Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.
Austin Dobson 1840–1921A Dead Letter
Dobson-AIt came out feebly scented
With some thin ghost of past perfume
That dust and days had lent it.
To read with due composure,
I sought the sun-lit window-sill,
Above the gray enclosure,
Faint flowered, dimly shaded,
Slumbered like Goldsmith’s Madam Blaize,
Bedizened and brocaded.
Some tea-board garden-maker
Had planned it in Dutch William’s day
To please some florist Quaker,
With pious care perverted,
Grew in the same grim shapes; and still
The lipless dolphin spurted;
The broken-nosed Apollo;
And still the cypress-arbor showed
The same umbrageous hollow.
From coffee-colored laces,—
So peeped from its old-fashioned dreams
The fresher modern traces;
Upon the lawn were lying;
A magazine, a tumbled shawl,
Round which the swifts were flying;
A heap of rainbow knitting,
Where, blinking in her pleased repose,
A Persian cat was sitting.
If we too, like Tithonus,
Could find some God to stretch the gray
Scant life the Fates have thrown us;
With buttoned heart and pocket;
Our Love’s a gilded, surplus grace,—
Just like an empty locket!
May strive to make it better;
For me, this warm old window-sill,
And this old dusty letter.”
For Father’s gone to Chorley Fair with Sam,
And Mother’s storing Apples,—Prue and Me
Up to our Elbows making Damson Jam:
But we shall meet before a Week is gone,—
‘’T is a long Lane that has no turning,’ John!
Behind the White-Thorn, by the broken Stile—
We can go round and catch them at the Gate,
All to Ourselves, for nearly one long Mile;
Dear Prue won’t look, and Father he’ll go on,
And Sam’s two Eyes are all for Cissy, John!
Flame-colored Sack, and Crimson Padesoy;
As proud as proud; and has the Vapours too,
Just like My Lady;—calls poor Sam a Boy,
And vows no Sweet-heart’s worth the Thinking-on
Till he ’s past Thirty … I know better, John!
Before we knew each other, I and you;
And now, why, John, your least, least Finger-touch,
Gives me enough to think a Summer through.
See, for I send you Something! There, ’t is gone!
Look in this corner,—mind you find it, John!”
A long-forgot deposit,
Dropped in an Indian dragon’s throat,
Deep in a fragrant closet,
Beaux, beauties, prayers, and poses,—
Bonzes with squat legs undercurled,
And great jars filled with roses.
You had no thought or presage
Into what keeping you dismissed
Your simple old-world message!
Distrust beliefs and powers,
The artless, ageless things you say
Are fresh as May’s own flowers,
Ere Gold had grown despotic,—
Ere Life was yet a selfish thing,
Or Love a mere exotic!
Whose lot it was to send it,
That feel upon me yet the kind,
Soft hand of her who penned it;
In by-gone, quaint apparel,
Shine from yon time-black Norway oak
The face of Patience Caryl,—
The gray gown, primly flowered;
The spotless, stately coif whose crest
Like Hector’s horse-plume towered;
Where some past thought was clinging,
As when one shuts a serious book
To hear the thrushes singing.
Whose kind old hearts grow mellow,—
Whose fair old faces grow more fair
As Point and Flanders yellow;
Their placid temples shading,
Crowns like a wreath of autumn leaf
With tender tints of fading.
Despite this loving letter.
And what of John? The less that ’s said
Of John, I think, the better.