In woodlands I have known her, When boughs were mourning loud, In the rain-reek she has shown her Wild-haired and watery-browed. And once or twice she has cast me As she pomped along the street Court-clad, ere quite she had passed me, A glance from her chariot-seat. But in my memoried passion For evermore stands she In the gown of fading fashion She wore that night when we, Doomed long to part, assembled In the snug small room; yea, when She sang with lips that trembled, “Shall I see his face again?” A NIGHT IN NOVEMBER I MARKED when the weather changed, And the panes began to quake, And the winds rose up and ranged, That night, lying half-awake. Dead leaves blew into my room, And alighted upon my bed, And a tree declared to the gloom Its sorrow that they were shed. One leaf of them touched my hand, And I thought that it was you There stood as you used to stand, And saying at last you knew! (?) 1913. A DUETTIST TO HER PIANOFORTE SONG OF SILENCE (E. L. H.—H. C. H.) SINCE every sound moves memories, How can I play you Just as I might if you raised no scene, By your ivory rows, of a form between My vision and your time-worn sheen, As when each day you Answered our fingers with ecstasy? So it’s hushed, hushed, hushed, you are for me! And as I am doomed to counterchord Her notes no more In those old things I used to know, In a fashion, when we practised so, “Good-night!—Good-bye!” to your pleated show Of silk, now hoar, Each nodding hammer, and pedal and key, For dead, dead, dead, you are to me! I fain would second her, strike to her stroke, As when she was by, Aye, even from the ancient clamorous “Fall Of Paris,” or “Battle of Prague” withal, To the “Roving Minstrels,” or “Elfin Call” Sung soft as a sigh: But upping ghosts press achefully, And mute, mute, mute, you are for me! Should I fling your polyphones, plaints, and quavers Afresh on the air, Too quick would the small white shapes be here Of the fellow twain of hands so dear; And a black-tressed profile, and pale smooth ear; —Then how shall I bear Such heavily-haunted harmony? Nay: hushed, hushed, hushed you are for me! “WHERE THREE ROADS JOINED” WHERE three roads joined it was green and fair, And over a gate was the sun-glazed sea, And life laughed sweet when I halted there; Yet there I never again would be. I am sure those branchways are brooding now, With a wistful blankness upon their face, While the few mute passengers notice how Spectre-beridden is the place; Which nightly sighs like a laden soul, And grieves that a pair, in bliss for a spell Not far from thence, should have let it roll Away from them down a plumbless well