Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

I. Disappointment in Love

The Sun-Dial

Austin Dobson (1840–1921)

’T IS an old dial, dark with many a stain;

In summer crowned with drifting orchard bloom,

Tricked in the autumn with the yellow rain,

And white in winter like a marble tomb.

And round about its gray, time-eaten brow

Lean letters speak,—a worn and shattered row:

I am a Shade; a Shadowe too art thou:

I marke the Time: saye, Gossip, dost thou soe?

Here would the ring-doves linger, head to head;

And here the snail a silver course would run,

Beating old Time; and here the peacock spread

His gold-green glory, shutting out the sun.

The tardy shade moved forward to the noon;

Betwixt the paths a dainty Beauty stept,

That swung a flower, and, smiling hummed a tune,—

Before whose feet a barking spaniel leapt.

O’er her blue dress an endless blossom strayed;

About her tendril-curls the sunlight shone;

And round her train the tiger-lilies swayed,

Like courtiers bowing till the queen be gone.

She leaned upon the slab a little while,

Then drew a jewelled pencil from her zone,

Scribbled a something with a frolic smile,

Folded, inscribed, and niched it in the stone.

The shade slipped on, no swifter than the snail;

There came a second lady to the place,

Dove-eyed, dove-robed, and something wan and pale,—

An inner beauty shining from her face.

She, as if listless with a lonely love,

Straying among the alleys with a book,—

Herrick or Herbert,—watched the circling dove,

And spied the tiny letter in the nook.

Then, like to one who confirmation found

Of some dread secret half-accounted true,—

Who knew what hearts and hands the letter bound,

And argued loving commerce ’twixt the two,—

She bent her fair young forehead on the stone;

The dark shade gloomed an instant on her head;

And ’twixt her taper fingers pearled and shone

The single tear that tear-worn eyes will shed.

The shade slipped onward to the falling gloom;

Then came a soldier gallant in her stead,

Swinging a beaver with a swaling plume,

A ribboned love-lock rippling from his head.

Blue-eyed, frank-faced, with clear and open brow,

Scar-seamed a little, as the women love;

So kindly fronted that you marvelled how

The frequent sword-hilt had so frayed his glove;

Who switched at Psyche plunging in the sun;

Uncrowned three lilies with a backward swinge;

And standing somewhat widely, like to one

More used to “Boot and Saddle” than to cringe

As courtiers do, but gentleman withal,

Took out the note;—held it as one who feared

The fragile thing he held would slip and fall;

Read and re-read, pulling his tawny beard;

Kissed it, I think, and hid it in his breast;

Laughed softly in a flattered, happy way,

Arranged the broidered baldrick on his crest,

And sauntered past, singing a roundelay.

The shade crept forward through the dying glow;

There came no more nor dame nor cavalier;

But for a little time the brass will show

A small gray spot,—the record of a tear.