The Lodger

I cannot quite recall

When first he came,

So reticent and tall,

With his eyes of flame.

The neighbors used to say

( They know so much! )

He looked to them half way

Spanish or Dutch.

Outlandish certainly

He is — and queer!

He has been lodged with me

This thirty year;

All the while ( it seems absurd! )

We hardly have

Exchanged a single word.

Mum as the grave!

Minds only his own affairs,

Goes out and in,

And keeps himself upstairs

With his violin.

Mum did I say? And yet

That talking smile

You never can forget,

Is all the while

Full of such sweet reproofs

The darkest day,

Like morning on the roofs

In flush of May.

Like autumn on the hills;

At four o'clock

The sun like a herdsman spills

For drove and flock

Peace with their provender,

And they are fed.

The day without a stir

Lies warm and red.

Ah, sir, the summer land

For me! That is

Like living in God's hand,

Compared to this.

His smile so quiet and deep

Reminds me of it.

I see it in my sleep,

And so I love it.

An anarchist, say some;

But tush, say I,

When a man's heart is plumb,

Can his life be awry?

Better than charity

And bigger too,

That heart. You've seen the sea?

Of course. To you

‘ T is common enough, no doubt.

But here in town,

With God's world all shut out,

Save the leaden frown

Of the sky, a slant of rain,

And a straggling star,

Such memories remain

The wonders they are.

Once at the Isles of Shoals,

And it was June...

Now hear me dote! He strolls

Across my noon,

Like the sun that day, where sleeps

My soul; his gaze

Goes glimmering down my deeps

Of yesterdays,

Searching and searching, till

Its light consumes

The reluctant shapes that fill

Those purple glooms.

Let others applaud, defame,

And the noise die down;

His voice saying your name,

Is enough renown.

Too patient pitiful,

Too fierce at wrong,

To patronize the dull,

Or praise the strong.

And yet he has a soul

Of wrath, though pent

Even when that white ghoul

Comes for his rent.

The landlord? Hush! My God!

I think the walls

Take notes to help him prod

Us up. He galls

My very soul to strife,

With his death's-head face.

He is foul too in his life,

Some hid disgrace,

Some secret thing he does,

I warrant you,

For all his cheek to us

Is shaved so blue.

He takes good care ( by the shade

Of seven wives! )

That the undertaker's trade

He lives by thrives.

Nor chick nor child has he.

So servile smug,

With that cringe in his knee,—

God curse his lug!

But him, you should have seen

Him yesterday;

The landlord's smirk turned green

At his smile. The way

He served that bloodless fish,

Were like to freeze him.

But meeting elsewhere, pish!

He never sees him.

Yet such a gentleman,

So sure and slow.

The vilest harridan

Is not too low,

If there is pity's need;

And no man born,

For cruelty or greed

Escapes that scorn.

Most of all things, it seems,

He loves the town.

Watching the bright-faced streams

Go up and down,

I have surprised him often

On Tremont street,

And marked the grave face soften,

The mouth grow sweet,

In a brown study over

The men and women.

An unsuspected rover

That, for our Common.

When the first jonquils come,

And spring is sold

On the street corners, some

Of the pretty gold

Is sure to find its way

Home in his hand.

And many a winter day

At some cab-stand,

He'll watch the cabmen feed

The pigeon flocks,

Or bid some liner speed

From the icy docks.

His rooms? I much regret

You cannot see

His rooms, but they were let

With guarantee

Of his seclusion there —

Except myself.

Each morning, table, chair,

Lamp, hearth, and shelf,

I rearrange, refreshen,

Put all to rights,

Then leave him in possession.

Ah, but the nights,

The nights! Sir, if I dared

But once set eye

To keyhole, nor be scared,

From playing Paul Pry,

I doubt not I should learn

A wondrous thing

Or two; and in return

Go blind till spring.

The light under his door

Is glory enough,

It outshines any star

That I know of.

Wirrah, my lad, my lad,

‘ T is fearsome strange,

The hints we all have had

Passing the range

Of science, knowledge, law,

Or what you will,

Whose intangible touch of awe

Makes reason nil.

Many a night I start,

Sudden awake,

Feeling my smothered heart

Flutter and quake;

Like an aspen at dead of noon,

When not a breath

Is stirring to trouble the boon

Valley. A wraith

Or a fetch, it must be, shivers

The soul of the tree

Till every leaf of it quivers.

