Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A MEETING, by MARGARET SACKVILLE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A MEETING, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: One autumn evening in the crowded street
Last Line: Slain by the morning—swallowed up and lost
Subject(s): Ghosts; Supernatural


ONE Autumn evening in the crowded street,
Two ghosts, two lonely ghosts, did chance to meet.

Who, with a start, one to the other cried:—
"You!"—for they had not met since they had died.

"What are you doing?" "As I used to do
Watching the shops, the passers-by. And you?"

"The same." "Have you forgotten?" "Everything
Except that we were lovers ten years last Spring."

(For these two had loved well until the smart
Of foolish words drove each from each apart.)

"And are you angry still?" "Angry?" "You said
You hated me." "Hate dies when men are dead."—

"So much I have wanted you!" "And I and I!"—
"To meet like this it was worth while to die!"

Then these poor ghosts grew merry and forgot
That others still were flesh though they were not.

They saw the lamps burn mistily, the rain
Small, chill and cloudy on each window pane;

The passers-by, the signs green, red and white,
The flaring shops, the dark November night,

The newsboys at each corner; all around
The traffic roared above and underground,

Just as these two remembered: "But before
We never were so happy or loved more."

So on they glided, light as air, and free
From the old trouble and perplexity;

And came at last to their own door,—they stood
A moment, then passed lightly through the wood,

Floated upstairs and entered their small room
Which seemed to greet them with its shabby gloom,

And in each other's arms lay, nor repined
Because the past was bitter and unkind,

But whispered sweet things under their chill breath
Mingling, in that swift moment, life and death.

Until the melancholy Autumn dawn
Peered through a curtain of thick mist withdrawn.—

The cold, sad dawn, creeping above the pile
Of sooty roofs and chimneys, mile on mile,

And touched these two with its weak, sunless ray
In that deserted corner where they lay,

So that they weakened, faltered like a stream
Of dust dissolving in a stray sunbeam,

Thus melting into nothingness—no trace
Or whisper of lost passion in that place;—

Here the tale ends—for when day filled the cold,
Dark room with chilly shafts of frozen gold,

Then all indeed was over: each poor ghost
Slain by the morning—swallowed up and lost





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