The Peddler

LEND me, a little while, the key

That locks your heavy heart, and I'll give you back--

Rarer than books and ribbons and beads bright to see,

This little Key of Dreams out of my pack.

The road, the road, beyond men's bolted doors,

There shall I walk and you go free of me,

For yours lies North across the moors,

And mine lies South. To what seas?

How if we stopped and let our solemn selves go by,

While my gay ghost caught and kissed yours, as ghosts don't do,

And by the wayside, this forgotten you and I

Sat, and were twenty-two?

Give me the key that locks your tired eyes,

And I will lend you this one from my pack,

Brighter than colored beads and painted books that make men wise:

Take it. No, give it back!

Charlotte Mew

On the Road to the Sea

WE passed each other, turned and stopped for half an hour, then went our way,

        I who make other women smile did not make you--

But no man can move mountains in a day.

        So this hard thing is yet to do.

But first I want your life:--before I die I want to see

        The world that lies behind the strangeness of your eyes,

There is nothing gay or green there for my gathering, it may be,

            Yet on brown fields there lies

A haunting purple bloom: is there not something in grey skies

                 And in grey sea?

        I want what world there is behind your eyes,

        I want your life and you will not give it me.

        Now, if I look, I see you walking down the years,

        Young, and through August fields--a face, a thought, a swinging dream

                                     perched on a stile--;

        I would have liked (so vile we are!) to have taught you tears

                                But most to have made you smile.

        To-day is not enough or yesterday: God sees it all--

Your length on sunny lawns, the wakeful rainy nights--; tell me--;

         (how vain to ask), but it is not a question--just a call--;

Show me then, only your notched inches climbing up the garden wall,

                I like you best when you are small.

             Is this a stupid thing to say

             Not having spent with you one day?

        No matter; I shall never touch your hair

        Or hear the little tick behind your breast,

             Still it is there,

             And as a flying bird

        Brushes the branches where it may not rest

        I have brushed your hand and heard

     The child in you: I like that best

So small, so dark, so sweet; and were you also then too grave and wise?

        Always I think. Then put your far off little hand in mine;--

                                     Oh! let it rest;

I will not stare into the early world beyond the opening eyes,

        Or vex or scare what I love best.

        But I want your life before mine bleeds away--

            Here--not in heavenly hereafters--soon,--

            I want your smile this very afternoon,

        (The last of all my vices, pleasant people used to say,

            I wanted and I sometimes got--the Moon!)

            You know, at dusk, the last bird's cry,

        And round the house the flap of the bat's low flight,

            Trees that go black against the sky

        And then--how soon the night!

     No shadow of you on any bright road again,

And at the darkening end of this--what voice? whose kiss? As if you'd say!

It is not I who have walked with you, it will not be I who take away

        Peace, peace, my little handful of the gleaner's grain

        From your reaped fields at the shut of day.

            Peace! Would you not rather die

        Reeling,--with all the cannons at your ear?

            So, at least, would I,

        And I may not be here

        To-night, to-morrow morning or next year.

        Still I will let you keep your life a little while,

                 See dear?

         I have made you smile.

Charlotte Mew

The Farmer's Bride

THREE Summers since I chose a maid,

Too young maybe -- but more's to do

At harvest-time than bide and woo.

When us was wed she turned afraid

Of love and me and all things human;

Like the shut of a winter's day.

Her smile went out, and 'twasn't a woman --

More like a little, frightened fay.

One night, in the Fall, she runned away.

"Out 'mong the sheep, her be," they said,

'Should properly have been abed;

But sure enough she wasn't there

Lying awake with her wide brown stare.

So over seven-acre field and up-along across the down

We chased her, flying like a hare

Before our lanterns. To Church-Town

All in a shiver and a scare

We caught her, fetched her home at last

And turned the key upon her, fast.

She does the work about the house

As well as most, but like a mouse:

Happy enough to chat and play

With birds and rabbits and such as they,

So long as men-folk stay away.

"Not near, not near!" her eyes beseech

When one of us comes within reach.

The women say that beasts in stall

Look round like children at her call.

I've hardly heard her speak at all.

Shy as a leveret, swift as he,

Straight and slight as a young larch tree,

Sweet as the first wild violets, she,

To her wild self. But what to me?

The short days shorten and the oaks are brown,

The blue smoke rises to the low gray sky,

One leaf in the still air falls slowly down,

A magpie's spotted feathers lie

On the black earth spread white with rime,

The berries redden up to Christmas-time.

What's Christmas-time without there be

Some other in the house than we!

She sleeps up in the attic there

Alone, poor maid. 'Tis but a stair

Betwixt us. Oh, my God! -- the down,

The soft young down of her; the brown,

The brown of her -- her eyes, her hair, her hair!

Charlotte Mew