No.11

SONG OF THE SOLDIERS’ WIVES

At last! In sight of home again,
Of home again;
No more to range and roam again
As at that bygone time?
No more to go away from us
And stay from us?
Dawn, hold not long the day from us,
But quicken it to prime!

Now all the town shall ring to them,
Shall ring to them,
And we who love them cling to them
And clasp them joyfully;
And cry, "O much we'll do for you
Anew for you,
Dear Loves! - aye, draw and hew for you,
Come back from oversea."

Some told us we should meet no more,
Should meet no more;
Should wait, and wish, but greet no more
Your faces round our fires;
That, in a while, uncharily
And drearily
Men gave their lives - even wearily,
Like those whom living tires.

And now you are nearing home again,
Dears, home again;
No more, may be, to roam again
As at that bygone time,
Which took you far away from us
To stay from us;
Dawn, hold not long the day from us,
But quicken it to prime!

-oo0oo-

AN AUGUST MIDNIGHT

A shaded lamp and a waving blind,
And the beat of a clock from a distant floor;
On this scene enter - winged, horned and spined -
A longlegs, a moth, and a dumbledore;*
While ’mid my page there idly stands
A sleepy fly that rubs its hands.

Thus meet we five, in this still place,
At this point of time, at this point in space,
My guests besmear my new-penned line,
Or bang at the lamp and fall supine.
“God’s humblest, they!” I muse. Yet why?
They know Earth-secrets that know not I.

* dumbledore = bumblebee

-oo0oo-

THE DREAM-FOLLOWER

A dream of mine flew over the mead
To the halls where my old Love reigns;
And it drew me on to follow its lead:
And I stood at her window-panes;

And I saw but a thing of flesh and bone
Speeding on to its cleft in the clay;
And my dream was scared, and expired on a moan,
And I whitely hastened away.

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No.10

THE RUINED MAID

"O 'Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!
Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?
And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?"
"O didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she.

"You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,
Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;
And now you've gay bracelets and bright feathers three!"
"Yes: that's how we dress when we're ruined," said she.

"At home in the barton you said 'thee' and 'thou,'
And 'thik oon,' and 'theas oon,' and 't'other'; but now
Your talking quite fits 'ee for high compa-ny!"
"Some polish is gained with one's ruin," said she.

"Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak,
But now I'm bewitched by your delicate cheek,
And your little gloves fit as on any la-dy!"
"We never do work when we're ruined," said she.

"You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream,
And you'd sigh, and you'd sock; but at present you seem
To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!"
"True. There's an advantage in ruin," said she.

"I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown,
And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!"
"My dear, a raw country girl, such as you be,
Isn't equal to that. You ain't ruined," said she.

-oo0oo-

Every week-day a poem at POETRY FOR PLEASURE
http://poetryforpleasure.blogspot.com

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No.9

SATIRES OF CIRCUMSTANCE

11
In the Restaurant

“But hear! If you stay, and the child be born,
It will pass as your husband's with the rest,
While, if we fly, the teeth of scorn
Will be gleaming at us from east to west;
And the child will come as a life despised;
I feel an elopement is ill-advised!”

“O you realize not what it is, my dear,
To a woman! Daily and hourly alarms
Lest the truth should out. How can I stay here
And nightly take him into my arms!
Come to the child no name or fame,
Let us go, and face it, and bear the shame.”

12
At the Draper’s

“I stood at the back of the shop, my dear,
But you did not perceive me.
Well, when they deliver what you were shown
I shall know nothing of it, believe me!”

And he coughed and coughed as she paled and said,
“O, I didn't see you come in there,
Why couldn't you speak?” “Well, I didn't. I left
That you should not notice I'd been there.

“You were viewing some lovely things - Soon required
For a widow, of latest fashion -
And I knew 'twould upset you to meet the man
Who had to be cold and ashen

And screwed in a box before they could dress you -
In the last new note in mourning -
As they defined it. So, not to distress you,
I left you to your adorning.”

-o0o-

13
On the Death-bed

I'll tell - being past all praying for -
Then promptly die. . . He was out at the war,
And got some scent of the intimacy
That was under way between her and me;
And he stole back home, and appeared like a ghost
One night, at the very time almost
That I reached her house. Well, I shot him dead,
And secretly buried him. Nothing was said.

The news of the battle came next day;
He was scheduled missing. I hurried away,
Got out there, visited the field,
And sent home word that a search revealed
He was one of the slain; though, lying alone
And stripped, his body had not been known.

