THE CONVERGENCE OF THE TWAIN

(Lines on the loss of the “Titanic”)

I

   In a solitude of the sea
   Deep from human vanity,
And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.

II

   Steel chambers, late the pyres
   Of her salamandrine fires,
Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.

III

   Over the mirrors meant
   To glass the opulent
The sea-worm crawls—grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.

IV

   Jewels in joy designed
   To ravish the sensuous mind
Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind.

V

   Dim moon-eyed fishes near
   Gaze at the gilded gear
And query: “What does this vaingloriousness down here?” . . .

VI

   Well: while was fashioning
   This creature of cleaving wing,
The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything

VII

   Prepared a sinister mate
   For her—so gaily great—
A Shape of Ice, for the time far and dissociate.

VIII

   And as the smart ship grew
   In stature, grace, and hue,
In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

IX

   Alien they seemed to be:
   No mortal eye could see
The intimate welding of their later history,

X

   Or sign that they were bent
   By paths coincident
On being anon twin halves of one august event,

XI

   Till the Spinner of the Years
   Said “Now!”  And each one hears,
And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.

THE GHOST OF THE PAST

We two kept house, the Past and I,
   The Past and I;
I tended while it hovered nigh,
   Leaving me never alone.
It was a spectral housekeeping
   Where fell no jarring tone,
As strange, as still a housekeeping
   As ever has been known.

As daily I went up the stair
   And down the stair,
I did not mind the Bygone there—
   The Present once to me;
Its moving meek companionship
   I wished might ever be,
There was in that companionship
   Something of ecstasy.

It dwelt with me just as it was,
   Just as it was
When first its prospects gave me pause
   In wayward wanderings,
Before the years had torn old troths
   As they tear all sweet things,
Before gaunt griefs had torn old troths
   And dulled old rapturings.

And then its form began to fade,
   Began to fade,
Its gentle echoes faintlier played
   At eves upon my ear
Than when the autumn’s look embrowned
   The lonely chambers here,
The autumn’s settling shades embrowned
   Nooks that it haunted near.

And so with time my vision less,
   Yea, less and less
Makes of that Past my housemistress,
   It dwindles in my eye;
It looms a far-off skeleton
   And not a comrade nigh,
A fitful far-off skeleton
   Dimming as days draw by.

AFTER THE VISIT
(To F. E. D.)

   Come again to the place
Where your presence was as a leaf that skims
Down a drouthy way whose ascent bedims
   The bloom on the farer’s face.

   Come again, with the feet
That were light on the green as a thistledown ball,
And those mute ministrations to one and to all
   Beyond a man’s saying sweet.

   Until then the faint scent
Of the bordering flowers swam unheeded away,
And I marked not the charm in the changes of day
   As the cloud-colours came and went.

   Through the dark corridors
Your walk was so soundless I did not know
Your form from a phantom’s of long ago
   Said to pass on the ancient floors,

   Till you drew from the shade,
And I saw the large luminous living eyes
Regard me in fixed inquiring-wise
   As those of a soul that weighed,

   Scarce consciously,
The eternal question of what Life was,
And why we were there, and by whose strange laws
   That which mattered most could not be.

TO MEET, OR OTHERWISE

Whether to sally and see thee, girl of my dreams,
   Or whether to stay
And see thee not!  How vast the difference seems
   Of Yea from Nay
Just now.  Yet this same sun will slant its beams
   At no far day
On our two mounds, and then what will the difference weigh!

Yet I will see thee, maiden dear, and make
   The most I can
Of what remains to us amid this brake Cimmerian
Through which we grope, and from whose thorns we ache,
   While still we scan
Round our frail faltering progress for some path or plan.

By briefest meeting something sure is won;
   It will have been:
Nor God nor Daemon can undo the done,
   Unsight the seen,
Make muted music be as unbegun,
   Though things terrene
Groan in their bondage till oblivion supervene.

So, to the one long-sweeping symphony
   From times remote
Till now, of human tenderness, shall we
   Supply one note,
Small and untraced, yet that will ever be
   Somewhere afloat
Amid the spheres, as part of sick Life’s antidote.

THE DIFFERENCE

I

Sinking down by the gate I discern the thin moon,
And a blackbird tries over old airs in the pine,
But the moon is a sorry one, sad the bird’s tune,
For this spot is unknown to that Heartmate of mine.

II

Did my Heartmate but haunt here at times such as now,
The song would be joyous and cheerful the moon;
But she will see never this gate, path, or bough,
Nor I find a joy in the scene or the tune.

THE SUN ON THE BOOKCASE
(Student’s Love-song)

Once more the cauldron of the sun
Smears the bookcase with winy red,
And here my page is, and there my bed,
And the apple-tree shadows travel along.
Soon their intangible track will be run,
   And dusk grow strong
   And they be fled.

Yes: now the boiling ball is gone,
And I have wasted another day . . .
But