“O, though giving such Some head-room, I smile At your falterings When noting those things Round your domicile! For what, what can touch One whom, riven of all That makes life gay, No hints can appal Of more takings away!” PATHS OF FORMER TIME NO; no; It must not be so: They are the ways we do not go. Still chew The kine, and moo In the meadows we used to wander through; Still purl The rivulets and curl Towards the weirs with a musical swirl; Haymakers As in former years Rake rolls into heaps that the pitchfork rears; Wheels crack On the turfy track The waggon pursues with its toppling pack. “Why then shun— Since summer’s not done— All this because of the lack of one?” Had you been Sharer of that scene You would not ask while it bites in keen Why it is so We can no more go By the summer paths we used to know! 1913. THE CLOCK OF THE YEARS “A spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up.” AND the Spirit said, “I can make the clock of the years go backward, But am loth to stop it where you will.” And I cried, “Agreed To that. Proceed: It’s better than dead!” He answered, “Peace”; And called her up—as last before me; Then younger, younger she freshed, to the year I first had known Her woman-grown, And I cried, “Cease!— “Thus far is good— It is enough—let her stay thus always!” But alas for me. He shook his head: No stop was there; And she waned child-fair, And to babyhood. Still less in mien To my great sorrow became she slowly, And smalled till she was nought at all In his checkless griff; And it was as if She had never been. “Better,” I plained, “She were dead as before! The memory of her Had lived in me; but it cannot now!” And coldly his voice: “It was your choice To mar the ordained.” 1916. AT THE PIANO A WOMAN was playing, A man looking on; And the mould of her face, And her neck, and her hair, Which the rays fell upon Of the two candles there, Sent him mentally straying In some fancy-place Where pain had no trace. A cowled Apparition Came pushing between; And her notes seemed to sigh, And the lights to burn pale, As a spell numbed the scene. But the maid saw no bale, And the man no monition; And Time laughed awry, And the Phantom hid nigh. THE SHADOW ON THE STONE