Augusta Webster

Webster Pages1 2

THE OLD LOVE

I

You love me, only me. Do I not know?
If I were gone your life would be no more
Than his who, hungering on a rocky shore,
Shipwrecked, alone, observes the ebb and flow
Of hopeless ocean widening forth below,
And is remembering all that was before.
Dear, I believe it, at your strong heart's core
I am the life; no need to tell me so.
And yet--Ah, husband, though I be more fair,
More worth your love, and though you loved her not,
(Else must you have some different, deeper name
For loving me), dimly I seem aware,
As though you conned old stories long forgot,
Those days are with you--hers--before I came.

II

The mountain traveller, joyous on his way,
Looks on the vale he left and calls it fair,
Then counts with pride how far he is from there,
And still ascends. And, when my fancies stray,
Pleased with light memories of a bygone day,
I would not have again the things that were.
I take their thought like fragrance in the air
Of flowers I gathered in my childish play.
And thou, my very soul, can it touch thee
If I remember her or I forget?
Does the sun ask if the white stars be set?
Yes, I recall, shall many times, maybe,
Recall the dear old boyish days again,
The dear old boyish passion. Love, what then?

The Brook Rhine

Small current of the wilds afar from men,
Changing and sudden as a baby's mood;
Now a green babbling rivulet in the wood,
Now loitering broad and shallow through the glen,
Or threading 'mid the naked shoals, and then
Brattling against the stones, half mist, half flood,
Between the mountains where the storm-clouds brood;
And each change but to wake or sleep again;
Pass on, young stream, the world has need of thee:
Far hence a mighty river on its breast
Bears the deep-laden vessels to the sea;
Far hence wide waters feed the vines and corn:
Pass on, small stream, to so great purpose born,
On to the distant toil, the distant rest.
THE SPLÜGEN PASS, 1873.

Choosing

The thrush that, yet alone, pipes for his mate
Knows she will come in time to build the nest,
Knows she'll be she his tiny soul loves best;
'Tis love-time at the hawthorn blossom's date:
And the new flower-cups bare their hearts and wait
While careless breezes bring them love for guest;
And Youth laughs ready for the glad unrest;
But Love that chooses lingers desolate.

And I, who seek, and yearn for love to stir,
And I, who seek, and cannot love but one
And have not known her being, nor can find,
I take my homeless way for sake of her;
And love-time's here, and love-time will be done:
Birds end all singing in the autumn wind.
1881.

Poulain the prisoner

I

Beyond his silent vault green springs went by,
The river flashed along its open way,
Blithe swallows flitted in their billowy play,
And the sweet lark went quivering up the sky.
With him was stillness and his heart's dumb cry
And darkness of the tomb through hopeless day,
Save that along the wall one single ray
Shifted, through jealous loopholes, westerly.


One single ray: and where its light could fall
Its rusty nail carved saints and angels there,
And warriors, and slim girls with braided hair,
And blossomy boughs and birds athwart the air.
Rude work, but yet a world. And light for all
Was one slant ray upon a prison wall.

II

One ray, and in its track he lived and wrought,
And in free wideness of the world, I know,
One said "Fair sunshine, yet it serves not so,
It needs a tenderer when I shape my thought;"
And, "'Tis too brown and molten in the drought;"
And "'Tis too wan a greyness in this snow;"
And would have toiled, but wearied and was woe,
While days stole past and had bequeathed him nought.

Maybe in Gisors, round the fortress mead--
Gisors where now, when fair-time brings its press,
They seek the prisoner's tower to gaze and guess
And love the work he made in loneliness--
One cursed the gloom, and died without a deed,
The while he carved where his one ray could lead.

III

"Oh loneliness! oh darkness!" So we wail,
Crying to life to give we know not what,
The hope not come, the ecstasy forgot,
The things we should have had and, needing, fail,
Nor know what thing it was for which we ail,
And, like tired travellers to an unknown spot,
Pass listless, noting only "Yet 'tis not,"
And count the ended day an empty tale.

Ah me! to linger on in dim repose
And feel the numbness over hand and thought,
And feel the silence in the heart, that grows.
Ah me! to have forgot the hope we sought.
One ray of light, and a soul lived and wrought,
And on the prison walls a message rose.
GISORS, 1881.