 | The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith |  |
Now I know why he sits so late and alone in his room,
And why there comes over his face that shadow I took for gloom,
Which falls like a sudden haze all over the summer sky,
And makes him look stony and cold, with a dream-like fixèd eye,
Seeing not what we see, for the outer vision is dim,
As he looks on a world unseen, and hears it singing to him.
Often it filled me with fear, for I thought he was wroth with me;
But he is not angry at all—only trying, he says, to see
Thoughts that are hard to get at, and hardly worth getting when done;
But the fool's habit of dreaming he learnt when living alone;
I must not fancy he sulks; he was only a bit of a poet,
Dram-drinking verses in secret, and hoping that no one would know it.
So then he brought me some poems, writ for our marriage-day,
“Orange-blossoms” he calls them, “A wreath for a wedding gay.”
I do not know that I care for poems—though hymns are sweet—
I do not want to be talked of, or sung some day in the street,
And at the time I was plagued with these horrible tradesmen's books,
And maybe my words were dry, and listless also my looks.
They are nice enough verses, I fancy —but oh those dreadful bills!
And he just laughs at my trouble, and calls it the care that kills—
A faithless terror of bakers and butchers and Philistines,
Unworthy a true believer in orthodox, sound divines.
And why there comes over his face that shadow I took for gloom,
Which falls like a sudden haze all over the summer sky,
And makes him look stony and cold, with a dream-like fixèd eye,
Seeing not what we see, for the outer vision is dim,
As he looks on a world unseen, and hears it singing to him.
Often it filled me with fear, for I thought he was wroth with me;
But he is not angry at all—only trying, he says, to see
Thoughts that are hard to get at, and hardly worth getting when done;
But the fool's habit of dreaming he learnt when living alone;
I must not fancy he sulks; he was only a bit of a poet,
Dram-drinking verses in secret, and hoping that no one would know it.
So then he brought me some poems, writ for our marriage-day,
“Orange-blossoms” he calls them, “A wreath for a wedding gay.”
I do not know that I care for poems—though hymns are sweet—
I do not want to be talked of, or sung some day in the street,
And at the time I was plagued with these horrible tradesmen's books,
And maybe my words were dry, and listless also my looks.
They are nice enough verses, I fancy —but oh those dreadful bills!
And he just laughs at my trouble, and calls it the care that kills—
A faithless terror of bakers and butchers and Philistines,
Unworthy a true believer in orthodox, sound divines.
| The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith | |