James Thomson (1834-1882). In the Room. Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. 1922. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse

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Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.

In the Room

By James Thomson (1834–1882)


THE SUN was down, and twilight grey
Fill’d half the air; but in the room,
Whose curtain had been drawn all day,
The twilight was a dusky gloom:
Which seem’d at first as still as death,	5
And void; but was indeed all rife
With subtle thrills, the pulse and breath
Of multitudinous lower life.

In their abrupt and headlong way
Bewilder’d flies for light had dash’d	10
Against the curtain all the day,
And now slept wintrily abash’d,
And nimble mice slept, wearied out
With such a double night’s uproar;
But solid beetles crawl’d about	15
The chilly hearth and naked floor.

And so throughout the twilight hour
That vaguely murmurous hush and rest
There brooded; and beneath its power
Life throbbing held its throbs supprest:	20
Until the thin-voiced mirror sigh’d,
I am all blurr’d with dust and damp,
So long ago the clear day died,
So long has gleamed nor fire nor lamp.

Whereon the curtain murmur’d back,	25
Some change is on us, good or ill;
Behind me and before is black
As when those human things lie still:
But I have seen the darkness grow
As grows the daylight every morn;	30
Have felt out there long shine and glow,
In here long chilly dusk forlorn.

The cupboard grumbled with a groan,
Each new day worse starvation brings:
Since he came here I have not known	35
Or sweets or cates or wholesome things:
But now! a pinch of meal, a crust,
Throughout the week is all I get.
I am so empty; it is just
As when they said we were to let.	40

What is become, then, of our Man?
The petulant old glass exclaim’d;
If all this time he slumber can,
He really ought to be ashamed.
I wish we had our Girl again,	45
So gay and busy, bright and fair:
The girls are better than these men,
Who only for their dull selves care.

It is so many hours ago—
The lamp and fire were both alight—	50
I saw him pacing to and fro,
Perturbing restlessly the night.
His face was pale to give one fear,
His eyes when lifted looked too bright;
He mutter’d; what, I could not hear:	55
Bad words though; something was not right.

The table said, He wrote so long
That I grew weary of his weight;
The pen kept up a cricket song,
It ran and ran at such a rate:	60
And in the longer pauses he
With both his folded arms downpress’d
And stared as one who does not see,
Or sank his head upon his breast.

The fire-grate said, I am as cold	65
As if I never had a blaze;
The few dead cinders here I hold,
I held unburn’d for days and days.
Last night he made them flare; but still
What good did all his writing do?	70
Among my ashes curl and thrill
Thin ghosts of all those papers too.

The table answer’d, Not quite all;
He saved and folded up one sheet,
And seal’d it fast, and let it fall;	75
And here it lies now white and neat.
Whereon the letter’s whisper came,
My writing is closed up too well;
Outside there ’s not a single name,
And who should read me I can’t tell.	80

The mirror sneer’d with scornful spite,
(That ancient crack which spoil’d her looks
Had marr’d her temper), Write and write!
And read those stupid, worn-out books!
That ’s all he does,—read, write, and read,	85
And smoke that nasty pipe which stinks:
He never takes the slightest heed
How any of us feels or thinks.

But Lucy fifty times a day
Would come and smile here in my face,	90
Adjust a tress that curl’d astray,
Or tie a ribbon with more grace:
She look’d so young and fresh and fair,
She blush’d with such a charming bloom,
It did one good to see her there,	95
And brighten’d all things in the room.

She did not sit hours stark and dumb
As pale as moonshine by the lamp;
To lie in bed when day was come,
And leave us curtain’d chill and damp.	100
She slept away the dreary dark,
And rose to greet the pleasant morn;
And sang as gaily as a lark
While busy as the flies sun-born.

And how she loved us every one;	105
And dusted this and mended that,
With trills and laughs and freaks of fun,
And tender scoldings in her chat!
And then her bird, that sang as shrill
As she sang sweet; her darling flowers	110
That grew there in the window-sill,
Where she would sit at work for hours.

It was not much she ever wrote;
Her fingers had good work to do;
Say, once a week a pretty note;	115
And very long it took her too.
And little more she read, I wis;
Just now and then a pictured sheet,
Besides those letters she would kiss
And croon for hours, they were so sweet.	120

She had her friends too, blithe young girls,
Who whisper’d, babbled, laugh’d, caress’d,
And romp’d and danced with dancing curls,
And gave our life a joyous zest.
But with this dullard, glum and sour,	125
Not one of all his fellow-men
Has ever pass’d a social hour;
We might be in some wild beast’s den.

This long tirade aroused the bed,
Who spoke in deep and ponderous bass,	130
Befitting that calm life he led,
As if firm-rooted in his place:
In broad majestic bulk alone,
As in thrice venerable age,
He stood at once the royal throne,	135
The monarch, the experienced sage:

I know what is and what has been;
Not anything to me comes strange,
Who in so many years have seen
And lived through every kind of change.	140
I know when men are good or bad,
When well or ill, he slowly said;
When sad or glad, when sane or mad,
And when they sleep alive or dead.

At this last word of solemn lore	145
A tremor circled through the gloom,
As if a crash upon the floor
Had jarr’d and shaken all the room:
For nearly all the listening things
Were old and worn, and knew what curse	150
Of violent change death often brings,
From good to bad, from bad to worse;

They get to know each other well,
To feel at home and settled down;
Death bursts among them like a shell,	155
And strews them over all the town.
The bed went on, This man who lies
Upon me now is stark and cold;
He will not any more arise,
And do the things he did of old.	160

But we shall have short peace or rest;
For soon up here will come a rout,
And nail him in a queer long chest,
And carry him like luggage out.
They will be muffled all in black,	165
And whisper much, and sigh and weep:
But he will never more come back,
And some one else in me must sleep.

Thereon a little phial shrill’d,
Here empty on the chair I lie:	170
I heard one say, as I was fill’d,
With half of this a man would die.
The man there drank me with slow breath,
And murmur’d, Thus ends barren strife:
O sweeter, thou cold wine of death,	175
Than ever sweet warm wine of life!

One of my cousins long ago,
A little thing, the mirror said,
Was carried to a couch to show,
Whether a man was really dead.	180
Two great improvements marked the case:
He did not blur her with his breath,
His many-wrinkled, twitching face
Was smooth old ivory: verdict, Death.—

It lay, the lowest thing there, lull’d	185
Sweet-sleep-like in corruption’s truce;
The form whose purpose was annull’d,
While all the other shapes meant use.
It lay, the he become now it,
Unconscious of the deep disgrace,	190
Unanxious how its parts might flit
Through what new forms in time and space.

It lay and preach’d, as dumb things do,
More powerfully than tongues can prate;
Though life be torture through and through,	195
Man is but weak to plain of fate:
The drear path crawls on drearier still
To wounded feet and hopeless breast?
Well, he can lie down when he will,
And straight all ends in endless rest.	200

And while the black night nothing saw,
And till the cold morn came at last,
That old bed held the room in awe
With tales of its experience vast.
It thrill’d the gloom; it told such tales	205
Of human sorrows and delights,
Of fever moans and infant wails,
Of births and deaths and bridal nights.

CONTENTS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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