55710: The Other
Creators: name: Project Team, First World War Poetry Digital Archive
Publisher: name: University of Oxford
Year: 2024
Subjects: classificationCode: 430304
subject: British history
classificationCode: 430308
subject: European history (excl. British, classical Greek and Roman)
classificationCode: 430316
subject: International history

description: The forest ended. Glad I was<br> To feel the light, and hear the hum<br> Of bees, and smell the drying grass<br> And the sweet mint, because I had come<br> To an end of forest, and because<br> Here was both road and inn, the sum<br> Of what's not forest. But 'twas here<br> They asked me if I did not pass<br> Yesterday this way. 'Not you? Queer.'<br> 'Who then? and slept here?' I felt fear.<br> I leant his road and, ere they were<br> Sure I was I, left the dark wood<br> Behind, kestrel and woodpecker,<br> The inn in the sun, the happy mood<br> When first I tasted sunlight there.<br> I travelled fast, in hopes I should<br> Outrun that other. What to do<br> When caught, I planned not. I pursued<br> To prove the likeness, and, if true,<br> To watch until myself I knew.<br> I tried the inns that evening<br> Of a long gabled high-street grey,<br> Of courts and outskirts, travelling<br> And eager but a weary way,<br> In vain. He was not there. Nothing<br> Told me that ever till that day<br> Had one like me entered those doors,<br> Save once. That time I dared: 'You may<br> Recall'---but never-foamless shores<br> Make better friends than those dull boors.<br> Many and many a day like this<br> Aimed at the unseen moving goal<br> And nothing found but remedies<br> For all desire. These made not whole;<br> They sowed a new desire, a kiss<br> Desire's self beyond control,<br> Desire of desire. And yet<br> Life stayed on within my soul.<br> One night in sheltering from the wet<br> I quite forgot I could forget.<br> A customer, then the landlady<br> Stared at me. With a kind of smile<br> They hesitated awkwardly:<br> Their silence gave me time for guile.<br> Had anyone called there like me,<br> I asked. It was quite plain the wile<br> Succeeded. For they poured out all.<br> And that was naught. Less than a mile<br> Beyond the inn, I could recall<br> He was like me in general.<br> He had pleased them, but I less.<br> I was more eager than before<br> To find him out and to confess,<br> To bore him and to let him bore.<br> I could not wait: children might guess<br> I had a purpose, something more<br> That made an answer indiscreet.<br> One girl's caution made me sore,<br> Too indignant even to greet<br> That other than we chanced to meet.<br> I sought then in solitude.<br> The wind had fallen with the night; as still<br> The roads lay as the ploughland rude,<br> Dark and naked, on the hill.<br> Had there been ever any feud<br> 'Twixt earth and sky, a mighty will<br> Closed it: the crocketed dark trees,<br> A dark house, dark impossible<br> Cloud-towers, one star, one lamp, one peace<br> Held on an everlasting lease:<br> And all was earth's, or all was sky's;<br> No difference endured between<br> The two. A dog barked on a hidden rise;<br> A marshbird whistled high unseen;<br> The latest waking blackbird's cries<br> Perished upon the silence keen.<br> The last light filled a narrow firth<br> Among the clouds. I stood serene,<br> And with a solemn quiet mirth,<br> An old inhabitant of earth.<br> Once the name I gave to hours<br> Like this was melancholy, when<br> It was not happiness and powers<br> Coming like exiles home again,<br> And weaknesses quitting their bowers,<br> Smiled and enjoyed, far off from men,<br> Moments of everlastingness.<br> And fortunate my search was then<br> While what I sought, nevertheless,<br> That I was seeking, I did not guess.<br> That time was brief: once more at inn<br> And upon road I sought my man<br> Till once amid a tap-room's din<br> Loudly he asked for me, began<br> To speak, as if it had been a sin,<br> Of how I thought and dreamed and ran<br> After him thus, day after day:<br> He lived as one under a ban<br> For this: what had I got to say?<br> I said nothing. I slipped away.<br> And now I dare not follow after<br> Too close. I try to keep in sight,<br> Dreading his frown and worse his laughter.<br> I steal out of the wood to light;<br> I see the swift shoot from the rafter<br> By the inn door: ere I alight<br> I wait and hear the starlings wheeze<br> And nibble like ducks: I wait his flight.<br> He goes: I follow: no release<br> Until he ceases. Then I also shall cease.<br>