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Wilfrid Scawen Blunt - The Wanderer’s Return
Work rating: Low

An old heart`s mourning is a hideous thing,
 And weeds upon an aged weeper cling
 Like night upon a grave. The city there,
 Gaunt as a woman who has once been fair,
 Lay black with winter, and the silent rain
 Fell thro` the heavens darkly, like a stain
 Upon her face. The dusky houses rose,
 Unlovely shapes laid naked on the ooze,
 Grimed with long sooty tears. The night fell down,
 And gathered all the highways in its frown.
     This was my home.  I saw men pass and pass
 Nor stop to look into a neighbour`s face.
 I dared not look in their`s because my eyes
 Were faint and travel--jarred and would not rise
 From the dull earth, and hunger made them dim,
 The hunger of a seven years` angry dream
 Of love and peace and home unsatisfied.
 And now my heart thus grievously denied
 Rose, like a caged bird in the nesting time
 Who beats against the bars that prison him,
 In all its greenness of youth`s wounds and pain
 And would not cease till these should bleed again.

 For I had gone a hunter through the world,
 And set my tent in every land, and hurled
 My spears at life because my joys were dead;
 And many a fair field of the Earth was red
 Where I had passed, and many a wind might tell
 Of stricken souls that to my arrows fell.
 I would not stop to listen to their cries
 But went my way and thought that I was wise.

 A wanderer`s life, whether his lone chase be man
 Or only those poor outlaws under ban
 The creatures of the field his hand destroys
 Through rage of wantonness or need of noise,
 Is the fierce solace of its anger given
 To a hurt soul which dares not turn to Heaven.
 With me it was a vengeance of love lost,
 A refuge proved for passions tempest--tossed,
 An unguent for despairs that could not kill.
 I wandered in the desert and the hill
 Seeking dry places, and behold my grief
 Fled with my footprints and I found relief.
 And it had happened to me, as befalls
 Men bred in cities who have left their walls
 For gain or pleasure, that the wilderness
 Grew lastly wearisome. I loved it less.

 And once a desperate chase had led me on
 To an unknown land when daylight was near done,
 And I sat weary by my slaughtered prey
 And watched the cranes which northward fled away
 Rank upon rank into the depths of air,
 And still the horizon lifeless vast and bare
 Stretched wide around, and like a vault of dread
 The arch of heaven hemmed me overhead,
 And the great eye of the dead beast was set
 Upon my own. I felt my cheek was wet.
 Oh surely then, for all man`s heart be hard,
 Though he have taken Nature by the beard
 And lived alone as to the manner born,
 And though his limbs be strung with toil, and worn
 To all Earth`s dangers, yet at such a time
 His coward soul will overmaster him,
 Saying ``Beware, thou child of Earth, even now
 Look at the world how wide it is and thou
 How small! And thou hast dared to be alone.``
 And lo, the last long flight of cranes was gone,
 And darkness with its folding pity crept
 Over the plain. I hid my face and wept,
 Till sleep fell on me. But, when dawn was come,
 I turned my steps to what had been my home.

 The palace gardens! I had fled aside
 From the gaunt streets in easement of my pride
 After the lamps were lit, for to my brain
 The tumult and the passers--by were pain:
 The gardens where in those far summer times
 A boy I came to watch the pantomimes
 Among a laughing crowd of white--capped bonnes
 And red--cheeked children and loud country clowns,
 Or where, along the wall in graver sense
 And screened from winds in their petite Provence,
 With the first chestnut blossoms old men sat
 And cheered their melancholy souls with chat,
 Thawing like frozen apples in the sun!
 The old men and the children all were gone.
 The leaves, their canopy, lay torn and dead
 And crushed in spongy heaps beneath my tread.
 The fountains recreant to their laughter lay
 Murk pools of silence shrouded from the day,
 As though no doves had ever at their brink
 Stooped in full June to plume themselves and drink.
 Only the trees stood, witness of the past.
 Sad trees, I greeted them. I held them fast
 Like a friend`s hands. They were as changed and bare
 As my own life, but calm in the despair
 Of their long winter`s martyrdom, and I
 A very child in my philosophy!
 Till I remembered that no Spring would come
 To mock the winter of my own long doom
 With any merriment. And ``Trees`` I cried,
 ``Your hearts within are all too greenly dyed
 To match with mine.`` I let their branches go
 And sat upon a bench to feed my woe
 With memories long hidden out of mind,
 But which trooped back that night and rode the wind.

