You did not seek to see me Then or at all, you said, —Meant passing when you neared me, But stumblingblocks forbade. You even had thought to flee me, By other mindings moved; No influent star endeared me, Unknown, unrecked, unproved! What, then, was there to tell us The flux of flustering hours Of their own tide would bring us By no device of ours To where the daysprings well us Heart-hydromels that cheer, Till Time enearth and swing us Round with the turning sphere. AT THE RAILWAY STATION, UPWAY “THERE is not much that I can do, For I’ve no money that’s quite my own!” Spoke up the pitying child— A little boy with a violin At the station before the train came in,— “But I can play my fiddle to you, And a nice one ’tis, and good in tone!” The man in the handcuffs smiled; The constable looked, and he smiled, too, As the fiddle began to twang; And the man in the handcuffs suddenly sang Uproariously: “This life so free Is the thing for me!” And the constable smiled, and said no word, As if unconscious of what he heard; And so they went on till the train came in— The convict, and boy with the violin. SIDE BY SIDE SO there sat they, The estranged two, Thrust in one pew By chance that day; Placed so, breath-nigh, Each comer unwitting Who was to be sitting In touch close by. Thus side by side Blindly alighted, They seemed united As groom and bride, Who’d not communed For many years— Lives from twain spheres With hearts distuned. Her fringes brushed His garment’s hem As the harmonies rushed Through each of them: Her lips could be heard In the creed and psalms, And their fingers neared At the giving of alms. And women and men, The matins ended, By looks commended Them, joined again. Quickly said she, “Don’t undeceive them— Better thus leave them:” “Quite so,” said he. Slight words!—the last Between them said, Those two, once wed, Who had not stood fast. Diverse their ways From the western door, To meet no more In their span of days. DREAM OF THE CITY SHOPWOMAN ’TWERE sweet to have a comrade here, Who’d vow to love this garreteer, By city people’s snap and sneer Tried oft and hard! We’d rove a truant cock and hen To some snug solitary glen, And never be seen to haunt again This teeming yard. Within a cot of thatch and clay We’d list the flitting pipers play, Our lives a twine of good and gay Enwreathed discreetly; Our blithest deeds so neighbouring wise That doves should coo in soft surprise, “These must belong to Paradise Who live so sweetly.”