The newcomer urges things on me; I return a vague smile thereto, The olden face gazing upon me Just as it used to do! And on leaving I scarcely remember Which neighbour to-day I have seen, The one carried out in September, Or him who but entered yestreen. THE CHOSEN “Ατιυά ἐστιν ἀλληγορούμενα “A WOMAN for whom great gods might strive!” I said, and kissed her there: And then I thought of the other five, And of how charms outwear. I thought of the first with her eating eyes, And I thought of the second with hers, green-gray, And I thought of the third, experienced, wise, And I thought of the fourth who sang all day. And I thought of the fifth, whom I’d called a jade, And I thought of them all, tear-fraught; And that each had shown her a passable maid, Yet not of the favour sought. So I traced these words on the bark of a beech, Just at the falling of the mast: “After scanning five; yes, each and each, I’ve found the woman desired—at last!” “—I feel a strange benumbing spell, As one ill-wished!” said she. And soon it seemed that something fell Was starving her love for me. “I feel some curse. O, _five_ were there?” And wanly she swerved, and went away. I followed sick: night numbed the air, And dark the mournful moorland lay. I cried: “O darling, turn your head!” But never her face I viewed; “O turn, O turn!” again I said, And miserably pursued. At length I came to a Christ-cross stone Which she had passed without discern; And I knelt upon the leaves there strown, And prayed aloud that she might turn. I rose, and looked; and turn she did; I cried, “My heart revives!” “Look more,” she said. I looked as bid; Her face was all the five’s. All the five women, clear come back, I saw in her—with her made one, The while she drooped upon the track, And her frail term seemed well-nigh run. She’d half forgot me in her change; “Who are you? Won’t you say Who you may be, you man so strange, Following since yesterday?” I took the composite form she was, And carried her to an arbour small, Not passion-moved, but even because In one I could atone to all. And there she lies, and there I tend, Till my life’s threads unwind, A various womanhood in blend— Not one, but all combined. THE INSCRIPTION (A TALE) SIR JOHN was entombed, and the crypt was closed, and she, Like a soul that could meet no more the sight of the sun, Inclined her in weepings and prayings continually, As his widowed one. And to pleasure her in her sorrow, and fix his name As a memory Time’s fierce frost should never kill, She caused to be richly chased a brass to his fame, Which should link them still;