Elegy

I vaguely wondered what you were about,
    But never wrote when you had gone away;
Assumed you better, quenched the uneasy doubt
    You might need faces, or have things to say.
    Did I think of you last evening? Dead you lay.
        O bitter words of conscience!
        I hold the simple message,
And fierce with grief the awakened heart cries out:
        'It shall not be to-day;

It is still yesterday; there is time yet!'
    Sorrow would strive backward to wrench the sun,
But the sun moves. Our onward course is set,
    The wake streams out, the engine pulses run
    Droning, a lonelier voyage is begun.
        It is all too late for turning,
        You are past all mortal signal,
There will be time for nothing but regret
        And the memory of things done!

The quiet voice that always counselled best,
    The mind that so ironically played
Yet for mere gentleness forebore the jest.
    The proud and tender heart that sat in shade
    Nor once solicited another's aid,
        Yet was so grateful always
        For trifles lightly given,
The silences, the melancholy guessed
        Sometimes, when your eyes strayed.

But always when you turned, you talked the more.
    Through all our literature your way you took
With modest ease; yet would you soonest pore,
    Smiling, with most affection in your look,
    On the ripe ancient and the curious nook.
        Sage travellers, learnèd printers,
        Divines and buried poets,
You knew them all, but never half your lore
        Was drawn from any book.

Stories and jests from field and town and port,
    And odd neglected scraps of history
From everywhere, for you were of the sort,
    Cool and refined, who like rough company:
    Carter and barmaid, hawker and bargee,
        Wise pensioners and boxers
        With whom you drank, and listened
To legends of old revelry and sport
        And customs of the sea.

I hear you: yet more clear than all one note,
    One sudden hail I still remember best,
That came on sunny days from one afloat
    And drew me to the pane in certain quest
    Of a long brown face, bare arms and flimsy vest,
        In fragments through the branches,
        Above the green reflections:
Paused by the willows in your varnished boat
        You, with your oars at rest.

Did that come back to you when you were dying?
    I think it did: you had much leisure there,
And, with the things we knew, came quietly flying
    Memories of things you had seen we knew not where.

    You watched again with meditative stare
        Places where you had wandered,
        Golden and calm in distance:
Voices from all your altering past came sighing
        On the soft Hampshire air.

For there you sat a hundred miles away,
    A rug upon your knees, your hands gone frail,
And daily bade your farewell to the day,
    A music blent of trees and clouds a-sail
    And figures in some old neglected tale:
        And watched the sunset gathering,
        And heard the birdsong fading,
And went within when the last sleepy lay
        Passed to a farther vale,

Never complaining, and stepped up to bed
    More and more slow, a tall and sunburnt man
Grown bony and bearded, knowing you would be dead
    Before the summer, glad your life began
    Even thus to end, after so short a span,
        And mused a space serenely,
        Then fell to easy slumber,
At peace, content. For never again your head
        Need make another plan.

Most generous, most gentle, most discreet,
    Who left us ignorant to spare us pain:
We went our ways with too forgetful feet
    And missed the chance that would not come again,
    Leaving with thoughts on pleasure bent, or gain,
        Fidelity unattested
        And services unrendered:
The ears are closed, the heart has ceased to beat,
        And now all proof is vain.

Too late for other gifts, I give you this,
    Who took from you so much, so carelessly,
On your far brows a first and phantom kiss,
    On your far grave a careful elegy.
    For one who loved all life and poetry,
        Sorrow in music bleeding,
        And friendship's last confession.
But even as I speak that inner hiss
        Softly accuses me,

Saying: Those brows are senseless, deaf that tomb,
    This is the callous, cold resort of art.
'I give you this.' What do I give? to whom?
    Words to the air, and balm to my own heart,
    To its old luxurious and commanded smart.
        An end to all this tuning,
        This cynical masquerading;
What comfort now in that far final gloom
        Can any song impart?

O yet I see you dawning from some heaven,
    Who would not suffer self-reproach to live
In one to whom your friendship once was given.
    I catch a vision, faint and fugitive,
Of a dark face with eyes contemplative,
        Deep eyes that smile in silence,
        And parted lips that whisper,
'Say nothing more, old friend, of being forgiven,
        There is nothing to forgive.'