Pleasanter now it is to hold That here, where sang he, more of him Remains than where he, tuneless, cold, Passed to the dim. _July_ 1920. A WOMAN’S FANCY “AH Madam; you’ve indeed come back here? ’Twas sad—your husband’s so swift death, And you away! You shouldn’t have left him: It hastened his last breath.” “Dame, I am not the lady you think me; I know not her, nor know her name; I’ve come to lodge here—a friendless woman; My health my only aim.” She came; she lodged. Wherever she rambled They held her as no other than The lady named; and told how her husband Had died a forsaken man. So often did they call her thuswise Mistakenly, by that man’s name, So much did they declare about him, That his past form and fame Grew on her, till she pitied his sorrow As if she truly had been the cause— Yea, his deserter; and came to wonder What mould of man he was. “Tell me my history!” would exclaim she; “_Our_ history,” she said mournfully. “But _you_ know, surely, Ma’am?” they would answer, Much in perplexity. Curious, she crept to his grave one evening, And a second time in the dusk of the morrow; Then a third time, with crescent emotion Like a bereaved wife’s sorrow. No gravestone rose by the rounded hillock; —“I marvel why this is?” she said. —“He had no kindred, Ma’am, but you near.” —She set a stone at his head. She learnt to dream of him, and told them: “In slumber often uprises he, And says: ‘I am joyed that, after all, Dear, You’ve not deserted me!” At length died too this kinless woman, As he had died she had grown to crave; And at her dying she besought them To bury her in his grave. Such said, she had paused; until she added: “Call me by his name on the stone, As I were, first to last, his dearest, Not she who left him lone!” And this they did. And so it became there That, by the strength of a tender whim, The stranger was she who bore his name there, Not she who wedded him. HER SONG I SANG that song on Sunday, To witch an idle while, I sang that song on Monday, As fittest to beguile; I sang it as the year outwore, And the new slid in; I thought not what might shape before Another would begin. I sang that song in summer, All unforeknowingly, To him as a new-comer From regions strange to me: I sang it when in afteryears The shades stretched out, And paths were faint; and flocking fears Brought cup-eyed care and doubt. Sings he that song on Sundays In some dim land afar, On Saturdays, or Mondays, As when the evening star Glimpsed in upon his bending face And my hanging hair, And time untouched me with a trace Of soul-smart or despair?