QUEER are the ways of a man I know: He comes and stands In a careworn craze, And looks at the sands And the seaward haze, With moveless hands And face and gaze, Then turns to go . . . And what does he see when he gazes so? II They say he sees as an instant thing More clear than to-day, A sweet soft scene That once was in play By that briny green; Yes, notes alway Warm, real, and keen, What his back years bring— A phantom of his own figuring. III Of this vision of his they might say more: Not only there Does he see this sight, But everywhere In his brain—day, night, As if on the air It were drawn rose bright— Yea, far from that shore Does he carry this vision of heretofore: IV A ghost-girl-rider. And though, toil-tried, He withers daily, Time touches her not, But she still rides gaily In his rapt thought On that shagged and shaly Atlantic spot, And as when first eyed Draws rein and sings to the swing of the tide. MISCELLANEOUS PIECES THE WISTFUL LADY “LOVE, while you were away there came to me— From whence I cannot tell— A plaintive lady pale and passionless, Who bent her eyes upon me critically, And weighed me with a wearing wistfulness, As if she knew me well.” “I saw no lady of that wistful sort As I came riding home. Perhaps she was some dame the Fates constrain By memories sadder than she can support, Or by unhappy vacancy of brain, To leave her roof and roam?” “Ah, but she knew me. And before this time I have seen her, lending ear To my light outdoor words, and pondering each, Her frail white finger swayed in pantomime, As if she fain would close with me in speech, And yet would not come near. “And once I saw her beckoning with her hand As I came into sight At an upper window. And I at last went out; But when I reached where she had seemed to stand, And wandered up and down and searched about, I found she had vanished quite.” Then thought I how my dead Love used to say, With a small smile, when she Was waning wan, that she would hover round And show herself after her passing day To any newer Love I might have found, But show her not to me. THE WOMAN IN THE RYE “WHY do you stand in the dripping rye, Cold-lipped, unconscious, wet to the knee, When there are firesides near?” said I. “I told him I wished him dead,” said she. “Yea, cried it in my haste to one Whom I had loved, whom I well loved still; And die he did. And I hate the sun, And stand here lonely, aching, chill;