 These wooden benches, what sad ghosts of pleasures
 Had used them nightly crouching o`er their treasures,
 My own long murdered joys, since there we sat
 Blind in our love and insolent to Fate!
 Each one a witness proved of our lost vows,
 Our prayers, our protests, all our souls` carouse;
 Each one inscribed through the unheeding years
 With letters of a name I wrote in tears.
 `Twas here I saw her first, a pure sweet woman
 Fair as a goddess but with smile all human,
 Her children at her knees who went and came
 At each new wayward impulse of their game,
 And she reproving with her quiet eyes
 Veiling the mirth they could not all disguise.
 The echo of her voice with its mute thrill
 Lived in these glades and stirred my pulses still,
 Though I had lived to hear it in what tone
 Of passionate grief and souls` disunion.
 She stood, a broken lily, by that tree,
 Sunlight and shade for ever changingly
 Chequering the robe she wore of virgin white,
 When first I touched the goal of my delight
 Her woman`s hand and hid it in my hands.
 Here shone the glory of her countenance
 Nobler for tears when weakness for a space
 Held full dominion in that heaven her face
 And she confessed herself of grief divine
 And love grown young, a vintage of new wine,
 And I was crowned her king. O silent trees,
 You heard it and you know how to the lees
 We drained the cup of life and found it good,
 Gathering love`s manna for our daily food,
 In scorn of the vain rest. You heard and knew
 What the world only guessed where all was true.
 And have you dreamed on in your quiet grove
 While seven years were built against our love!

 `Twas on this bench I sat that day of June
 Thinking of death a whole sweet afternoon,
 Till I was sick of sorrow and my tongue
 Weary of its long silence (I was young
 And the birds sang so loud); and when the night
 Came as it now came, and the lamps grew bright
 In the long street, lit like a diamond chain,
 I rose and said: ``I will not bear the pain.
 What is my pride worth that for it this smart
 Should harrow up the green things of my heart
 For twelve importunate hours in such a sort?
 And pleasure is so sweet and life so short.``
 And as a martyr, who long time has lain
 Frozen in a dungeon, sees amid his pain,
 When he has fasted on for many days,
 Bright visions of hot feasts and hearths ablaze
 With welcome, and who sells his gloomy creed,
 And is overcome of pleasure, so my need
 Conquered my pride; and I arose and went
 Striding, with smiles at my new found intent,
 Down these same gravel alleys to the gate
 And so beyond, like one inebriate,
 Thinking the while of the brave baths and food
 Set for the renegade, until I stood
 Once more before her door I had forsworn.
 I did not stop to question thoughts forlorn,
 But knocked as I had knocked a thousand times.
 St. Roch`s was ringing its last evening chimes,
 And I still thought about the martyr`s dream.
 I saw the light within the threshold gleam
 Which opened to me, and the voice I knew
 Said in all sweetness, as the door swung to,
 ``Come. We are just in time. How fortunate
 You too like me have happened to be late.``
 I swear I said no word of the sad plans
 I had plotted on this bench of ignorance.
 There have been kings called happy, but not one
 As I that night. Ah God! to be alone,
 Alone, and never more to hear her voice
 Calling me back, blest martyr, to my joys!

 I sat there grieving in the cold and rain
 Until my heart had half forgot its pain,
 And when I rose I scarce could guide my feet,
 They were so numb, to the unlovely street.
 And yet need was my steps should bear me on
 To some mad corner of that Babylon;
 And I must feed the gnawings of my soul
 With broken meat. ``The seven years may roll,``
 I said, ``and men may change and she be dead,
 Yet the house stands, God knows how tenanted.``

 I leaned my head against the colonnade
 Which skirts the square. I think I had not prayed
 Through all those years, but now I said a prayer,
 And hope in spite of reason seemed to wear
 Green buds upon its branches. Who shall know
 If `twas a vision sent me in my woe
 To prove the power of prayer? But, when I turned
 And looked across the square, the candles burned
 In the old upper windows, and, before,
 A shadow crossed the curtain, and the door
 Opened towards me, and a voice there cried
 ``Come. You are just in time.`` I put out wide
 My arms into the darkness, and I fell.

 When I awoke, `twas as one passed from Hell
 Who fears and feels no longer. I was tired.
 I scarcely cared to know when I inquired
 After the house. The girl who held the glass
 To my lips (a flower--girl it seemed she was)
 Told me that house and square alike were gone
 Swept by new boulevards to oblivion.
 Why should I grieve? The new was worth the old.
 I listened to the story as `twas told,
 And lingered with her all the evening there
 Because she pitied me and she was fair,
 And held me with her hand upon the latch.
 ``Seven years,`` I said, ``it is a long night`s watch
 For any soul alone upon life`s way,
 And mine is weary at the break of day.``
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