was to be.

I knew that one had made her thrall,

A thrall to him, alas for me;

And then, at last, she told me all,

And wondered what her end would be.

She owned that she had loved too well,

Had loved too well, unhappy she,

And bore a secret time would tell,

Though in her shroud she'd sooner be.

I plodded to her sweetheart's door

In Pydel Vale, alas for me:

I pleaded with him, pleaded sore,

To save her from her misery.

He frowned, and swore he could not wed,

Seven times he swore it could not be;

»Poverty's worse than shame,« he said,

Till all my hope went out of me.

»I've packed my traps to sail the main« –

Roughly he spake, alas did he –

»Wessex beholds me not again,

'Tis worse than any jail would be!«

– There was a shepherd whom I knew,

A subtle man, alas for me:

I sought him all the pastures through,

Though better I had ceased to be.

I traced him by his lantern light,

And gave him hint, alas for me,

Of how she found her in the plight

That is so scorned in Christendie.

»Is there an herb ...?« I asked. »Or none?«

Yes, thus I asked him desperately.

»– There is,« he said; »a certain one. ...«

Would he had sworn that none knew he!

»To-morrow I will walk your way,«

He hinted low, alas for me. –

Fieldwards I gazed throughout next day;

Now fields I never more would see!

The sunset-shine, as curfew strook,

As curfew strook beyond the lea,

Lit his white smock and gleaming crook,

While slowly he drew near to me.

He pulled from underneath his smock

The herb I sought, my curse to be –

»At times I use it in my flock,«

He said, and hope waxed strong in me.

»'Tis meant to balk ill-motherings« –

(Ill-motherings! Why should they be?) –

»If not, would God have sent such things?«

So spoke the shepherd unto me.

That night I watched the poppling brew,

With bended back and hand on knee:

I stirred it till the dawnlight grew,

And the wind whiffled wailfully.

»This scandal shall be slain,« said I,

»That lours upon her innocency:

I'll give all whispering tongues the lie;« –

But worse than whispers was to be.

»Here's physic for untimely fruit,«

I said to her, alas for me,

Early that morn in fond salute;

And in my grave I now would be.

– Next Sunday came, with sweet church chimes

In Pydel Vale, alas for me:

I went into her room betimes;

No more may such a Sunday be!

»Mother, instead of rescue nigh,«

She faintly breathed, alas for me,

»I feel as I were like to die,

And underground soon, soon should be«

From church that noon the people walked

In twos and threes, alas for me,

Showed their new raiment – smiled and talked,

Though sackcloth-clad I longed to be.

Came to my door her lover's friends,

And cheerly cried, alas for me,

»Right glad are we he makes amends,

For never a sweeter bride can be«.

My mouth dried, as 'twere scorched within,

Dried at their words, alas for me:

More and more neighbours crowded in,

(O why should mothers ever be!)

»Ha-ha! Such well-kept news!« laughed they,

Yes – so they laughed, alas for me.

»Whose banns were called in church to-day?« –

Christ, how I wished my soul could flee!

»Where is she? O the stealthy miss,«

Still bantered they, alas for me,

»To keep a wedding close as this ...«

Ay, Fortune worked thus wantonly!

»But you are pale – you did not know?«

They archly asked, alas for me,

I stammered, »Yes – some days – ago,«

While coffined clay I wished to be.

»'Twas done to please her, we surmise?«

(They spoke quite lightly in their glee)

»Done by him as a fond surprise?«

I thought their words would madden me.

Her lover entered. »Where's my bird? –

My bird – my flower – my picotee?

First time of asking, soon the third!«

Ah, in my grave I well may be.

To me he whispered: »Since your call –«

So spoke he then, alas for me –

»I've felt for her, and righted all«.

– I think of it to agony.

»She's faint to-day – tired – nothing more –«

Thus did I lie, alas for me. ...

I called her at her chamber door

As one who scarce had strength to be.

No voice replied. I went within –

O women! scourged the worst are we. ...

I shrieked. The others hastened in

And saw the stroke there dealt on me.

