第38章 WITHOUT CEREMONY

It was your way, my dear, To be gone without a word When callers, friends, or kin Had left, and I hastened in To rejoin you, as I inferred.

And when you'd a mind to career Off anywhere--say to town -

You were all on a sudden gone Before I had thought thereon, Or noticed your trunks were down.

So, now that you disappear For ever in that swift style, Your meaning seems to me Just as it used to be:

"Good-bye is not worth while!"

LAMENT

How she would have loved A party to-day! -

Bright-hatted and gloved, With table and tray And chairs on the lawn Her smiles would have shone With welcomings . . . But She is shut, she is shut From friendship's spell In the jailing shell Of her tiny cell.

Or she would have reigned At a dinner to-night With ardours unfeigned, And a generous delight;

All in her abode She'd have freely bestowed On her guests . . . But alas, She is shut under grass Where no cups flow, Powerless to know That it might be so.

And she would have sought With a child's eager glance The shy snowdrops brought By the new year's advance, And peered in the rime Of Candlemas-time For crocuses . . . chanced It that she were not tranced From sights she loved best;

Wholly possessed By an infinite rest!

And we are here staying Amid these stale things Who care not for gaying, And those junketings That used so to joy her, And never to cloy her As us they cloy! . . . But She is shut, she is shut From the cheer of them, dead To all done and said In a yew-arched bed.