Late Lyrics and Earlier

Two Serenades

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I--On Christmas Eve

Late on Christmas Eve, in the street alone,

Outside a house, on the pavement-stone,

I sang to her, as we'd sung together

On former eves ere I felt her tether. -

Above the door of green by me

Was she, her casement seen by me;

But she would not heed

What I melodied

In my soul's sore need -

She would not heed.

Cassiopeia overhead,

And the Seven of the Wain, heard what I said

As I bent me there, and voiced, and fingered

Upon the strings. . . . Long, long I lingered:

Only the curtains hid from her

One whom caprice had bid from her;

But she did not come,

And my heart grew numb

And dull my strum;

She did not come.

II--A Year Later

I skimmed the strings; I sang quite low;

I hoped she would not come or know

That the house next door was the one now dittied,

Not hers, as when I had played unpitied;

- Next door, where dwelt a heart fresh stirred,

My new Love, of good will to me,

Unlike my old Love chill to me,

Who had not cared for my notes when heard:

Yet that old Love came

To the other's name

As hers were the claim;

Yea, the old Love came

My viol sank mute, my tongue stood still,

I tried to sing on, but vain my will:

I prayed she would guess of the later, and leave me;

She stayed, as though, were she slain by the smart,

She would bear love's burn for a newer heart.

The tense-drawn moment wrought to bereave me

Of voice, and I turned in a dumb despair

At her finding I'd come to another there.

Sick I withdrew

At love's grim hue

Ere my last Love knew;

Sick I withdrew.

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