When shall I see the half-moon sink again
Behind the black sycamore at
the end of the garden?
When will the scent of the dim white
phlox
Creep up the
wall to me, and in at my open window?
Why is it, the long, slow stroke of the midnight
bell
(Will it never
finish the twelve?)
Falls again and again on my heart with a heavy
reproach?
The
moon-mist is over the village, out of the mist speaks the
bell,
And all the
little roofs of the village bow low, pitiful, beseeching,
resigned.
–Speak,
you my home! what is it I don’t do well?
Ah home, suddenly I love
you
As I hear the
sharp clean trot of a pony down the road,
Succeeding sharp little sounds
dropping into silence
Clear upon the long-drawn hoarseness of a train
across the valley.
The light has gone out, from under my mother’s door.
That she should love me
so!–
She, so lonely,
greying now!
And I
leaving her,
Bent on
my pursuits!
Love is
the great Asker.
The
sun and the rain do not ask the secret
Of the time when the grain struggles down in the
dark.
The moon walks
her lonely way without anguish,
Because no-one grieves over her
departure.
Forever,
ever by my shoulder pitiful love will linger,
Crouching as little houses
crouch under the mist when I turn.
Forever, out of the mist, the church lifts up a
reproachful finger
Pointing my eyes in wretched defiance where love hides her face to
mourn.
Oh! but the
rain creeps down to wet the grain
That struggles alone in the dark,
And asking nothing, patiently
steals back again!
The moon sets forth o’nights
To walk the lonely, dusky heights
Serenely, with steps
unswerving;
Pursued
by no sigh of bereavement,
No tears of love unnerving
Her constant tread
While ever at my
side,
Frail and sad,
with grey, bowed head,
The beggar-woman, the yearning-eyed
Inexorable love goes
lagging.
The wild
young heifer, glancing distraught,
With a strange new knocking of life at her
side
Runs seeking a
loneliness.
The
little grain draws down the earth, to hide.
Nay, even the slumberous egg,
as it labours under the shell
Patiently to divide and self-divide,
Asks to be hidden, and wishes
nothing to tell.
But
when I draw the scanty cloak of silence over my eyes
Piteous love comes peering
under the hood;
Touches the clasp with trembling fingers, and tries
To put her ear to the painful
sob of my blood;
While her tears soak through to my breast,
Where they burn and
cauterize.
The moon
lies back and reddens.
In the valley a corncrake calls
Monotonously,
With a plaintive, unalterable
voice, that deadens
My confident activity;
With a hoarse, insistent request that
falls
Unweariedly,
unweariedly,
Asking
something more of me,
Yet more of me.