She was sitting still beside me, Dozing likewise; and I turned to her, to take her hanging hand; When, the more regarding, that which like a spectre shook and tried me In her image then I scanned; That which Time’s transforming chisel Had been tooling night and day for twenty years, and tooled too well, In its rendering of crease where curve was, where was raven, grizzle— Pits, where peonies once did dwell. She had wakened, and perceiving (I surmise) my sigh and shock, my quite involuntary dismay, Up she started, and—her wasted figure all throughout it heaving— Said, “Ah, yes: I am _thus_ by day! “Can you really wince and wonder That the sunlight should reveal you such a thing of skin and bone, As if unaware a Death’s-head must of need lie not far under Flesh whose years out-count your own? “Yes: that movement was a warning Of the worth of man’s devotion!—Yes, Sir, I am _old_,” said she, “And the thing which should increase love turns it quickly into scorning— And your new-won heart from me!” Then she went, ere I could call her, With the too proud temper ruling that had parted us before, And I saw her form descend the slopes, and smaller grow and smaller, Till I caught its course no more . . . True; I might have dogged her downward; —But it _may_ be (though I know not) that this trick on us of Time Disconcerted and confused me.—Soon I bent my footsteps townward, Like to one who had watched a crime. Well I knew my native weakness, Well I know it still. I cherished her reproach like physic-wine, For I saw in that emaciate shape of bitterness and bleakness A nobler soul than mine. Did I not return, then, ever?— Did we meet again?—mend all?—Alas, what greyhead perseveres!— Soon I got the Route elsewhither.—Since that hour I have seen her never: Love is lame at fifty years. A TRAMPWOMAN’S TRAGEDY (182–) I FROM Wynyard’s Gap the livelong day, The livelong day, We beat afoot the northward way We had travelled times before. The sun-blaze burning on our backs, Our shoulders sticking to our packs, By fosseway, fields, and turnpike tracks We skirted sad Sedge-Moor. II Full twenty miles we jaunted on, We jaunted on,— My fancy-man, and jeering John, And Mother Lee, and I. And, as the sun drew down to west, We climbed the toilsome Poldon crest, And saw, of landskip sights the best, The inn that beamed thereby. III