THAT no man schemed it is my hope—
Yea, that it fell by will and scope
Of That Which some enthrone,
And for whose meaning myriads grope.
For I would not that of my kind
There should, of his unbiassed mind,
Have been one known
Who such a stroke could have designed;
Since it would augur works and ways
Below the lowest that man assays
To have hurled that stone
Into the sunshine of our days!
And if it prove that no man did,
And that the Inscrutable, the Hid,
Was cause alone
Of this foul crash our lives amid,
I’ll go in due time, and forget
In some deep graveyard’s oubliette
The thing whereof I groan,
And cease from troubling; thankful yet
Time’s finger should have stretched to show
No aimful author’s was the blow
That swept us prone,
But the Immanent Doer’s That doth not know,
Which in some age unguessed of us
May lift Its blinding incubus,
And see, and own:
“It grieves me I did thus and thus!”
LOVE THE MONOPOLIST
(_Young Lover’s Reverie_)
THE train draws forth from the station-yard,
And with it carries me.
I rise, and stretch out, and regard
The platform left, and see
An airy slim blue form there standing,
And know that it is she.
While with strained vision I watch on,
The figure turns round quite
To greet friends gaily; then is gone . . .
The import may be slight,
But why remained she not hard gazing
Till I was out of sight?
“O do not chat with others there,”
I brood. “They are not I.
O strain your thoughts as if they were
Gold bands between us; eye
All neighbour scenes as so much blankness
Till I again am by!
“A troubled soughing in the breeze
And the sky overhead
Let yourself feel; and shadeful trees,
Ripe corn, and apples red,
Read as things barren and distasteful
While we are separated!
“When I come back uncloak your gloom,
And let in lovely day;
Then the long dark as of the tomb
Can well be thrust away
With sweet things I shall have to practise,
And you will have to say!”
_Begun_ 1871: _finished_—