And so with me.

Was it the shuffle of feet

I heard go by,

With muffled drums in the street?

Was it the cry

Of a rider riding the night

Into ashes and dawn,

With news in his nostrils and fright

Where his hoof-beats had gone?

Did the pipes, at “Bonny Dundee,”

Bid regiments form?

Did a renegade's soul get free

On a wail of the storm?

Did a flock of wild geese honk

As they cleared the hill?

Or only a bittern cronk,

Then all was still?

Was it a night stampede

Of a thousand head?

I know I shook like a reed

There on my bed.

Nameless and void and wild

Was the fear before me,

Ere I bethought me and smiled

As the truth flashed o'er me.

Of course, it was only his hand

Freeing the bass

Of his old Amati, grand

In the silence’ face.

Rummaging up and down,

From string to string,

Bidding the discords drown,

The harmonies spring,

Where tides and tide-winds rove

Far out from land,

On the ocean of music a-move

At the will of his hand.

Sobbing and grieving now,

Now glad as a bird,

Thou, thou, thou

Of the joys unheard,

Luminous radiant sea

Of the sounds and time,

Surely, surely by thee

Is eternal prime.

Holy and beautiful deep,

Spread down before

The imperial coming of sleep,

Endure, endure!

And sleep, be thou the ranger

Over it wan.

And dream, be thou no stranger

There with the dawn.

Then wings of the sun, go abroad

As a scarlet desire,

Unwearied, unwaning, unawed,

To quest and aspire,

Till the drench of the dusk you drink

In the poppy-field west;

Then veer and settle and sink

As a gull to her nest.

Wind,

Away, away!

And hurry your phantom kind

Through the gates of day,

Or ever the king's dark cup

With its studs and spars

Be inverted, and earth look up

To the shuddering stars.

Blaring and triumphing now,

Now quailing and lone,

Thou, thou, thou

Of the joys unknown!

Unknown and wild, wild,

Where the merrymen be,

Sink to sleep, soul of a child,

Slumber, thou sea!

All this his fiddle plays,

And many a thing

As strange, when his mood so lays

The bow to the string.

Sleepless! He never sleeps

That I can find.

I marvel how he keeps

A bit of his mind.

There is neither sight nor sound

In the world of sense,

But he has fathomed and found

In the silvery tense

Keen cords on the amber wood.

As he wrings them thence,

Death smiles at his hardihood

For recompense.

Oh fair they are, so fair!

No tongue can tell

How he sets them chiming there

Clear as a bell.

An orchard of birds in June,

The winds that stream,

The cold sea-brooks that croon,

The storms that scream,

The planets that float and swing

Like buoys on the tide,

The north-going legions in spring,

The hills that abide,

The frigate-bird clouds that range,

The vagabond moon —

That wilful lover of change —

And the workaday sun,

Dying summer and fall,

Seasons and men

And herds, he has them all

In his shadowy ken.

He calls and they come, leaving strife,

Leaving discord and death,

Out of oblivion to life,

Though its span be a breath.

There they are, all the beautiful things

I loved and lost sight of

Long since in the far-away springs,

Come back for a night of

New being as good as their old,

Aye, better in fact,

For somehow he gilds their fine gold,—

Gives the one thing they lacked,

The breath, aspiration, desire,

Core, kindle, control,

Memory and rapture and fire,—

The touch of man's soul.

How know the true master? I know

By my joys and my fears,

For my heart crumbles down like the snow

With spring rain into tears.

Now I am a precious one!

With nothing to do

But idle here in the sun

And gossip with you

Of a stranger you have not seen,

As like never will.

I would every soul had a screen,

When the wind sets ill

In the world's bleak house, like this

Strange lodger of mine.

His presence is worse to miss

Than sun's best shine.

I put no thought at all

Upon the end,

If only I may call

Such a man friend.

And a friend he is, heart light

With love for heft,

Proud as silence, whose right

Hand ignores his left.

Yes, odd! he gives his name

As Spiritus.

But that is vague as a flame

In the wind to us.

And then ( but not a breath

Of this! ) you see,

All his effects, my faith!

Are marked D. V.

His cape-coat has a rip,

But for all that,

( Folk smile, suggest a dip

In the dyer's vat,—

Those purple aldermen

Who roll about

In coaches, drive till ten,

And die of gout ),

I think he finely shows

How learning's crumbs

At least can rival those

Of —‘ st, here he comes!