Put up in churchyard a month ago, “A bitter old soul,” they said, but it wadn’t so. His heart were in Arracombe Wood where he’d used to go To sit and talk wi’ his shadder till sun went low, Though what it was all about us’ll never know. And there baint no mem’ry in the place Of th’ old man’s footmark, nor his face; Arracombe Wood do think more of a crow-- ’Will be violets there in the Spring: in Summer time the spider’s lace; And come the Fall, the whizzle and race Of the dry, dead leaves when the wind gies chase; And on the Eve of Christmas, fallin’ snow. SEA LOVE Tide be runnin’ the great world over: T’was only last June month I mind that we Was thinkin’ the toss and the call in the breast of the lover So everlastin’ as the sea. Heer’s the same little fishes that sputter and swim, Wi’ the moon’s old glim on the grey, wet sand; An’ him no more to me nor me to him Than the wind goin’ over my hand. THE ROAD TO KÉRITY Do you remember the two old people we passed on the road to Kérity, Resting their sack on the stones, by the drenched wayside, Looking at us with their lightless eyes through the driving rain, and then out again To the rocks, and the long white line of the tide: Frozen ghosts that were children once, husband and wife, father, and mother, Looking at us with those frozen eyes; have you ever seen anything quite so chilled or so old? But we--with our arms about each other, We did not feel the cold! I HAVE BEEN THROUGH THE GATES His heart, to me, was a place of palaces and pinnacles and shining towers; I saw it then as we see things in dreams,--I do not remember how long I slept; I remember the trees, and the high, white walls, and how the sun was always on the towers; The walls are standing to-day, and the gates: I have been through the gates, I have groped, I have crept Back, back. There is dust in the streets, and blood; they are empty; darkness is over them; His heart is a place with the lights gone out, forsaken by great winds and the heavenly rain, unclean and unswept, Like the heart of the holy city, old, blind, beautiful Jerusalem, Over which Christ wept. THE CENOTAPH