There she lay – silent, breathless, dead,

Stone dead she lay – wronged, sinless she! –

Ghost-white the cheeks once rosy-red:

Death had took her. Death took not me.

I kissed her colding face and hair,

I kissed her corpse – the bride to be! –

My punishment I cannot bear,

But pray God not to pity me.

The House of Hospitalities

Here we broached the Christmas barrel,

Pushed up the charred log-ends;

Here we sang the Christmas carol,

And called in friends.

Time has tired me since we met here

When the folk now dead were young,

Since the viands were outset here

And quaint songs sung.

And the worm has bored the viol

That used to lead the tune,

Rust eaten out the dial

That struck night's noon.

Now no Christmas brings in neighbours,

And the New Year comes unlit;

Where we sang the mole now labours,

And spiders knit.

Yet at midnight if here walking,

When the moon sheets wall and tree,

I see forms of old time talking,

Who smile on me.

Bereft

In the black winter morning

No light will be struck near my eyes

While the clock in the stairway is warning

For five, when he used to rise.

Leave the door unbarred,

The clock unwound,

Make my lone bed hard –

Would 'twere underground!

When the summer dawns clearly,

And the appletree-tops seem alight,

Who will undraw the curtain and cheerly

Call out that the morning is bright?

When I tarry at market

No form will cross Durnover Lea

In the gathering darkness, to hark at

Grey's Bridge for the pit-pat o' me.

When the supper crock's steaming,

And the time is the time of his tread,

I shall sit by the fire and wait dreaming

In a silence as of the dead.

Leave the door unbarred,

The clock unwound,

Make my lone bed hard –

Would 'twere underground!

John and Jane

I

He sees the world as a boisterous place

Where all things bear a laughing face,

And humorous scenes go hourly on,

Does John.

II

They find the world a pleasant place

Where all is ecstasy and grace,

Where a light has risen that cannot wane,

Do John and Jane.

III

They see as a palace their cottage-place,

Containing a pearl of the human race,

A hero, maybe, hereafter styled,

Do John and Jane with a baby-child.

IV

They rate the world as a gruesome place,

Where fair looks fade to a skull's grimace, –

As a pilgrimage they would fain get done –

Do John and Jane with their worthless son.

The Curate's Kindness

A Workhouse Irony

I

I thought they'd be strangers aroun' me,

But she's to be there!

Let me jump out o' waggon and go back and drown me

At Pummery or Ten-Hatches Weir.

II

I thought: »Well, I've come to the Union –

The workhouse at last –

After honest hard work all the week, and Communion

O' Zundays, these fifty years past.

III

'Tis hard; but,« I thought, »never mind it:

There's gain in the end:

And when I get used to the place I shall find it

A home, and may find there a friend.

IV

Life there will be better than t'other,

For peace is assured.

The men in one wing and their wives in another

Is strictly the rule of the Board.«

V

Just then one young Pa'son arriving

Steps up out of breath

To the side o' the waggon wherein we were driving

To Union; and calls out and saith:

VI

»Old folks, that harsh order is altered,

Be not sick of heart!

The Guardians they poohed and they pished and they paltered

When urged not to keep you apart.

VII

›It is wrong,‹ I maintained, ›to divide them,

Near forty years wed.‹

›Very well, sir. We promise, then, they shall abide them

In one wing together,‹ they said.«

VIII

Then I sank – knew 'twas quite a foredone thing

That misery should be

To the end! ... To get freed of her there was the one thing

Had made the change welcome to me.

IX

To go there was ending but badly;

'Twas shame and 'twas pain;

»But anyhow,« thought I, »thereby I shall gladly

Get free of this forty years' chain.«

X

I thought they'd be strangers aroun' me,

But she's to be there!

Let me jump out o' waggon and go back and drown me

At Pummery or Ten-Hatches Weir.

The Flirt's Tragedy

(17––)

Here alone by the logs in my chamber,

Deserted, decrepit –

Spent flames limning ghosts on the wainscot

Of friends I once knew –

My drama and hers begins weirdly

Its dumb re-enactment,

Each scene, sigh, and circumstance passing

In spectral review.

