"Aha--now I can see her!
Stand aside:
Don't thrust her from the table
Where, meek-eyed,
She makes attempt with matron-manners to preside.
"She serves me: now she rises,
Goes to play . . .
But you obstruct her, fill her
With dismay,
And embarrassed, scared, she vanishes away!"
And, as 'twere useless longer
To persist,
He sighed, and sought the entry
Ere I wist,
And retreated, disappearing soundless in the mist.
That here some mighty passion
Once had burned,
Which still the walls enghosted,
I discerned,
And that by its strong spell mine might be overturned.
I sat depressed; till, later,
My Love came;
But something in the chamber
Dimmed our flame, -
An emanation, making our due words fall tame,
As if the intenser drama
Shown me there
Of what the walls had witnessed
Filled the air,
And left no room for later passion anywhere.
So came it that our fervours
Did quite fail
Of future consummation -
Being made quail
By the weird witchery of the parlour's hidden tale,
Which I, as years passed, faintly
Learnt to trace, -
One of sad love, born full-winged
In that place
Where the predestined sorrowers first stood face to face.
And as that month of winter
Circles round,
And the evening of the date-day
Grows embrowned,
I am conscious of those presences, and sit spellbound.
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