Then, seeing nor ruth nor rage Could move his foeman more—now Death’s deaf thrall— He wiped his steel, and, with a call Like turtledove to dove, swift broke Into the copse, where under an oak His horse cropt, held by a page. “All’s over, Sweet,” he cried To the wife, thus guised; for the young page was she. “’Tis as we hoped and said ’t would be. He never guessed . . . We mount and ride To where our love can reign uneyed. He’s clay, and we are free.” AT MAYFAIR LODGINGS HOW could I be aware, The opposite window eyeing As I lay listless there, That through its blinds was dying One I had rated rare Before I had set me sighing For another more fair? Had the house-front been glass, My vision unobscuring, Could aught have come to pass More happiness-insuring To her, loved as a lass When spouseless, all-alluring? I reckon not, alas! So, the square window stood, Steadily night-long shining In my close neighbourhood, Who looked forth undivining That soon would go for good One there in pain reclining, Unpardoned, unadieu’d. Silently screened from view Her tragedy was ending That need not have come due Had she been less unbending. How near, near were we two At that last vital rending,— And neither of us knew! TO MY FATHER’S VIOLIN DOES he want you down there In the Nether Glooms where The hours may be a dragging load upon him, As he hears the axle grind Round and round Of the great world, in the blind Still profound Of the night-time? He might liven at the sound Of your string, revealing you had not forgone him. In the gallery west the nave, But a few yards from his grave, Did you, tucked beneath his chin, to his bowing Guide the homely harmony Of the quire Who for long years strenuously— Son and sire— Caught the strains that at his fingering low or higher From your four thin threads and eff-holes came outflowing. And, too, what merry tunes He would bow at nights or noons That chanced to find him bent to lute a measure, When he made you speak his heart As in dream, Without book or music-chart, On some theme Elusive as a jack-o’-lanthorn’s gleam, And the psalm of duty shelved for trill of pleasure. Well, you can not, alas, The barrier overpass That screens him in those Mournful Meads hereunder, Where no fiddling can be heard In the glades Of silentness, no bird Thrills the shades; Where no viol is touched for songs or serenades, No bowing wakes a congregation’s wonder.