– Wealth was mine beyond wish when I met her –

The pride of the lowland –

Embowered in Tintinhull Valley

By laurel and yew;

And love lit my soul, notwithstanding

My features' ill favour,

Too obvious beside her perfections

Of line and of hue.

But it pleased her to play on my passion,

And whet me to pleadings

That won from her mirthful negations

And scornings undue.

Then I fled her disdains and derisions

To cities of pleasure,

And made me the crony of idlers

In every purlieu.

Of those who lent ear to my story,

A needy Adonis

Gave hint how to grizzle her garden

From roses to rue,

Could his price but be paid for so purging

My scorner of scornings:

Thus tempted, the lust to avenge me

Germed inly and grew.

I clothed him in sumptuous apparel,

Consigned to him coursers,

Meet equipage, liveried attendants

In full retinue.

So dowered, with letters of credit

He wayfared to England,

And spied out the manor she goddessed,

And handy thereto,

Set to hire him a tenantless mansion

As coign-stone of vantage

For testing what gross adulation

Of beauty could do.

He laboured through mornings and evens,

On new moons and sabbaths,

By wiles to enmesh her attention

In park, path, and pew;

And having afar played upon her,

Advanced his lines nearer,

And boldly outleaping conventions,

Bent briskly to woo.

His gay godlike face, his rare seeming

Anon worked to win her,

And later, at noontides and night-tides

They held rendezvous.

His tarriance full spent, he departed

And met me in Venice,

And lines from her told that my jilter

Was stooping to sue.

Not long could be further concealment,

She pled to him humbly:

»By our love and our sin, O protect me;

I fly unto you!«

A mighty remorse overgat me,

I heard her low anguish,

And there in the gloom of the calle

My steel ran him through.

A swift push engulphed his hot carrion

Within the canal there –

That still street of waters dividing

The city in two.

– I wandered awhile all unable

To smother my torment,

My brain racked by yells as from Tophet

Of Satan's whole crew.

A month of unrest brought me hovering

At home in her precincts,

To whose hiding-hole local story

Afforded a clue.

Exposed, and expelled by her people,

Afar off in London

I found her alone, in a sombre

And soul-stifling mew.

Still burning to make reparation

I pleaded to wive her,

And father her child, and thus faintly

My mischief undo.

She yielded, and spells of calm weather

Succeeded the tempest;

And one sprung of him stood as scion

Of my bone and thew. ...

But Time unveils sorrows and secrets,

And so it befell now:

By inches the curtain was twitched at,

And slowly undrew.

As we lay, she and I, in the night-time,

We heard the boy moaning:

»O misery mine! My false father

Has murdered my true!«

She gasped: yea, she heard; understood it.

Next day the child fled us;

And nevermore sighted was even

A print of his shoe.

Thenceforward she shunned me, and languished;

Till one day the park-pool

Embraced her fair form, and extinguished

Her eyes' living blue.

– So; ask not what blast may account for

This aspect of pallor,

These bones that just prison within them

Life's poor residue;

But pass by, and leave unregarded

A Cain to his suffering,

For vengeance too dark on the woman

Whose lover he slew.

The Rejected Member's Wife

We shall see her no more

On the balcony,

Smiling, while hurt, at the roar

As of surging sea

From the stormy sturdy band

Who have doomed her lord's cause,

Though she waves her little hand

As it were applause.

Here will be candidates yet,

And candidates' wives,

Fervid with zeal to set

Their ideals on our lives:

Here will come market-men

On the market-days,

Here will clash now and then

More such party assays.

And the balcony will fill

When such times are renewed,

And the throng in the street will thrill

With to-day's mettled mood;

But she will no more stand

In the sunshine there,

With that wave of her white-gloved hand,

And that chestnut hair.

The Farm-Woman's Winter

I

If seasons all were summers,

And leaves would never fall,

And hopping casement-comers

Were foodless not at all,

And fragile folk might be here

That white winds bid depart;

Then one I used to see here

Would warm my wasted heart!

