"I was not He"

   

(SONG)

  

   I was not he - the man

Who used to pilgrim to your gate,

At whose smart step you grew elate,

   And rosed, as maidens can,

      For a brief span.

   It was not I who sang

Beside the keys you touched so true

With note-bent eyes, as if with you

   It counted not whence sprang

      The voice that rang . . .

   Yet though my destiny

It was to miss your early sweet,

You still, when turned to you my feet,

   Had sweet enough to be

      A prize for me!

Epeisodia

[Image : Anne Lee]

I

Past the hills that peep

Where the leaze is smiling,

On and on beguiling

Crisply-cropping sheep;

Under boughs of brushwood

Linking tree and tree

In a shade of lushwood,

   There caressed we!

II

Hemmed by city walls

That outshut the sunlight,

In a foggy dun light,

Where the footstep falls

With a pit-pat wearisome

In its cadency

On the flagstones drearisome

   There pressed we!

III

Where in wild-winged crowds

Blown birds show their whiteness

Up against the lightness

Of the clammy clouds;

By the random river

Pushing to the sea,

Under bents that quiver

   There rest we.

A Week

On Monday night I closed my door,
And thought you were not as heretofore,
And little cared if we met no more.

I seemed on Tuesday night to trace
Something beyond mere commonplace
In your ideas, and heart, and face.

On Wednesday I did not opine
Your life would ever be one with mine,
Though if it were we should well combine.

On Thursday noon I liked you well,
And fondly felt that we must dwell
Not far apart, whatever befell.

On Friday it was with a thrill
In gazing towards your distant vill
I owned you were my dear one still.

I saw you wholly to my mind
On Saturday--even one who shrined
All that was best of womankind.

As wing-clipt sea-gull for the sea
On Sunday night I longed for thee,
Without whom life were waste to me!

The Minute before Meeting

The grey gaunt days dividing us in twain
Seemed hopeless hills my strength must faint to climb,
But they are gone; and now I would detain
The few clock-beats that part us; rein back Time,

And live in close expectance never closed
In change for far expectance closed at last,
So harshly has expectance been imposed
On my long need while these slow blank months passed.

And knowing that what is now about to be
Will all HAVE BEEN in O, so short a space!
I read beyond it my despondency
When more dividing months shall take its place,
Thereby denying to this hour of grace
A full-up measure of felicity.

1871.