The poems of Owen Meredith (Honble Robert Lytton.) ::

While the firelight, flung from the flickering wall
On the large and limpid mirror behind,
Hath redden'd and darken'd down o'er all,
As the fire itself declined.

III

Something of pleasure, and something of pain
There lived in that sinking light. What is it?
Faces I never shall look at again,
In places you never will visit,

IV

Reveal'd themselves from each faltering ember,
While, under a palely-wavering flame,
Half of the years life aches to remember
Reappear'd, and died as they came.

V

To its dark Forever an hour hath gone
Since either you or I have spoken:
Each of us might have been sitting alone
In a silence so unbroken.

162

VI

I never shall know what made me look up
(In this cushion'd chair so soft and deep,
By the table where, over the empty cup,
I was leaning, half asleep)

VII

To catch a gleam on the picture up there
Of the saint in the wilderness under the oak;
And a light on the brow of the bronze Voltaire,
Like the ghost of a cynical joke;

VIII

To mark, in each violet, velvet fold
Of the curtains that fall twixt room and room,
The drowsy flush of the red light roll'd
Thro' their drapery's glowing gloom.

IX

O'er the Rembrandt there—the Caracci here—
Flutter warmly the ruddy and wavering hues;
And St. Anthony over his book has a leer
At the little French beauty by Greuze.

X

There—the Leda, weigh'd over her white swan's back,
By the weight of her passionate kiss, ere it falls;
On the ebony cabinet, glittering black
Thro' its ivory cups and balls:

XI

Your scissors and thimble, and work laid away,
With its silks, in the scented rose-wood box;
The journals, that tell truth every day,
And that novel of Paul de Kock's:

163

XII

The flowers in the vase, with their bells shut close
In a dream of the far green fields where they grew;
The cards of the visiting people and shows
In that bowl with the sea-green hue.

XIII

Your shawl, with a queenly droop of its own,
Hanging over the arm of the crimson chair:
And, last—yourself, as silent as stone,
In a glow of the firelight there!

XIV

I thought you were reading all this time.
And was it some wonderful page of your book
Telling of love, with its glory and crime,
That has left you that sorrowful look?

XV

For a tear from those dark, deep, humid orbs,
'Neath their lashes, so long, and soft, and sleek,
All the light in your lustrous eyes absorbs,
As it trembles over your cheek.

XVI

Were you thinking how we, sitting side by side,
Might be dreaming miles and miles apart?
Or if lips could meet over a gulf so wide
As separates heart from heart?

XVII

Ah, well! when time is flown, how it fled
It is better neither to ask nor tell.
Leave the dead moments to bury their dead.
Let us kiss and break the spell!

164

XVIII

Come, arm in arm, to the window here;
Draw by the thick curtain, and see how, to night,
In the clear and frosty atmosphere,
The lamps are burning bright.

XIX

All night, and for ever, in yon great town,
The heaving Boulevart flares and roars;
And the streaming Life, flows up and down
From its hundred open doors.

XX

It is scarcely so cold, but I and you,
With never a friend to find us out,
May stare at the shops for a moment or two,
And wander a while about.

XXI

For when in the crowd we have taken our place,
(—Just two more lives to the mighty street there!)
Knowing no single form or face
Of the men and women we meet there,—

XXII

Knowing, and known of, none in the whole
Of that crowd all round, but our two selves only,
We shall grow nearer, soul to soul,
Until we feel less lonely.

XXIII

Here are your bonnet and gloves, dear. There—
How stately you look in that long rich shawl!
Put back your beautiful golden hair,
That never a curl may fall.

165

XXIV

Stand in the firelight . . . so, . . . as you were—
Oh my heart, how fearfully like her she seem'd!
Hide me up from my own despair,
And the ghost of a dream I dream'd!

University of Virginia Library

TWO OUT OF THE CROWD.

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VII