But she suspected. I lost her love,
Yea, my hope, of earth, and of Heaven above;
And my time's now come, and I'll pay the score,
Though it be burning for evermore.

-o0o-

14
Over the Coffin

They stand confronting the coffin between,
His wife of old, and his wife of late,
And the dead man whose they both had been
Seems listening aloof, as to things past date.
“I have called,” says the first. “Do you marvel or not?”
“In truth,” says the second, “I do - somewhat.”

“Well, there was a word to be said by me!
I divorced that man because of you -
It seemed I must do it, boundenly;
But now I am older, and tell you true,
For life is little, and dead lies he;
I would I had let alone you two!
And both of us, scorning parochial ways,
Had lived like the wives in the patriarch's days.”

-o0o-

15
In the Moonlight

“O lonely workman, standing there
In a dream, why do you stare and stare
At her grave, as no other grave there were?

“If your great gaunt eyes so importune
Her soul by the shine of this corpse-cold moon
Maybe you'll raise her phantom soon!”

“Why, fool, it is what I would rather see
Than all the living folk there be;
But alas, there is no such joy for me!”

“Ah - she was one you loved, no doubt,
Through good and evil, through rain and drought,
And when she passed, all your sun went out?”

“Nay: she was the woman I did not love,
Whom all the others were ranked above,
Whom during her life I thought nothing of.”

-o0o-

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No.8

SATIRES OF CIRCUMSTANCE

6
In the Cemetery

“You see those mother's squabbling there?”
Remarks the man of the cemetery.
“One says in tears, Tis mine lies here!
Another, Nay, mine, you Pharisee!
Another, How dare you move my flowers
And put your own on this grave of ours!
But all their children were laid therein
At different times, like sprats in a tin.

“And then the main drain had to cross,
And we moved the lot some nights ago,
And packed them away in the general foss
With hundreds more. But their folks don't know,
And as well cry over a new-laid drain
As anything else, to ease your pain!”

-o0o-

7
Outside the Window

“My stick!” he says, and turns in the lane
To the house just left, whence a vixen voice
Comes out with the firelight through the pane,
And he sees within that the girl of his choice
Stands rating her mother with eyes aglare
For something said while he was there.

“At last I behold her soul undraped!”
Thinks the man who had loved her more than himself;
“My God! - 'tis but narrowly I have escaped.
My precious porcelain proves it delf.”
His face has reddened like one ashamed,
And he steals off - leaving his stick unclaimed.

-o0o-

8
In the Study

He enters, and mute on the edge of a chair
Sits a thin-faced lady, a stranger there,
A type of decayed gentility;
And by some small signs he well can guess
That she comes to him almost breakfastless.

“I have called - I hope I do not err -
I am looking for a purchaser
Of some score volumes of the works
Of eminent divines I own,
Left by my father - though it irks
My patience to offer them.” And she smiles
As if necessity were unknown;
“But the truth of it is that oftenwhiles
I have wished, as I am fond of art,
To make my rooms a little smart.”
And lightly still she laughs to him,
As if to sell were a mere gay whim,
And that, to be frank, Life were indeed
To her not vinegar and gall,
But fresh and honey-like; and Need
No household skeleton at all.

-o0o-

9
At the Altar-rail

"My bride is not coming, alas!" says the groom,
And the telegram shakes in his hand. "I own
It was hurried! We met at a dancing-room
When I went to the Cattle Show alone,
And then, next night, where the Fountain leaps,
And the Street of the Quarter Circle sweeps.
Ay, she won me to ask her to be my wife,
'Twas foolish perhaps! - to forsake the ways
Of the flaring town for a farmer's life.
She agreed. And we fixed it. Now she says:
It's sweet of you, dear, to prepare me a nest,
But a swift, short, gay life suits me best.
What I really am you have never gleaned;
I had eaten the apple ere you were weaned.”

-o0o-

10
In the Nuptial Chamber

“O That mastering tune?” And up in the bed
Like a lace-robed phantom springs the bride;
“And why?” asks the man she had that day wed,
With a start, as the band plays on outside.
“Its the townsfolks' cheery compliment
Because of our marriage, my Innocent.”

“O but you don't know! 'Tis the passionate air
To which my old Love waltzed with me,
And I swore as we spun that none should share
My home, my kisses, till death, save he!
And he dominates me and thrills me through,
And it’s he I embrace while embracing you!”

-o0o-

Next Sunday the remaining five poems in Satires of Circumstance

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