Page:Wessex poems and other verses (IA wessexpoemsother00hard).pdf/145

 I'd looked on, unknowing, and witnessed Her jests with the tapsters, Her liquor-fired face, her thick accents In naming her fee.

"O God, why this hocus satiric!" I cried in my anguish: "O once Loved, O fair Unforgotten— That Thing—meant it thee!

"Inurned and at peace, lost but sainted, Were grief I could compass; Depraved—'tis for Christ's poor dependent A cruel decree!"

I backed on the Highway; but passed not The hostel. Within there Too mocking to Love's re-expression Was Time's repartee!

Uptracking where Legions had wayfared, By cromlechs unstoried, And lynchets, and sepultured Chieftains, In self-colloquy,