The Two Rosalinds

I

&nbsp The dubious daylight ended,
And I walked the Town alone, unminding whither bound and why,
As from each gaunt street and gaping square a mist of light ascended
&nbsp And dispersed upon the sky.

II

&nbsp Files of evanescent faces
Passed each other without heeding, in their travail, teen, or joy,
Some in void unvisioned listlessness inwrought with pallid traces
&nbsp Of keen penury's annoy.

III

&nbsp Nebulous flames in crystal cages
Leered as if with discontent at city movement, murk, and grime,
And as waiting some procession of great ghosts from bygone ages
&nbsp To exalt the ignoble time.

IV

&nbsp In a colonnade high-lighted,
By a thoroughfare where stern utilitarian traffic dinned,
On a red and white emblazonment of players and parts, I sighted
&nbsp The name of "Rosalind,"

V

&nbsp And her famous mates of "Arden,"
Who observed no stricter customs than "the seasons' difference" bade,
Who lived with running brooks for books in Nature's wildwood garden,
&nbsp And called idleness their trade . . .

VI

&nbsp Now the poster stirred an ember
Still remaining from my ardours of some forty years before,
When the selfsame portal on an eve it thrilled me to remember
&nbsp A like announcement bore;

VII

&nbsp And expectantly I had entered,
And had first beheld in human mould a Rosalind woo and plead,
On whose transcendent figuring my speedy soul had centred
&nbsp As it had been she indeed . . .

VIII

&nbsp So; all other plans discarding,
I resolved on entrance, bent on seeing what I once had seen,
And approached the gangway of my earlier knowledge, disregarding
&nbsp The tract of time between.

IX

&nbsp "The words, sir?" cried a creature
Hovering mid the shine and shade as 'twixt the live world and the tomb;
But the well-known numbers needed not for me a text or teacher
&nbsp To revive and re-illume.

X

&nbsp Then the play . . . But how unfitted
Was THIS Rosalind!—a mammet quite to me, in memories nurst,
And with chilling disappointment soon I sought the street I had quitted,
&nbsp To re-ponder on the first.

XI

&nbsp The hag still hawked,—I met her
Just without the colonnade. "So you don't like her, sir?" said she.
"Ah—I was once that Rosalind!—I acted her—none better -
&nbsp Yes—in eighteen sixty-three.

XII

&nbsp "Thus I won Orlando to me
In my then triumphant days when I had charm and maidenhood,
Now some forty years ago.—I used to say, COME WOO ME, WOO ME!"
&nbsp And she struck the attitude.

XIII

&nbsp It was when I had gone there nightly;
And the voice—though raucous now—was yet the old one.—Clear as noon
My Rosalind was here . . . Thereon the band withinside lightly
&nbsp Beat up a merry tune.