I thought myself indeed secure,
So fast the door, so firm the lock;
But, lo! he toddling comes to lure
My parent ear with timorous knock.

My heart were stone could it withstand
The sweetness of my baby's plea,--
That timorous, baby knocking and
"Please let me in,--it's only me."

I threw aside the unfinished book,
Regardless of its tempting charms,
And opening wide the door, I took
My laughing darling in my arms.

Who knows but in Eternity,
I, like a truant child, shall wait
The glories of a life to be,

In the willows along the river at Pleasure Bay
A catbird singing, never the same phrase twice.
Here under the pines a little off the road
In 1927 the Chief of Police
And Mrs. W. killed themselves together,
Sitting in a roadster. Ancient unshaken pilings
And underwater chunks of still-mortared brick
In shapes like bits of puzzle strew the bottom
Where the landing was for Price's Hotel and Theater.
And here's where boats blew two blasts for the keeper
To shunt the iron swing-bridge. He leaned on the gears

LEAVE me a little while alone,
Here at his grave that still is strown
With crumbling flower and wreath;
The laughing rivulet leaps and falls,
The thrush exults, the cuckoo calls,
And he lies hush’d beneath.

With myrtle cross and crown of rose,
And every lowlier flower that blows,
His new-made couch is dress’d;
Primrose and cowslip, hyacinth wild,
Gather’d by monarch, peasant, child,
A nation’s grief attest.

I stood not with the mournful crowd
That hither came when round his shroud

It was a day of sun and rain,
Uncertain as a child's swift moods;
And I shall never spend again
So blithe a day among the woods.

Was it because the Gods were pleased
That they were awful in our eyes,
Whom we in very deed appeased
With barley-cakes of sacrifice?

The forest knew her and was glad,
And laughed for very joy to know
Her child was with her; then, grown sad,
She wept, because her child must go.

And Alice, like a little Faun,
Went leaping over rocks and ferns,

What made the porter stare so hard? what made the porter stare
And eye the tall young woman and the bundle that she bare?

What made the tall young woman flush, and strive to hide her face,
As the train slid past the platform and the guard swung in his place?

What made her look so stealthily both up and down the line,
And quickly give the infant suck to still its puny whine?

Why was the sawmill not at work? why were the men away?
They might have turned a woman from a woeful deed that day.

Wife
Reach out your arms, and hold me close and fast.
Tell me there are no memories of your past
That mar this love of ours, so great, so vast.

Husband
Some truths are cheapened when too oft averred.
Does not the deed speak louder than the word?
(dear God, that old dream woke again and stirred.)

Wife
As you love me, you never loved before?
Though oft you say it, say it yet once more.
My heart is jealous of those days of yore.

Husband
Sweet wife, dear comrade, mother of my child,

An Actor sits in doubtful gloom,
His stock-in-trade unfurled,
In a damp funereal dressing-room
In the Theatre Royal, World.

He comes to town at Christmas-time,
And braves its icy breath,
To play in that favourite pantomime,
HARLEQUIN LIFE AND DEATH.

A hoary flowing wig his weird
Unearthly cranium caps,
He hangs a long benevolent beard
On a pair of empty chaps.

To smooth his ghastly features down
The actor's art he cribs, -
A long and a flowing padded gown.
Bedecks his rattling ribs.

ASTROPHEL AND STELLA: I
Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,
That she, dear she, might take some pleasure of my pain,--
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain,--
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe;
Studying inventions fine her wits to entertain,
Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburn'd brain.
But words came halting forth, wanting invention's stay;

Still his little grave she seeketh
In her mother-sorrow wild,
Hush! While in her heart she speaketh
To the spirit of her child:
“Were we not to one another
Once the sum of all sweet gain?
Say then—say unto thy mother,
Shall we ever meet again?
Darling, shall we meet again,
Knowing, loving one another?
“Ah! What weary, weary sorrows
Have I known through loss of thee,
And what comfortless to-morrows
Wait me in this misery!
Were we not to one another
Once the sum of all sweet gain?

Dramatis Personae



HUGO, a Norman Baron and a Scholar.
ERIC, a friend of Hugo's.
THURSTON, |
EUSTACE, |
RALPH, | Followers of Hugo.
HENRY, a Page.
LUKE, |
HUBERT, | Monks living in a Norman Chapel.
BASIL, Abbot of a Convent on the Rhine.
CYRIL, a Monk of the same Convent.
OSRIC, a Norwegian Adventurer, and formerly a Corsair.
RUDOLPH, an Outlawed Count, and the Captain of a Band of Robbers.
DAGOBERT, the Captain of some predatory Soldiers called "Free Lances".
HAROLD, a Danish Knight.
ORION.