The Other

The forest ended. Glad I was

To feel the light, and hear the hum

Of bees, and smell the drying grass

And the sweet mint, because I had come

To an end of forest, and because

Here was both road and inn, the sum

Of what’s not forest. But ’twas here

They asked me if I did not pass

Yesterday this way? “Not you? Queer.”

“Who then? and slept here?” I felt fear.

I learnt his road and, ere they were

Sure I was I, left the dark wood

Behind, kestrel and woodpecker,

The inn in the sun, the happy mood

When first I tasted sunlight there.

I travelled fast, in hopes I should

Outrun that other. What to do

When caught, I planned not. I pursued

To prove the likeness, and, if true,

To watch until myself I knew.

I tried the inns that evening

Of a long gabled high-street grey,

Of courts and outskirts, travelling

An eager but a weary way,

In vain. He was not there. Nothing

Told me that ever till that day

Had one like me entered those doors,

Save once. That time I dared: “You may

Recall”—but never-foamless shores

Make better friends than those dull boors.

Many and many a day like this

Aimed at the unseen moving goal

And nothing found but remedies

For all desire. These made not whole;

They sowed a new desire, to kiss

Desire’s self beyond control,

Desire of desire. And yet

Life stayed on within my soul.

One night in sheltering from the wet

I quite forgot I could forget.

A customer, then the landlady

Stared at me. With a kind of smile

They hesitated awkwardly:

Their silence gave me time for guile.

Had anyone called there like me,

I asked. It was quite plain the wile

Succeeded. For they poured out all.

And that was naught. Less than a mile

Beyond the inn, I could recall

He was like me in general.

He had pleased them, but I less.

I was more eager than before

To find him out and to confess,

To bore him and to let him bore.

I could not wait: children might guess

I had a purpose, something more

That made an answer indiscreet.

One girl’s caution made me sore,

Too indignant even to greet

That other had we chanced to meet.

I sought then in solitude.

The wind had fallen with the night; as still

The roads lay as the ploughland rude,

Dark and naked, on the hill.

Had there been ever any feud

’Twixt earth and sky, a mighty will

Closed it: the crocketed dark trees,

A dark house, dark impossible

Cloud-towers, one star, one lamp, one peace

Held on an everlasting lease:

And all was earth’s, or all was sky’s;

No difference endured between

The two. A dog barked on a hidden rise;

A marshbird whistled high unseen;

The latest waking blackbird’s cries

Perished upon the silence keen.

The last light filled a narrow firth

Among the clouds. I stood serene,

And with a solemn quiet mirth,

An old inhabitant of earth.

Once the name I gave to hours

Like this was melancholy, when

It was not happiness and powers

Coming like exiles home again,

And weaknesses quitting their bowers,

Smiled and enjoyed, far off from men,

Moments of everlastingness.

And fortunate my search was then

While what I sought, nevertheless,

That I was seeking, I did not guess.

That time was brief: once more at inn

And upon road I sought my man

Till once amid a tap-room’s din

Loudly he asked for me, began

To speak, as if it had been a sin,

Of how I thought and dreamed and ran

After him thus, day after day:

He lived as one under a ban

For this: what had I got to say?

I said nothing, I slipped away.

And now I dare not follow after

Too close. I try to keep in sight,

Dreading his frown and worse his laughter.

I steal out of the wood to light;

I see the swift shoot from the rafter

By the inn door: ere I alight

I wait and hear the starlings wheeze

And nibble like ducks: I wait his flight.

He goes: I follow: no release

Until he ceases. Then I also shall cease.