II

One frail, who, bravely tilling

Long hours in gripping gusts,

Was mastered by their chilling,

And now his ploughshare rusts.

So savage winter catches

The breath of limber things,

And what I love he snatches,

And what I love not, brings.

Autumn in King's Hintock Park

Here by the baring bough

Raking up leaves,

Often I ponder how

Springtime deceives, –

I, an old woman now,

Raking up leaves.

Here in the avenue

Raking up leaves,

Lords' ladies pass in view,

Until one heaves

Sighs at life's russet hue,

Raking up leaves!

Just as my shape you see

Raking up leaves,

I saw, when fresh and free,

Those memory weaves

Into grey ghosts by me,

Raking up leaves.

Yet, Dear, though one may sigh,

Raking up leaves,

New leaves will dance on high –

Earth never grieves! –

Will not, when missed am I

Raking up leaves.

Shut Out That Moon

Close up the casement, draw the blind,

Shut out that stealing moon,

She wears too much the guise she wore

Before our lutes were strewn

With years-deep dust, and names we read

On a white stone were hewn.

Step not forth on the dew-dashed lawn

To view the Lady's Chair,

Immense Orion's glittering form,

The Less and Greater Bear:

Stay in; to such sights we were drawn

When faded ones were fair.

Brush not the bough for midnight scents

That come forth lingeringly,

And wake the same sweet sentiments

They breathed to you and me

When living seemed a laugh, and love

All it was said to be.

Within the common lamp-lit room

Prison my eyes and thought;

Let dingy details crudely loom,

Mechanic speech be wrought:

Too fragrant was Life's early bloom,

Too tart the fruit it brought!

Reminiscences of a Dancing Man

I

Who now remembers Almack's balls –

Willis's sometime named –

In those two smooth-floored upper halls

For faded ones so famed?

Where as we trod to trilling sound

The fancied phantoms stood around,

Or joined us in the maze,

Of the powdered Dears from Georgian years,

Whose dust lay in sightless sealed-up biers,

The fairest of former days.

II

Who now remembers gay Cremorne,

And all its jaunty jills,

And those wild whirling figures born

Of Jullien's grand quadrilles?

With hats on head and morning coats

There footed to his prancing notes

Our partner-girls and we;

And the gas-jets winked, and the lustres clinked,

And the platform throbbed as with arms enlinked

We moved to the minstrelsy.

III

Who now recalls those crowded rooms

Of old yclept »The Argyle«,

Where to the deep Drum-polka's booms

We hopped in standard style?

Whither have danced those damsels now!

Is Death the partner who doth moue

Their wormy chaps and bare?

Do their spectres spin like sparks within

The smoky halls of the Prince of Sin

To a thunderous Jullien air?

The Dead Man Walking

They hail me as one living,

But don't they know

That I have died of late years,

Untombed although?

I am but a shape that stands here,

A pulseless mould,

A pale past picture, screening

Ashes gone cold.

Not at a minute's warning,

Not in a loud hour,

For me ceased Time's enchantments

In hall and bower.

There was no tragic transit,

No catch of breath,

When silent seasons inched me

On to this death. ...

– A Troubadour-youth I rambled

With Life for lyre,

The beats of being raging

In me like fire.

But when I practised eyeing

The goal of men,

It iced me, and I perished

A little then.

When passed my friend, my kinsfolk,

Through the Last Door,

And left me standing bleakly,

I died yet more;

And when my Love's heart kindled

In hate of me,

Wherefore I knew not, died I

One more degree.

And if when I died fully

I cannot say,

And changed into the corpse-thing

I am to-day;

Yet is it that, though whiling

The time somehow

In walking, talking, smiling,

I live not now.

More love lyrics

1967

In five-score summers! All new eyes,

New minds, new modes, new fools, new wise;

New woes to weep, new joys to prize;

With nothing left of me and you

In that live century's vivid view

Beyond a pinch of dust or two;

A century which, if not sublime,

Will show, I doubt not, at its prime,

A scope above this blinkered time.

– Yet what to me how far above?

