“But when that hour my soul won strength
For words whose silence wastes and kills,
Dull raindrops smote us, and at length
Thundered the heat within the hills.
That eve I spoke those words again
Beside the pelted window-pane;
And there she hearkened what I said,
With under-glances that surveyed
The empty pastures blind with rain.
* * * * * *
“Last night at last I could have slept,
And yet delayed my sleep till dawn,
Still wandering. Then it was I wept:
For unawares I came upon
Those glades where once she walked with me.
And as I stood there suddenly,
All wan with traversing the night,
Upon the desolate verge of light
Yearned loud the iron-bosomed sea.”
In “The Stream’s Secret” the verse assumes a still more lyrical rhythm,
as the poet communes with the familiar waters concerning his lost love,
and desires—
“The wind-stirred robe of roseate grey
And rose-crown of the hour that leads the day
When we shall meet once more,”
. . . . . .
“As on the unmeasured height of Love’s control
The lustral fires are lit.”
The flow of the monologue gleams with such images as these:
“And on the waste uncoloured wold
The visible burthen of the sun grown cold,
And the moon’s labouring gaze;”
or—
“The soul hears the night’s disconsolate cry,
And feels the branches, wringing wet,
Cast on its brow, that may not once forget,
Blind tears from the blind sky.”