Charlotte Mary Mew

A Quoi Bon Dire

   Seventeen years ago you said
Something that sounded like Good-bye:
   And everybody thinks you are dead
      But I.

   So I as I grow stiff and cold
To this and that say Good-bye too;
   And everybody sees that I am old
      But you.

   And one fine morning in a sunny lane
Some boy and girl will meet and kiss and swear
   That nobody can love their way again
      While over there
You will have smiled, and I shall have tossed your hair

Sea Love

Tide be runnin. the great world over:
  . Twas 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.

Here's the same little fishies that splutter and swim,
  Wi. the moon. s old glim on the grey, wet sand:
An. him no more to me nor me to him
  Then the wind goin over my hand.

I So Liked Spring

I so liked Spring last year
   Because you were here;-
    The thrushes too-
Because it was these you so liked to hear-
    I so liked you.

   This year's a different thing,-
    I'll not think of you.
But I'll like the Spring because it is simply spring
    As the thrushes do

From a Window

      Up here, with June, the sycamore throws
      Across the window a whispering screen;
  I shall miss the sycamore more I suppose,
Than anything else on this earth that is out in green.
    But I mean to go through the door without fear,
    Not caring much what happens here
        When I. m away: --
How green the screen is across the panes
    Or who goes laughing along the lanes
With my old lover all the summer day.

In The Fields

Lord when I look at lovely things which pass,
  Under old trees the shadow of young leaves
Dancing to please the wind along the grass,
  Or the gold stillness of the August sun on the August sheaves;
Can I believe there is a heavenlier world than this?
  And if there is
Will the heart of any everlasting thing
  Bring me these dreams that take my breath away?
They come at evening with the home-flying rooks and the scent
      of hay,
Over the fields. They come in spring.

A Farewell

The Changeling

Toll no bell for me, dear Father dear Mother,
  Waste no sighs;
There are my sisters, there is my little brother
  Who plays in the place called Paradise,
Your children all, your children for ever;
    But I, so wild,
Your disgrace, with the queer brown face, was never,
  Never, I know, but half your child!

In the garden at play, all day, last summer,
    Far and away I heard
The sweet "tweet-tweet" of a strange new-comer,
  The dearest, clearest call of a bird.
It lived down there in the deep green hollow,
  My own old home, and the fairies say
The word of a bird is a thing to follow,
  So I was away a night and a day.

One evening, too, by the nursery fire,
  We snuggled close and sat roudn so still,
When suddenly as the wind blew higher,
  Something scratched on the window-sill,
A pinched brown face peered in--I shivered;
  No one listened or seemed to see;
The arms of it waved and the wings of it quivered,
  Whoo--I knew it had come for me!
  Some are as bad as bad can be!
All night long they danced in the rain,
Round and round in a dripping chain,
Threw their caps at the window-pane,
  Tried to make me scream and shout
  And fling the bedclothes all about:
I meant to stay in bed that night,
And if only you had left a light
  They would never have got me out!

  Sometimes I wouldn't speak, you see,
 

Or answer when you spoke to me,
Because in the long, still dusks of Spring
You can hear the whole world whispering;
  The shy green grasses making love,
The feathers grow on the dear grey dove,
  The tiny heart of the redstart beat,
  The patter of the squirrel's feet,
  The pebbles pushing in the silver streams,
The rushes talking in their dreams,
  The swish-swish of the bat's black wings,
  The wild-wood bluebell's sweet ting-tings,
    Humming and hammering at your ear,
    Everything there is to hear
In the heart of hidden things.
  But not in the midst of the nursery riot,
  That's why I wanted to be quiet,
      Couldn't do my sums, or sing,
      Or settle down to anything.
  And when, for that, I was sent upstairs
  I did kneel down to say my prayers;
But the King who sits on your high church steeple
Has nothing to do with us fairy people!

'Times I pleased you, dear Father, dear Mother,
  Learned all my lessons and liked to play,
And dearly I loved the little pale brother
  Whom some other bird must have called away.
Why did they bring me here to make me
  Not quite bad and not quite good,
Why, unless They're wicked, do They want, in spite,
              to take me
  Back to Their wet, wild wood?
Now, every nithing I shall see the windows shining,
  The gold lamp's glow, and the fire's red gleam,
While the best of us are twining twigs and the rest of us
              are whining
    In the hollow by the stream.
Black and chill are Their nights on the wold;
    And They live so long and They feel no pain:
I shall grow up, but never grow old,
I shall always, always be very cold,
    I shall never come back again! 

