Tag: Roderic Quinn

Mid-Forest Fear by Roderic Quinn

She is standing at the gate,
Tall and sweet,
And although the hour be late
She will greet
Me, her lover,
Smiling over
Absent mind and tardy feet.

‘Rest,’ I’ll say to her, ‘and more rest,’
As she wraps her love around me,
And I’ll tell her of the forest,
Of the strange, fear-haunted forest
Where the fleshless beings found me.

For I trod a rock-strewn rude way
Thinking only of my lover,
When the moonlight on the woodway,
Made a weird-way of the woodway,
And a place where demons hover.

For the leaves that had been sleeping
On the sodden soil-bed lying,
Look a motion and ’gan creeping,
Like a thousand small feet creeping,
And there rose a distant sighing.

Why the trees did droop their tresses,
Weeping leaves for something under,
And what bode in dim recesses,
Feline-lurked in dim recesses,
Paled my cheeks and heart to ponder.

Had I feet I would have hurried,
But the moonlit forest chained me,
Soul and body grasped and worried,
With frost-fingers gripped and worried,
Till, half-stayed, my hurt heart pained me.…

‘Rest,’ I’ll say, ‘my Love, and more rest;
Things unseen have life and motion
And they haunt the moonlit forest—
Soul-affronting haunt the forest,
And men meet them on the ocean.’

She will look so grave and kind,
Saying ‘Rest—
Rest is here for heart and mind
On this breast—
Put aside all
Fancies idle,
I will shield you—Love is best.’

At Her Door by Roderic Quinn

Open! Open! Open!
I am here at your door outside;
The sea’s blue tide flows speedily,
And ebbs a thin red tide.’
The woman rose from her warm white bed,
Threw back her hair and smiled;
The ears of scorn heard the words of love,
And the wind and the words were wild.
‘Wake! Awake! Awake!
And hearken the woe outside;
The moon is hid in cloudiness;
Calleth and calleth the tide.’
The woman stood in the silence still
As a thing men carve from stone.
Her eyes burned largely in the dark,
And the smile, like a stain, stayed on.
‘Listen! Listen! Listen!
Hear you the rain to-night?
A warm dark rain is falling too,
And I grow ghostly-white.’
The woman took three steps and bowed;
The smile waned from her lip;
She heard the dripping of the rain
And a soft thick other drip.
‘Open! Open! Open!
I die in the dark alone.
My voice goes up in weariness
Against your heart of stone.’
The moon to a cloud-cleft stealing
Gazed down on the yearning tide;
The woman opened the streaming door
And stood in the rain outside.
Silence! Stillness! She whispers,
‘Ah, Love, that death should be!’
He sighed, ‘Your lips are loveliness!’
And she sobbed, ‘Woe is me!’
The woman pressed his dead white face
With her face as deadly white:
The moon drew in behind a cloud,
And the tide moaned through the night.

The Vigil by Roderic Quinn

 

The rain is falling on the roof,

And no sound else disturbs the wife,

Except the trees and winds at strife,

Now near at hand and now aloof;

But listening, leaning evermore,

She waits a knock upon the door.
Her hair is braided round her head;

Her eyes are large and fierce and bright;

Her shapely throat is soft and white;

And on her mouth there burns the red

Of that rich, storied gem that shone

Upon the breast of Prester John.
Upon the couch her husband lies.

How is it that he lies so still?

Why sleeps he there so pale and chill,

The lamplight on his lidded eyes?

Has she not fire, and more than fire

To thrill his flesh with hot desire?
Anon she lifts her rounded arms

As though to feel that she is free;

And her large eyes exultantly

Light up, as when the dawn-glow charms

With roseate lights that gleam and glance

Twin pools to sudden radiance.
The rain is falling on the roof;

Yet, though her ears are open wide,

There is no other sound outside—

No fall of foot, nor tramp of hoof.

And on his couch with lidded eyes

The husband, cold and pallid, lies.
The midnight sky is wild and black

And drenches earth with ceaseless tears;

And now it seems to her she hears

Hoof-strokes upon the sodden track;

And now she rises, sweet as sin,

To let the late night-strayer in.
The lamplight gleams upon his face,

And glistens on his reddened spur;

He stretches out his arms to her

And folds her in a rude embrace… .

How can it be the husband lies

So still, with heavy-lidded eyes?
Perchance he neither sees nor hears,

And sleeps unmoved by chance or change.

And yet… .and yet, it seems so strange—

If he be dead there should be tears.

Not love nor smiles, nor midnight bliss,

Nor mouths that marry in a kiss.
The loud winds thrust upon the door,

The raindrops plash against the roof,

The trickles from a waterproof

Make little pools upon the floor;

No foe between, no more apart,

They stand, heart throbbing back to heart.
Anon she says: ‘He died this morn.

He did not die a whit too soon;

Life’s day, alas, makes towards its noon.

He should have died when love was born.

He should have died long since. And now

Kiss me again—my mouth, my brow!’