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:
    Don'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?