The Change

OUT of the past there rises a week— Who shall read the years O!— Out of the past there rises a week Enringed with a purple zone. Out of the past there rises a week When thoughts were strung too thick to speak, And the magic of its lineaments remains with me alone.

In that week there was heard a singing— Who shall spell the years, the years!— In that week there was heard a singing, And the white owl wondered why. In that week, yea, a voice was ringing, And forth from the casement were candles flinging Radiance that fell on the deodar and lit up the path thereby.

Could that song have a mocking note?— Who shall unroll the years O!— Could that song have a mocking note To the white owl’s sense as it fell? Could that song have a mocking note As it trilled out warm from the singer’s throat, And who was the mocker and who the mocked when two felt all was well?

In a tedious trampling crowd yet later— Who shall bare the years, the years!— In a tedious trampling crowd yet later, When silvery singings were dumb; In a crowd uncaring what time might fate her, Mid murks of night I stood to await her, And the twanging of iron wheels gave out the signal that she was come.

She said with a travel-tired smile— Who shall lift the years O!— She said with a travel-tired smile, Half scared by scene so strange; She said, outworn by mile on mile, The blurred lamps wanning her face the while, “O Love, I am here; I am with you!” . . . Ah, that there should have come a change!

O the doom by someone spoken— Who shall unseal the years, the years!— O the doom that gave no token, When nothing of bale saw we: O the doom by someone spoken, O the heart by someone broken, The heart whose sweet reverberances are all time leaves to me.

Jan.-Feb. 1913.

SITTING ON THE BRIDGE (Echo of an old song)

SITTING on the bridge Past the barracks, town and ridge, At once the spirit seized us To sing a song that pleased us— As “The Fifth” were much in rumour; It was “Whilst I’m in the humour, Take me, Paddy, will you now?” And a lancer soon drew nigh, And his Royal Irish eye Said, “Willing, faith, am I, O, to take you anyhow, dears, To take you anyhow.”

But, lo!—dad walking by, Cried, “What, you lightheels! Fie! Is this the way you roam And mock the sunset gleam?” And he marched us straightway home, Though we said, “We are only, daddy, Singing, ‘Will you take me, Paddy?’” —Well, we never saw from then If we sang there anywhen, The soldier dear again, Except at night in dream-time, Except at night in dream.

Perhaps that soldier’s fighting In a land that’s far away, Or he may be idly plighting Some foreign hussy gay; Or perhaps his bones are whiting In the wind to their decay! . . . Ah!—does he mind him how The girls he saw that day On the bridge, were sitting singing At the time of curfew-ringing, “Take me, Paddy; will you now, dear? Paddy, will you now?”

GREY’S BRIDGE.