Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses

To the very hem of the robes that drape her —
All expertly
And alertly,
Till a long stream, black with soot,

Flows over the pavement to the road,
And her shape looms pure as snow:
I read you are hired by the City guardians —
May be yearly,
Or once merely —
To treat the statues so?

“Oh, I’m not hired by the Councilmen
To cleanse the statues here.
I do this one as a self-willed duty,
Not as paid to,
Or at all made to,
But because the doing is dear.”

Ah, then I hail you brother and friend!
Liberty’s knight divine.
What you have done would have been my doing,
Yea, most verily,
Well, and thoroughly,
Had but your courage been mine!

“Oh I care not for Liberty’s mould,
Liberty charms not me;
What’s Freedom but an idler’s vision,
Vain, pernicious,
Often vicious,
Of things that cannot be!

“Memory it is that brings me to this —
Of a daughter – my one sweet own.
She grew a famous carver’s model,
One of the fairest
And of the rarest: —
She sat for the figure as shown.

“But alas, she died in this distant place
Before I was warned to betake
Myself to her side!.. And in love of my darling,
In love of the fame of her,
And the good name of her,
I do this for her sake.”

Answer I gave not.  Of that form
The carver was I at his side;
His child, my model, held so saintly,
Grand in feature,
Gross in nature,
In the dens of vice had died.

THE BACKGROUND AND THE FIGURE

(Lover’s Ditty)

I think of the slope where the rabbits fed,
Of the periwinks’ rockwork lair,
Of the fuchsias ringing their bells of red —
And the something else seen there.

Between the blooms where the sod basked bright,
By the bobbing fuchsia trees,
Was another and yet more eyesome sight —
The sight that richened these.

I shall seek those beauties in the spring,
When the days are fit and fair,
But only as foils to the one more thing
That also will flower there!

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 —