THE RE-ENACTMENT

Between the folding sea-downs,

In the gloom

Of a wailful wintry nightfall,

When the boom

Of the ocean, like a hammering in a hollow tomb,

Throbbed up the copse-clothed valley

From the shore

To the chamber where I darkled,

Sunk and sore

With gray ponderings why my Loved one had not come before

To salute me in the dwelling

That of late

I had hired to waste a while in -

Vague of date,

Quaint, and remote — wherein I now expectant sate;

On the solitude, unsignalled,

Broke a man

Who, in air as if at home there,

Seemed to scan

Every fire-flecked nook of the apartment span by span.

A stranger's and no lover's

Eyes were these,

Eyes of a man who measures

What he sees

But vaguely, as if wrapt in filmy phantasies.

Yea, his bearing was so absent

As he stood,

It bespoke a chord so plaintive

In his mood,

That soon I judged he would not wrong my quietude.

“Ah — the supper is just ready,”

Then he said,

“And the years’ - long binned Madeira

Flashes red!”

( There was no wine, no food, no supper-table spread. )

“You will forgive my coming,

Lady fair?

I see you as at that time

Rising there,

The self-same curious querying in your eyes and air.

“Yet no. How so? You wear not

The same gown,

Your locks show woful difference,

Are not brown:

What, is it not as when I hither came from town?

“And the place... But you seem other -

Can it be?

What's this that Time is doing

Unto me?

YOU dwell here, unknown woman?... Whereabouts, then, is she?

“And the house — things are much shifted. -

Put them where

They stood on this night's fellow;

Shift her chair:

Here was the couch: and the piano should be there.”

I indulged him, verily nerve-strained

Being alone,

And I moved the things as bidden,

One by one,

And feigned to push the old piano where he had shown.

“Aha — now I can see her!

Stand aside:

Do n't thrust her from the table

Where, meek-eyed,

She makes attempt with matron-manners to preside.

“She serves me: now she rises,

Goes to play...

But you obstruct her, fill her

With dismay,

And embarrassed, scared, she vanishes away!”

And, as‘ twere useless longer

To persist,

He sighed, and sought the entry

Ere I wist,

And retreated, disappearing soundless in the mist.

That here some mighty passion

Once had burned,

Which still the walls enghosted,

I discerned,

And that by its strong spell mine might be overturned.

I sat depressed; till, later,

My Love came;

But something in the chamber

Dimmed our flame, -

An emanation, making our due words fall tame,

As if the intenser drama

Shown me there

Of what the walls had witnessed

Filled the air,

And left no room for later passion anywhere.

So came it that our fervours

Did quite fail

Of future consummation -

Being made quail

By the weird witchery of the parlour's hidden tale,

Which I, as years passed, faintly

Learnt to trace, -

One of sad love, born full-winged

In that place

Where the predestined sorrowers first stood face to face.

And as that month of winter

Circles round,

And the evening of the date-day

Grows embrowned,

I am conscious of those presences, and sit spellbound.

There, often — lone, forsaken -

Queries breed

Within me; whether a phantom

Had my heed

On that strange night, or was it some wrecked heart indeed?