Why go any road now? White stands the handpost for brisk on-bearers, “Halt!” is the word for wan-cheeked farers Musing on Whither, and How . . . Why go any road now? “Yea: we want new feet now” Answer the stones. “Want chit-chat, laughter: Plenty of such to go hereafter By our tracks, we trow! We are for new feet now.” _During the War_. PENANCE “WHY do you sit, O pale thin man, At the end of the room By that harpsichord, built on the quaint old plan? —It is cold as a tomb, And there’s not a spark within the grate; And the jingling wires Are as vain desires That have lagged too late.” “Why do I? Alas, far times ago A woman lyred here In the evenfall; one who fain did so From year to year; And, in loneliness bending wistfully, Would wake each note In sick sad rote, None to listen or see! “I would not join. I would not stay, But drew away, Though the winter fire beamed brightly . . . Aye! I do to-day What I would not then; and the chill old keys, Like a skull’s brown teeth Loose in their sheath, Freeze my touch; yes, freeze.” “I LOOK IN HER FACE” (SONG: _Minor_) I LOOK in her face and say, “Sing as you used to sing About Love’s blossoming”; But she hints not Yea or Nay. “Sing, then, that Love’s a pain, If, Dear, you think it so, Whether it be or no;” But dumb her lips remain. I go to a far-off room, A faint song ghosts my ear; _Which_ song I cannot hear, But it seems to come from a tomb. AFTER THE WAR LAST Post sounded Across the mead To where he loitered With absent heed. Five years before In the evening there Had flown that call To him and his Dear. “You’ll never come back; Good-bye!” she had said; “Here I’ll be living, And my Love dead!” Those closing minims Had been as shafts darting Through him and her pressed In that last parting; They thrilled him not now, In the selfsame place With the selfsame sun On his war-seamed face. “Lurks a god’s laughter In this?” he said, “That I am the living And she the dead!” “IF YOU HAD KNOWN” IF you had known When listening with her to the far-down moan Of the white-selvaged and empurpled sea, And rain came on that did not hinder talk, Or damp your flashing facile gaiety In turning home, despite the slow wet walk By crooked ways, and over stiles of stone; If you had known You would lay roses, Fifty years thence, on her monument, that discloses Its graying shape upon the luxuriant green; Fifty years thence to an hour, by chance led there, What might have moved you?—yea, had you foreseen That on the tomb of the selfsame one, gone where The dawn of every day is as the close is, You would lay roses! 1920. THE CHAPEL-ORGANIST (A.D. 185–)