"These Gothic windows, how they wear me out With cusp and foil, and nothing straight or square, Crude colours, leaden borders roundabout, And fitting in Peter here, and Matthew there!
"What a vocation! Here do I draw now The abnormal, loving the Hellenic norm;Martha I paint, and dream of Hera's brow, Mary, and think of Aphrodite's form."Nov. 1893.
LOOKING AT A PICTURE ON AN ANNIVERSARY
But don't you know it, my dear, Don't you know it, That this day of the year (What rainbow-rays embow it!)We met, strangers confessed, But parted--blest?
Though at this query, my dear, There in your frame Unmoved you still appear, You must be thinking the same, But keep that look demure Just to allure.
And now at length a trace I surely vision Upon that wistful face Of old-time recognition, Smiling forth, "Yes, as you say, It is the day."For this one phase of you Now left on earth This great date must endue With pulsings of rebirth? -I see them vitalize Those two deep eyes!
But if this face I con Does not declare Consciousness living on Still in it, little I care To live myself, my dear, Lone-labouring here!
Spring 1913.
THE CHOIRMASTER'S BURIAL
He often would ask us That, when he died, After playing so many To their last rest, If out of us any Should here abide, And it would not task us, We would with our lutes Play over him By his grave-brim The psalm he liked best -The one whose sense suits "Mount Ephraim" -And perhaps we should seem To him, in Death's dream, Like the seraphim.
As soon as I knew That his spirit was gone I thought this his due, And spoke thereupon.
"I think," said the vicar, "A read service quicker Than viols out-of-doors In these frosts and hoars.
That old-fashioned way Requires a fine day, And it seems to me It had better not be."Hence, that afternoon, Though never knew he That his wish could not be, To get through it faster They buried the master Without any tune.
But 'twas said that, when At the dead of next night The vicar looked out, There struck on his ken Thronged roundabout, Where the frost was graying The headstoned grass, A band all in white Like the saints in church-glass, Singing and playing The ancient stave By the choirmaster's grave.