“—­It is an evening tune;
One not designed to waste the noon,”
You say.  I know:  time bids me go—­
For daytide passes too, too soon!

But let indulgence be,
This once, to my rash ecstasy: 
When sounds nowhere that carolled air
My idled morn may comfort me!

“A MAN WAS DRAWING NEAR TO ME”

On that gray night of mournful drone,
A part from aught to hear, to see,
I dreamt not that from shires unknown
   In gloom, alone,
   By Halworthy,
A man was drawing near to me.

I’d no concern at anything,
No sense of coming pull-heart play;
Yet, under the silent outspreading
   Of even’s wing
   Where Otterham lay,
A man was riding up my way.

I thought of nobody—­not of one,
But only of trifles—­legends, ghosts—­
Though, on the moorland dim and dun
   That travellers shun
   About these coasts,
The man had passed Tresparret Posts.

There was no light at all inland,
Only the seaward pharos-fire,
Nothing to let me understand
   That hard at hand
   By Hennett Byre
The man was getting nigh and nigher.

There was a rumble at the door,
A draught disturbed the drapery,
And but a minute passed before,
   With gaze that bore
   My destiny,
The man revealed himself to me.

THE STRANGE HOUSE (MAX GATE, A.D. 2000)

“I hear the piano playing—­
   Just as a ghost might play.”
“—­O, but what are you saying? 
   There’s no piano to-day;
Their old one was sold and broken;
   Years past it went amiss.”
“—­I heard it, or shouldn’t have spoken: 
      A strange house, this!

“I catch some undertone here,
   From some one out of sight.”
“—­Impossible; we are alone here,
   And shall be through the night.”
“—­The parlour-door—­what stirred it?”
   “—­No one:  no soul’s in range.”
“—­But, anyhow, I heard it,
      And it seems strange!

“Seek my own room I cannot—­
   A figure is on the stair!”
“—­What figure?  Nay, I scan not
   Any one lingering there. 
A bough outside is waving,
   And that’s its shade by the moon.”
“—­Well, all is strange!  I am craving
      Strength to leave soon.”

“—­Ah, maybe you’ve some vision
   Of showings beyond our sphere;
Some sight, sense, intuition
   Of what once happened here? 
The house is old; they’ve hinted
   It once held two love-thralls,
And they may have imprinted
      Their dreams on its walls?

“They were—­I think ’twas told me—­
   Queer in their works and ways;
The teller would often hold me
   With weird tales of those days. 
Some folk can not abide here,
   But we—­we do not care
Who loved, laughed, wept, or died here,
      Knew joy, or despair.”

“AS ’TWERE TO-NIGHT” (SONG)