Midnight Speculations

I My Wife. Strange : I sit here, and write my painful prose, And my sweet love is in the Land of Dreams, Where bloom weird flowers and murmur mystic streams, And with wild wilful curve life’s current flows, So what will happen next no creature knows In that far region : some mad Demon seems To twist in puzzling knots the common themes Of cheerful day. Now, as her dear eyes close Under fair lids that I have kissed so oft, Her spirit is a myriad leagues away Fast flitting o’er sea and land, or high in air Borne by some wondrous witchery aloft. I want to travel on the self-same way : I want to follow and to find her there. II My Dog. A mighty Pyrenean wolf-hound lies Beside me while I work or think or dream, And midnight passes like a mystic stream, And in the icy blue of winter skies Star after star grows wonderful and dies. To me those bright orbs yield no glory or gleam— Snug, curtained, and intent upon my theme— Wrapt in myself. Even so my great dog sighs, Close at my feet, in visions of the chase Of wild wolves howling over hills of snow, Slain by his stalwart fathers long ago. My thoughts within him find no resting-place : Of me he knows just what of him I know. Strange is the stern fate that hath made it so.