Classic Poem

XXI

The town one evening seemed to keep
A quiet sort of twilight sleep,
Flushed, scented, calm and airy;
And George, who rode across from far,
Found no one sitting in the bar
But smiling Mistress Mary.

XXII

Long time he sat and nothing said,
But listened to the chatting maid,
Who loved this evening leisure;
It was so dreamy there and sweet,
And she so bright from head to feet,
He could have wept for pleasure.

XXIII

His beating heart, that leaped apace,
Took comfort from her smiling face
That pertly seemed to brave you: —
" If you don't mind a keeper's life,
I wish you'd come and be my wife,
For no man else shall have you."

XXIV

She started, turned first white, then red,
And for a minute nothing said,
Then seemed to search and find him;
" Good-night," she answered, short and straight,
" I had no notion 'twas so late,"
And shut the door behind him.

XXV

The threshold pebbles seemed to scorch
His feet; he leaned against the porch,
And tore the honeysuckle;
Up to the window-pots he sighed, —
Then from one casement, opened wide,
He heard a kind of chuckle.

XXVI

So, mad with love and sick with rage,
He swore his passion to assuage,
And by his death abash her;
He ran three miles from Lechlade town,
Then threw his hat and cudgel down,
And plunged in Kelmscott lasher.

XXVII

The moon on Eaton Hastings Wood
Turned white, as any full moon should,
To see a drowning keeper,
And twice he sank, and twice came out,
But as the eddies whirled about,
Each time he sank the deeper.

XXVIII

Now Mary's brother kept the weir, —
A merry lad, a judge of beer,
And stout for twenty-seven; —
It chanced that night he smoked at ease
Among his stocks and picotees
Beneath the summer heaven.

XXIX

He dashed across the seething din,
Thrust all the piles and rimers in,
And stopped the weir's mad riot;
Then rushing to the reedy strand
Swam out, and safely dragged to land,
Poor George, now white and quiet.

XXX

Long time before the doors of death
The little fluttering of his breath
Seemed taking leave for ever;
His pulse was gone, his cheek was blue, —
But by degrees they brought him to,
And bore him from the river.