that stab of fire;Enjailed in pitiless wire;
Resenting not such wrong!
Who hath charity? This bird.
Who suffereth long and is kind,
Is not provoked, though blind
And alive ensepulchred?
Who hopeth, endureth all things?
Who thinketh no evil, but sings?
Who is divine? This bird.
“THE WIND BLEW WORDS”
The wind blew words along the skies,
And these it blew to me
Through the wide dusk: “Lift up your eyes,
Behold this troubled tree,
Complaining as it sways and plies;
It is a limb of thee.
“Yea, too, the creatures sheltering round —
Dumb figures, wild and tame,
Yea, too, thy fellows who abound —
Either of speech the same
Or far and strange – black, dwarfed, and browned,
They are stuff of thy own frame.”
I moved on in a surging awe
Of inarticulateness
At the pathetic Me I saw
In all his huge distress,
Making self-slaughter of the law
To kill, break, or suppress.
THE FADED FACE
How was this I did not see
Such a look as here was shown
Ere its womanhood had blown
Past its first felicity? —
That I did not know you young,
Faded Face,
Know you young!
Why did Time so ill bestead
That I heard no voice of yours
Hail from out the curved contours
Of those lips when rosy red;
Weeted not the songs they sung,
Faded Face,
Songs they sung!
By these blanchings, blooms of old,
And the relics of your voice —
Leavings rare of rich and choice
From your early tone and mould —
Let me mourn, – aye, sorrow-wrung,
Faded Face,
Sorrow-wrung!
THE RIDDLE
Stretching eyes west
Over the sea,
Wind foul or fair,
Always stood she
Prospect-impressed;
Solely out there
Did her gaze rest,
Never elsewhere
Seemed charm to be.
Always eyes east
Ponders she now —
As in devotion —
Hills of blank brow
Where no waves plough.
Never the least
Room for emotion
Drawn from the ocean
Does she allow.
THE DUEL
“I am here to time, you see;
The glade is well-screened – eh? – against alarm;
Fit place to vindicate by my arm
The honour of my spotless wife,
Who scorns your libel upon her life
In boasting intimacy!
“‘All hush-offerings you’ll spurn,
My husband. Two must come; one only go,’
She said. ‘That he’ll be you I know;
To faith like ours Heaven will be just,
And I shall abide in fullest trust
Your speedy glad return.’”
“Good. Here am also I;
And we’ll proceed without more waste of words
To warm your cockpit. Of the swords
Take you your choice. I shall thereby
Feel that on me no blame can lie,
Whatever Fate accords.”
So stripped they there, and fought,
And the swords clicked and scraped, and the onsets sped;
Till the husband fell; and his shirt was red
With streams from his heart’s hot cistern. Nought
Could save him now; and the other, wrought
Maybe to pity, said:
“Why did you urge on this?
Your wife assured you; and ’t had better been
That you had let things pass, serene
In confidence of long-tried bliss,
Holding there could be nought amiss
In what my words might mean.”
Then, seeing nor ruth nor rage
Could move his foeman more – now Death’s deaf thrall —
He wiped his steel, and, with a call
Like turtledove to dove, swift broke
Into the copse, where under an oak
His horse cropt, held by a page.
“All’s over, Sweet,” he cried
To the wife, thus guised; for the young page was she.
“’Tis as we hoped and said ’t would be.
He never guessed.. We mount and ride
To where our love can reign uneyed.
He’s clay, and we are free.”
AT MAYFAIR LODGINGS
How could I be aware,
The opposite window eyeing
As I lay listless there,
That through its blinds was dying
One I had rated rare
Before I had set me sighing
For another more fair?
Had the house-front been glass,
My