On the Road to the Sea

We passed each other, turned and stopped for half an hour, then went our way,
           I who make other women smile did not make you--
But no man can move mountains in a day.
           So this hard thing is yet to do.

But first I want your life:--before I die I want to see
           The world that lies behind the strangeness of your eyes,
There is nothing gay or green there for my gathering, it may be,
              Yet on brown fields there lies
A haunting purple bloom: is there not something in grey skies
                   And in grey sea?
           I want what world there is behind your eyes,
           I want your life and you will not give it me.

           Now, if I look, I see you walking down the years,
           Young, and through August fields--a face, a thought, a swinging dream
                                    perched on a stile--;
           I would have liked (so vile we are!) to have taught you tears
                                But most to have made you smile.
           To-day is not enough or yesterday: God sees it all--
Your length on sunny lawns, the wakeful rainy nights--; tell me--;
             (how vain to ask), but it is not a question--just a call--;
Show me then, only your notched inches climbing up the garden wall,
                  I like you best when you are small.

                Is this a stupid thing to say
                Not having spent with you one day?
           No matter; I shall never touch your hair
           Or hear the little tick behind your breast,
                Still it is there,
                And as a flying bird
           Brushes the branches where it may not rest
           I have brushed your hand and heard
         The child in you: I like that best
So small, so dark, so sweet; and were you also then too grave and wise?
           Always I think. Then put your far off little hand in mine;--
                                    Oh! let it rest;
I will not stare into the early world beyond the opening eyes,
           Or vex or scare what I love best.
           But I want your life before mine bleeds away--
              Here--not in heavenly hereafters--soon,--
              I want your smile this very afternoon,
           (The last of all my vices, pleasant people used to say,
              I wanted and I sometimes got--the Moon!)

              You know, at dusk, the last bird's cry,
           And round the house the flap of the bat's low flight,
              Trees that go black against the sky
           And then--how soon the night!

         No shadow of you on any bright road again,
And at the darkening end of this--what voice? whose kiss? As if you'd say!
It is not I who have walked with you, it will not be I who take away
           Peace, peace, my little handful of the gleaner's grain
           From your reaped fields at the shut of day.

              Peace! Would you not rather die
           Reeling,--with all the cannons at your ear?
              So, at least, would I,
           And I may not be here
           To-night, to-morrow morning or next year.
           Still I will let you keep your life a little while,
                   See dear?
             I have made you smile.

Monsieur Qui Passe

A purple blot against the dead white door
In my friend's rooms, bathed in their vile pink light,
I had not noticed her before
She snatched my eyes and threw them back to me:
She did not speak till we came out into the night,
Paused at this bench beside the klosk on the quay.

God knows precisely what she said--
I left to her the twisted skein,
Though here and there I caught a thread,--
Something, at first, about "the lamps along the Seine,
And Paris, with that witching card of Spring
Kept up her sleeve,--why you could see
The trick done on these freezing winter nights!
While half the kisses of the Quay--
Youth, hope,-the whole enchanted string
Of dreams hung on the Seine's long line of lights."

Then suddenly she stripped, the very skin
Came off her soul,-a mere girl clings
Longer to some last rag, however thin,
When she has shown you-well-all sorts of things:
"If it were daylight-oh! one keeps one's head--
But fourteen years!--No one has ever guessed--
The whole thing starts when one gets to bed--
Death?-If the dead would tell us they had rest!
But your eyes held it as I stood there by the door--
One speaks to Christ-one tries to catch His garment's hem--
One hardly says as much to Him--no more:
It was not you, it was your eyes--I spoke to them."

She stopped like a shot bird that flutters still,
And drops, and tries to run again, and swerves.
The tale should end in some walled house upon a hill.
My eyes, at least, won't play such havoc there,--
Or hers--But she had hair!--blood dipped in gold;
And there she left me throwing back the first odd stare.
Some sort of beauty once, but turning yellow, getting old.
Pouah! These women and their nerves!
God! but the night is cold!

My Heart is Lame

My heart is lame with running after yours so fast
           Such a long way,
Shall we walk slowly home, looking at all the things we passed
           Perhaps to-day?

Home down the quiet evening roads under the quiet skies,
           Not saying much,
You for a moment giving me your eyes
           When you could bear my touch.

But not to-morrow. This has taken all my breath;
           Then, though you look the same,
There may be something lovelier in Love's face in death
As your heart sees it, running back the way we came;
           My heart is lame.