For I would only ask thereof

That thy worm should be my worm, Love!

16 Westbourne Park Villas, 1867

Her Definition

I lingered through the night to break of day,

Nor once did sleep extend a wing to me,

Intently busied with a vast array

Of epithets that should outfigure thee.

Full-featured terms – all fitless – hastened by,

And this sole speech remained: »That maiden mine!« –

Debarred from due description then did I

Perceive the indefinite phrase could yet define.

As common chests encasing wares of price

Are borne with tenderness through halls of state,

For what they cover, so the poor device

Of homely wording I could tolerate,

Knowing its unadornment held as freight

The sweetest image outside Paradise.

W.P.V., Summer: 1866

The Division

Rain on the windows, creaking doors,

With blasts that besom the green,

And I am here, and you are there,

And a hundred miles between!

O were it but the weather, Dear,

O were it but the miles

That summed up all our severance,

There might be room for smiles.

But that thwart thing betwixt us twain,

Which nothing cleaves or clears,

Is more than distance, Dear, or rain,

And longer than the years!

On the Departure Platform

We kissed at the barrier; and passing through

She left me, and moment by moment got

Smaller and smaller, until to my view

She was but a spot;

A wee white spot of muslin fluff

That down the diminishing platform bore

Through hustling crowds of gentle and rough

To the carriage door.

Under the lamplight's fitful glowers,

Behind dark groups from far and near,

Whose interests were apart from ours,

She would disappear,

Then show again, till I ceased to see

That flexible form, that nebulous white;

And she who was more than my life to me

Had vanished quite. ...

We have penned new plans since that fair fond day,

And in season she will appear again –

Perhaps in the same soft white array –

But never as then!

– »And why, young man, must eternally fly

A joy you'll repeat, if you love her well?«

– O friend, nought happens twice thus; why,

I cannot tell!

In a Cathedral City

These people have not heard your name;

No loungers in this placid place

Have helped to bruit your beauty's fame.

The grey Cathedral, towards whose face

Bend eyes untold, has met not yours;

Your shade has never swept its base,

Your form has never darked its doors,

Nor have your faultless feet once thrown

A pensive pit-pat on its floors.

Along the street to maids well known

Blithe lovers hum their tender airs,

But in your praise voice not a tone. ...

– Since nought bespeaks you here, or bears,

As I, your imprint through and through,

Here might I rest, till my heart shares

The spot's unconsciousness of you!

Salisbury

I Say, »I'll Seek Her«

I say, »I'll seek her side

Ere hindrance interposes;«

But eve in midnight closes,

And here I still abide.

When darkness wears I see

Her sad eyes in a vision;

They ask, »What indecision

Detains you, Love, from me? –

The creaking hinge is oiled,

I have unbarred the backway,

But you tread not the trackway;

And shall the thing be spoiled?

Far cockcrows echo shrill,

The shadows are abating,

And I am waiting, waiting;

But O, you tarry still!«

Her Father

I met her, as we had privily planned,

Where passing feet beat busily:

She whispered: »Father is at hand!

He wished to walk with me.«

His presence as he joined us there

Banished our words of warmth away;

We felt, with cloudings of despair,

What Love must lose that day.

Her crimson lips remained unkissed,

Our fingers kept no tender hold,

His lack of feeling made the tryst

Embarrassed, stiff, and cold.

A cynic ghost then rose and said,

»But is his love for her so small

That, nigh to yours, it may be read

As of no worth at all?

You love her for her pink and white;

But what when their fresh splendours close?

His love will last her in despite

Of Time, and wrack, and foes.«

Weymouth

At Waking

When night was lifting,

And dawn had crept under its shade,

Amid cold clouds drifting

Dead-white as a corpse outlaid,

With a sudden scare

I seemed to behold

My Love in bare

Hard lines unfold.

Yea, in a moment,

An insight that would not die

Killed her old endowment

Of charm that had capped all nigh,

Which vanished to none

Like the gilt of a cloud,

And showed her but one

Of the common crowd.

She seemed but a sample

Of earth's poor average kind,

Lit up by no ample

Enrichments of mien or mind.

