By wilting hedgerows And white-hot highways, Bearing its memories Even as a burden, The tired heart plods For a place of rest.

p. 49XXXIV

p. 49

There was no kiss that day? No intimate Yea-and-Nay, No sweets in hand, no tender, lingering touch? None of those desperate, exquisite caresses, So instant—O, so brief!—and yet so much, The thought of the swiftest lifts and blesses? Nor any one of those great royal words, Those sovran privacies of speech, Frank as the call of April birds, That, whispered, live a life of gold Among the heart’s still sainted memories, And irk, and thrill, and ravish, and beseech, Even when the dream of dreams in death’s a-cold? No, there was none of these, Dear one, and yet— O, eyes on eyes! O, voices breaking still, For all the watchful will, Into a kinder kindness than seemed due From you to me, and me to you! p. 50And that hot-eyed, close-throated, blind regret Of woman and man baulked and debarred the blue!— No kiss—no kiss that day? Nay, rather, though we seemed to wear the rue, Sweet friend, how many, and how goodly—say!

p. 50

p. 51XXXV

p. 51

Sing to me, sing, and sing again, My glad, great-throated nightingale: Sing, as the good sun through the rain—  Sing, as the home-wind in the sail!

Sing to me life, and toil, and time, O bugle of dawn, O flute of rest! Sing, and once more, as in the prime, There shall be naught but seems the best.

And sing me at the last of love:  Sing that old magic of the May, That makes the great world laugh and move As lightly as our dream to-day!

p. 52XXXVI

p. 52

We sat late, late—talking of many things. He told me of his grief, and, in the telling, The gist of his tale showed to me, rhymed, like this.

It came, the news, like a fire in the night, That life and its best were done; And there was never so dazed a wretch In the beat of the living sun.

I read the news, and the terms of the news Reeled random round my brain Like the senseless, tedious buzzle and boom Of a bluefly in the pane.

So I went for the news to the house of the news, But the words were left unsaid, For the face of the house was blank 

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