The Other
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HE forest ended. Glad I wasTo feel the light, and hear the humOf bees, and smell the drying grassAnd the sweet mint, because I had comeTo an end of forest, and becauseHere was both road and inn, the sumOf what's not forest. But 'twas hereThey asked me if I did not passYesterday this way? "Not you? Queer.""Who then? and slept here?" I felt fear. I learnt his road and, ere they wereSure I was I, left the dark woodBehind, kestrel and woodpecker,The inn in the sun, the happy moodWhen first I tasted sunlight there.I travelled fast, in hopes I shouldOutrun that other. What to doWhen caught, I planned not. I pursuedTo prove the likeness, and, if true,To watch until myself I knew. I tried the inns that eveningOf a long gabled high-street grey,Of courts and outskirts, travellingAn eager but a weary way,In vain. He was not there. NothingTold me that ever till that dayHad one like me entered those doors,Save once. That time I dared: "You mayRecall"--but never-foamless shoresMake better friends than those dull boors. Many and many a day like thisAimed at the unseen moving goalAnd nothing found but remediesFor all desire. These made not whole;They sowed a new desire, to kissDesire's self beyond control,Desire of desire. And yetLife stayed on within my soul.One night in sheltering from the wetI quite forgot I could forget. A customer, then the landladyStared at me. With a kind of smileThey hesitated awkwardly:Their silence gave me time for guile.Had anyone called there like me,I asked. It was quite plain the wileSucceeded. For they poured out all.And that was naught. Less than a mileBeyond the inn, I could recallHe was like me in general. He had pleased them, but I less.I was more eager than beforeTo find him out and to confess,To bore him and to let him bore.I could not wait: children might guessI had a purpose, something moreThat made an answer indiscreet.One girl's caution made me sore,Too indignant even to greetThat other had we chanced to meet. I sought then in solitude.The wind had fallen with the night; as stillThe roads lay as the ploughland rude,Dark and naked, on the hill.Had there been ever any feud'Twixt earth and sky, a mighty willClosed it: the crocketed dark trees,A dark house, dark impossibleCloud-towers, one star, one lamp, one peaceHeld on an everlasting lease: And all was earth's, or all was sky's;No difference endured betweenThe two. A dog barked on a hidden rise;A marshbird whistled high unseen;The latest waking blackbird's criesPerished upon the silence keen.The last light filled a narrow firthAmong the clouds. I stood serene,And with a solemn quiet mirth,An old inhabitant of earth. Once the name I gave to hoursLike this was melancholy, whenIt was not happiness and powersComing like exiles home again,And weaknesses quitting their bowers,Smiled and enjoyed, far off from men,Moments of everlastingness.And fortunate my search was thenWhile what I sought, nevertheless,That I was seeking, I did not guess. That time was brief: once more at innAnd upon road I sought my manTill once amid a tap-room's dinLoudly he asked for me, beganTo speak, as if it had been a sin,Of how I thought and dreamed and ranAfter him thus, day after day:He lived as one under a banFor this: what had I got to say?I said nothing, I slipped away. And now I dare not follow afterToo 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 rafterBy the inn door: ere I alightI wait and hear the starlings wheezeAnd nibble like ducks: I wait his flight.He goes: I follow: no releaseUntil he ceases. Then I also shall cease.
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