III The wind drops to die Like the phantom of Care Too frail for a cry, And heart brings to eye That Three are out there. IV This Life runs dry That once ran rare And rosy in dye, And fleet the days fly, And Four are out there. V Tired, tired am I Of this earthly air, And my wraith asks: Why, Since these calm lie, Are not Five out there? _December_ 1915. AT A SEASIDE TOWN IN 1869 (_Young Lover’s Reverie_) I WENT and stood outside myself, Spelled the dark sky And ship-lights nigh, And grumbling winds that passed thereby. Then next inside myself I looked, And there, above All, shone my Love, That nothing matched the image of. Beyond myself again I ranged; And saw the free Life by the sea, And folk indifferent to me. O ’twas a charm to draw within Thereafter, where But she was; care For one thing only, her hid there! But so it chanced, without myself I had to look, And then I took More heed of what I had long forsook: The boats, the sands, the esplanade, The laughing crowd; Light-hearted, loud Greetings from some not ill-endowed; The evening sunlit cliffs, the talk, Hailings and halts, The keen sea-salts, The band, the Morgenblätter Waltz. Still, when at night I drew inside Forward she came, Sad, but the same As when I first had known her name. Then rose a time when, as by force, Outwardly wooed By contacts crude, Her image in abeyance stood . . . At last I said: This outside life Shall not endure; I’ll seek the pure Thought-world, and bask in her allure. Myself again I crept within, Scanned with keen care The temple where She’d shone, but could not find her there. I sought and sought. But O her soul Has not since thrown Upon my own One beam! Yea, she is gone, is gone. _From an old note_. THE GLIMPSE SHE sped through the door And, following in haste, And stirred to the core, I entered hot-faced; But I could not find her, No sign was behind her. “Where is she?” I said: —“Who?” they asked that sat there; “Not a soul’s come in sight.” —“A maid with red hair.” —“Ah.” They paled. “She is dead. People see her at night, But you are the first On whom she has burst In the keen common light.” It was ages ago, When I was quite strong: I have waited since,—O, I have waited so long! —Yea, I set me to own The house, where now lone I dwell in void rooms Booming hollow as tombs! But I never come near her, Though nightly I hear her. And my cheek has grown thin And my hair has grown gray With this waiting therein; But she still keeps away! THE PEDESTRIAN AN INCIDENT OF 1883