قراءة كتاب The Sunken Garden and other poems
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woefuller far than mine?
Thy silence is a sadder thing
Than any dirge I sing!’
Breathed a strange riddle both did share
Yet neither could expound.
And we—who sing but as we can,
In the small knowledge of a man—
Have we an answer found?
Nay, some are happy whose delight
Is hid even from themselves from sight;
And some win peace who spend
The skill of words to sweeten despair
Of finding consolation where
Life has but one dark end;
Who, in rapt solitude, tell o’er
A tale as lovely as forlore
Into the midnight air.
MRS. GRUNDY
‘STEP VERY SOFTLY, sweet Quiet-foot,
Stumble not, whisper not, smile not:
By this dark ivy stoop cheek and brow.
Still even thy heart! What seest thou?’
A large flat face, eyes keenly dim,
Staring at nothing—that’s me!—and yet,
With a hate one could never, no, never forget....’
Hither my father bade mother to come
And bear me out of the dark into light,
And happy I was in her tender sight.
Forgetting my pitiless banishment,
And that Old Woman—an Aunt—she said,
Came hither, lodged, fattened, and made her bed.
Has lived on me, preyed on me, Mrs. Grundy:
Called me, “dear Nephew”; on each of those chairs
Has gloated in righteousness, heard my prayers.
Timidest trespasser, huntress of love?
Now thou has peeped, and now dost know
What kind of creature is thine for foe.
Poison thy mouth with deviltries.
Watch thou, wait thou: soon will begin
The guile of a voice: hark!... “Come in, Come in!”’
THE DARK HOUSE
SEE THIS HOUSE, how dark it is
Beneath its vast-boughed trees!
Not one trembling leaflet cries
To that Watcher in the skies—
‘Remove, remove thy searching gaze,
Innocent, of Heaven’s ways,
Brood not, Moon, so wildly bright,
On secrets hidden from sight.’
‘Vacancy is all I find;
Every keyhole I have made
Wail a summons, faint and sad,
No voice ever answers me,
Only vacancy.’
‘Once, once ...’ the cricket shrills,
And far and near the quiet fills
With its tiny voice, and then
Hush falls again.
Mark how the hours go,
Every stone is mouldering slow,
And the least winds that blow
Some minutest atom shake,
Some fretting ruin make
In roof and walls. How black it is
Beneath these thick-boughed trees!
MISTRESS FELL
‘WHOM seek you here, sweet Mistress Fell?’
‘One who loved me passing well.
Dark his eye, wild his face—
Stranger, if in this lonely place
Bide such an one, then, prythee, say
I am come here to-day.’
‘I did not look, so cannot tell.
Only this I surely know,
When his voice called me, I must go;
Touched me his fingers, and my heart
Leapt at the sweet pain’s smart.’
‘Magic laid its dreary spell.—
Stranger, he was fast asleep;
Into his dream I tried to creep;
Called his name, soft was my cry:
He answered—not one sigh.
Falleth the night-dew, cold and clear;
Out of her bower the bird replies,
Mocking the dark with ecstasies:
See how the earth’s green grass doth grow,
Praising what sleeps below!