Harper's Magazine/Night in a Suburb

HILE rain, with eve in partnership, Descended darkly, drip, drip, drip, Beyond the last lone lamp I passed Walking slowly, whispering sadly, Two linked loiterers, wan, downcast; Some heavy thought constrained each face, And made them blank to time and place.

The pair seemed lovers, yet absorbed In mental scenes no longer orbed By love's young light. Each countenance As it slowly, as it sadly Caught the lamplight's yellow glance. Held in suspense a misery At things which might, or might not, be.

When I retrod that watery way Some hours beyond the death of day, Still I found pacing there the twain Just as slowly, just as sadly, Heedless of the night and rain. One could but wonder who they were, And what wild woe detained them there.

Though thirty years of blur and blot Have flown since I beheld that spot, And saw in curious converse there Moving slowly, moving sadly, That mysterious tragic pair, Its olden look may linger on— All but the couple; they have gone.

Whither? Who knows, indeed! . . . And yet To me, when nights are weird and wet, Without those comrades there at tryst Creeping slowly, creeping sadly, That lone lane does not exist. Still they seem brooding on their pain, And will, while such a lane remain.