I covered my eyes

As to cover the thought,

And unrecognize

What the morn had taught.

O vision appalling

When the one believed-in thing

Is seen falling, falling,

With all to which hope can cling.

Off: it is not true;

For it cannot be

That the prize I drew

Is a blank to me!

Weymouth, 1869

Four Footprints

Here are the tracks upon the sand

Where stood last evening she and I –

Pressed heart to heart and hand to hand;

The morning sun has baked them dry.

I kissed her wet face – wet with rain,

For arid grief had burnt up tears,

While reached us as in sleeping pain

The distant gurgling of the weirs.

»I have married him – yes; feel that ring;

'Tis a week ago that he put it on. ...

A dutiful daughter does this thing,

And resignation succeeds anon!

But that I body and soul was yours

Ere he'd possession, he'll never know.

He's a confident man. ›The husband scores,‹

He says, ›in the long run‹ ... Now, Dear, go!«

I went. And to-day I pass the spot;

It is only a smart the more to endure;

And she whom I held is as though she were not,

For they have resumed their honeymoon tour.

In the Vaulted Way

In the vaulted way, where the passage turned

To the shadowy corner that none could see,

You paused for our parting, – plaintively;

Though overnight had come words that burned

My fond frail happiness out of me.

And then I kissed you, – despite my thought

That our spell must end when reflection came

On what you had deemed me, whose one long aim

Had been to serve you; that what I sought

Lay not in a heart that could breathe such blame.

But yet I kissed you; whereon you again

As of old kissed me. Why, why was it so?

Do you cleave to me after that light-tongued blow?

If you scorned me at eventide, how love then?

The thing is dark, Dear. I do not know.

In the Mind's Eye

That was once her casement,

And the taper nigh,

Shining from within there,

Beckoned, »Here am I!«

Now, as then, I see her

Moving at the pane;

Ah; 'tis but her phantom

Borne within my brain! –

Foremost in my vision

Everywhere goes she;

Change dissolves the landscapes,

She abides with me.

Shape so sweet and shy, Dear,

Who can say thee nay?

Never once do I, Dear,

Wish thy ghost away.

The End of the Episode

Indulge no more may we

In this sweet-bitter pastime:

The love-light shines the last time

Between you, Dear, and me.

There shall remain no trace

Of what so closely tied us,

And blank as ere love eyed us

Will be our meeting-place.

The flowers and thymy air,

Will they now miss our coming?

The dumbles thin their humming

To find we haunt not there?

Though fervent was our vow,

Though ruddily ran our pleasure,

Bliss has fulfilled its measure,

And sees its sentence now.

Ache deep; but make no moans:

Smile out; but stilly suffer:

The paths of love are rougher

Than thoroughfares of stones.

The Sigh

Little head against my shoulder,

Shy at first, then somewhat bolder,

And up-eyed;

Till she, with a timid quaver,

Yielded to the kiss I gave her;

But, she sighed.

That there mingled with her feeling

Some sad thought she was concealing

It implied.

– Not that she had ceased to love me,

None on earth she set above me;

But she sighed.

She could not disguise a passion,

Dread, or doubt, in weakest fashion

If she tried:

Nothing seemed to hold us sundered,

Hearts were victors; so I wondered

Why she sighed.

Afterwards I knew her throughly,

And she loved me staunchly, truly,

Till she died;

But she never made confession

Why, at that first sweet concession,

She had sighed.

It was in our May, remember;

And though now I near November,

And abide

Till my appointed change, unfretting,

Sometimes I sit half regretting

That she sighed.

In the Night She Came

I told her when I left one day

That whatsoever weight of care

Might strain our love, Time's mere assault

Would work no changes there.

And in the night she came to me,

Toothless, and wan, and old,

With leaden concaves round her eyes,

And wrinkles manifold.

I tremblingly exclaimed to her,

»O wherefore do you ghost me thus!

I have said that dull defacing Time

Will bring no dreads to us.«

»And is that true of you?« she cried

In voice of troubled tune.

I faltered: »Well ...