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Rain on a Grave

RAIN ON A GRAVE
CLOUDS Spout upon her
Their waters amain
In ruthless disdain,-
Her who but lately

Had shivered with pain
As at touch of dishonor
If there had lit on her
So coldly, so straightly
Such arrows of rain.

She who to shelter

Her delicate head

Would quicken and quicken
Each tentative tread

If drops chanced to pelt her
That summertime spills
In dust-paven rills

When thunder-clouds thicken

And birds close their bills.

Would that I lay there

And she were housed here!

Or better, together

Were folded away there

Exposed to one weather

We both,-who would stray there

When sunny the day there,

Or evening was clear

At the prime of the year.

Soon will be growing

Green blades from her mound,

And daisies be showing

Like stars on the ground,

Till she form part of them—
Ay-the sweet heart of them,
Loved beyond measure
With a child's pleasure

All her life's round.

Thomas Hardy [1840

1133

T

PATTERNS

I WALK down the garden paths,
And all the daffodils

Are blowing, and the bright blue squills.
I walk down the patterned garden-paths
In my stiff, brocaded gown.

With my powdered hair and jewelled fan,
I too am a rare

Pattern. As I wander down

The garden paths.

My dress is richly figured,

And the train

Makes a pink and silver stain

On the gravel, and the thrift

Of the borders.

Just a plate of current fashion,

Tripping by in high-heeled, ribboned shoes.

Not a softness anywhere about me,

Only whale-bone and brocade.

And I sink on a seat in the shade
Of a lime-tree. For my passion
Wars against the stiff brocade.
The daffodils and squills
Flutter in the breeze

As they please.

And I weep;

For the lime-tree is in blossom

And one small flower has dropped upon my bosom.

And the plashing of waterdrops

In the marble fountain

Comes down the garden-paths.
The dripping never stops.

Underneath my stiffened gown

Is the softness of a woman bathing in a marble basin, A basin in the midst of hedges grown

So thick, she cannot see her lover hiding.

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I should like to see it lying in a heap upon the ground.
All the pink and silver crumpled upon the ground.

I would be the pink and silver as I ran along the paths,
And he would stumble after,

Bewildered by my laughter.

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I should see the sun flashing from his sword-hilt and the buckles on his shoes.

I would choose

To lead him in a maze along the patterned paths,

A bright and laughing maze for my heavy-booted lover,
Till he caught me in the shade,

And the buttons of his waistcoat bruised my body as he

clasped me,

Aching, melting, unafraid..

With the shadows of the leaves and the sundrops,

And the plopping of the waterdrops,

All about us in the open afternoon

I am very like to swoon

With the weight of this brocade,

For the sun sifts through the shade.

Underneath the fallen blossom

In my bosom,

Is a letter I have hid.

It was brought to me this morning by a rider from the Duke. "Madam, we regret to inform you that Lord Hartwell

Died in action Thursday se'nnight."

As I read it in the white, morning sunlight,

The letters squirmed like snakes..

"Any answer, Madam?" said my footman.

"No," I told him.

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"See that the messenger takes some refreshment. 7 id) No, no answer."

And I walked into the garden,

Up and down the patterned paths,

In my stiff, correct brocade.

The blue and yellow flowers stood up proudly in the sun,

Each one.

I stood upright too,

Held rigid to the pattern

By the stiffness of my gown.

Up and down I walked,

Up and down.

In a month he would have been my husband.

In a month, here, underneath this lime,

We would have broke the pattern;

He for me, and I for him,

He as Colonel, I as Lady,

On this shady seat.

He had a whim

That sunlight carried blessing.

And I answered, "It shall be as you have said."
Now he is dead.

In Summer and in Winter I shall walk

Up and down

The patterned garden-paths

In my stiff, brocaded gown.

The squills and daffodils

Will give place to pillared roses, and to asters, and to snow.

I shall go

Up and down,

In my gown.

Gorgeously arrayed,

Boned and stayed.

And the softness of my body will be guarded from embrace

By each button, hook, and lace.

For the man who should loose me is dead,

Fighting with the Duke in Flanders,

In a pattern called a war.

Christ! What are patterns for?

Amy Lowell [1874¬

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WHEN the white flame in us is gone,
And we that lost the world's delight
Stiffen in darkness, left alone

To crumble in our separate night;

When your swift hair is quiet in death,
And through the lips corruption thrust

Has stilled the labor of my breath

When we are dust, when we are dust!→→

Not dead, not undesirous yet,

Still sentient, still unsatisfied,

We'll ride the air, and shine, and flit,
Around the places where we died,

And dance as dust before the sun,
And light of foot, and unconfined,
Hurry from road to road, and run
About the errands of the wind.

And every mote, on earth or air,

Will speed and gleam, down later days,

And like a secret pilgrim fare

By eager and invisible ways,

Nor ever rest, nor ever lie,

Till, beyond thinking, out of view,

One mote of all the dust that's I

Shall meet one atom that was you.

Then in some garden hushed from wind,
Warm in a sunset's afterglow,

The lovers in the flowers will find

A sweet and strange unquiet grow

Upon the peace; and, past desiring,
So high a beauty in the air,
And such a light, and such a quiring,

And such a radiant ecstasy there,

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