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diff --git a/2997-h/2997-h.htm b/2997-h/2997-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..19bb44f --- /dev/null +++ b/2997-h/2997-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5646 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Time's Laughingstocks, by Thomas Hardy</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Time's Laughingstocks, by Thomas Hardy + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Time's Laughingstocks + and Other Verses + + +Author: Thomas Hardy + + + +Release Date: December 21, 2014 [eBook #2997] +[This file was first posted on October 12, 2000] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TIME'S LAUGHINGSTOCKS*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1919 Macmillan and Co. edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>TIME’S<br /> +LAUGHINGSTOCKS<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">AND OTHER VERSES</span></h1> + +<div class="gapmediumline"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">BY<br /> +THOMAS HARDY</p> + +<div class="gapmediumline"> </div> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> + +<div class="gapmediumline"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED<br /> +ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON<br /> +1928</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="pageiv"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. iv</span>COPYRIGHT</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>First Edition</i> 1909<br /> +<i>Reprinted</i> 1910<br /> +<i>Second Edition</i> 1915<br /> +<i>Reprinted</i> 1919<br /> +<i>Pocket Edition</i> 1919<br /> +<i>Reprinted</i> 1923, 1924, 1928</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">PRINTED IN +GREAT BRITAIN</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">BY R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, +EDINBURGH</span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<h2><a name="pagev"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +v</span>PREFACE</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">In</span> collecting the following poems I +have to thank the editors and proprietors of the periodicals in +which certain of them have appeared for permission to reclaim +them.</p> +<p>Now that the miscellany is brought together, some lack of +concord in pieces written at widely severed dates, and in +contrasting moods and circumstances, will be obvious +enough. This I cannot help, but the sense of disconnection, +particularly in respect of those lyrics penned in the first +person, will be immaterial when it is borne in mind that they are +to be regarded, in the main, as dramatic monologues by different +characters.</p> +<p>As a whole they will, I hope, take the reader forward, even if +not far, rather than backward. I should add that some lines +in the early-dated poems have been rewritten, though they have +been left substantially unchanged.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">T. H.</p> +<p><i>September</i> 1909.</p> +<h2><a name="pagevii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +vii</span>CONTENTS</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td colspan="3"><p><span class="smcap">Time’s +Laughingstocks</span>—</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Revisitation</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page3">3</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>A Trampwoman’s Tragedy</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page11">11</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Two Rosalinds</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page17">17</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>A Sunday Morning Tragedy</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page21">21</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The House of Hospitalities</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page27">27</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>Bereft</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page28">28</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>John and Jane</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page30">30</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Curate’s Kindness</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page31">31</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Flirt’s Tragedy</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page34">34</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Rejected Member’s Wife</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page40">40</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Farm-Woman’s Winter</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page42">42</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>Autumn in King’s Hintock Park</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page43">43</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>Shut out that Moon</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page45">45</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>Reminiscences of a Dancing Man</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page47">47</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Dead Man Walking</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page49">49</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="3"><p><span class="smcap">More Love +Lyrics</span>—</p> +</td> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>1967</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page53">53</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>Her Definition</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page54">54</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Division</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page55">55</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p><a name="pageviii"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. viii</span>On the Departure Platform</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page56">56</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>In a Cathedral City</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page58">58</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>“I say I’ll seek Her”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page59">59</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>Her Father</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page60">60</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>At Waking</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page61">61</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>Four Footprints</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page63">63</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>In the Vaulted Way</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page65">65</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>In the Mind’s Eye</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page66">66</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The End of the Episode</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page67">67</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Sigh</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page68">68</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>“In the Night She Came”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page70">70</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Conformers</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page72">72</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Dawn after the Dance</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page74">74</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Sun on the Letter</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page76">76</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Night of the Dance</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page77">77</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>Misconception</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page78">78</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Voice of the Thorn</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page80">80</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>From Her in the Country</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page82">82</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>Her Confession</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page83">83</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>To an Impersonator of Rosalind</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page84">84</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>To an Actress</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page85">85</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Minute before Meeting</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page86">86</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>He abjures Love</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page87">87</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="3"><p><span class="smcap">A Set of Country +Songs</span>—</p> +</td> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>Let me Enjoy</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page91">91</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>At Casterbridge Fair:</p> +</td> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">I.</p> +</td> +<td><p>The Ballad-Singer</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page93">93</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">II.</p> +</td> +<td><p>Former Beauties</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page94">94</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><a name="pageix"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. ix</span>III.</p> +</td> +<td><p>After the Club Dance</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page95">95</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">IV.</p> +</td> +<td><p>The Market-Girl</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page95">95</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">V.</p> +</td> +<td><p>The Inquiry</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page96">96</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">VI.</p> +</td> +<td><p>A Wife Waits</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page97">97</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">VII.</p> +</td> +<td><p>After the Fair</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page98">98</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Dark-eyed Gentleman</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page100">100</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>To Carrey Clavel</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page102">102</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Orphaned Old Maid</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page103">103</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Spring Call</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page104">104</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>Julie-Jane</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page106">106</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>News for Her Mother</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page108">108</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Fiddler</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page110">110</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Husband’s View</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page111">111</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>Rose-Ann</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page113">113</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Homecoming</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page115">115</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="3"><p><span class="smcap">Pieces Occasional and +Various</span>—</p> +</td> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>A Church Romance</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page121">121</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Rash Bride</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page122">122</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Dead Quire</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page128">128</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Christening</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page135">135</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>A Dream Question</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page137">137</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>By the Barrows</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page139">139</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>A Wife and Another</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page140">140</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Roman Road</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page144">144</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Vampirine Fair</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page145">145</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Reminder</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page150">150</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Rambler</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page151">151</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p><a name="pagex"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +x</span>Night in the Old Home</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page152">152</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>After the Last Breath</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page154">154</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>In Childbed</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page156">156</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Pine Planters</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page158">158</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Dear</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page161">161</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>One We Knew</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page163">163</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>She Hears the Storm</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page166">166</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>A Wet Night</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page167">167</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>Before Life and After</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page168">168</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>New Year’s Eve</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page169">169</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>God’s Education</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page171">171</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>To Sincerity</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page172">172</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>Panthera</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page173">173</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Unborn</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page184">184</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Man He Killed</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page186">186</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>Geographical Knowledge</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page187">187</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>One Ralph Blossom Soliloquizes</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page189">189</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>The Noble Lady’s Tale</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page191">191</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>Unrealized</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page201">201</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>Wagtail and Baby</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page203">203</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>Aberdeen: 1905</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page204">204</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>George Meredith, 1828–1909</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page205">205</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>Yell’ham-wood’s Story</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page207">207</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td colspan="2"><p>A Young Man’s Epigram on Existence</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page208">208</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +1</span>TIME’S LAUGHINGSTOCKS</h2> +<h3><a name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 3</span>THE +REVISITATION</h3> +<p class="poetry"> <span class="smcap">As</span> +I lay awake at night-time<br /> +In an ancient country barrack known to ancient cannoneers,<br /> +And recalled the hopes that heralded each seeming brave and +bright time<br /> + Of my primal purple years,</p> +<p class="poetry"> Much it haunted me that, nigh +there,<br /> +I had borne my bitterest loss—when One who went, came not +again;<br /> +In a joyless hour of discord, in a joyless-hued July +there—<br /> + A July just such as then.</p> +<p class="poetry"> And as thus I brooded +longer,<br /> +With my faint eyes on the feeble square of wan-lit window +frame,<br /> +A quick conviction sprung within me, grew, and grew yet +stronger,<br /> + That the month-night was the same,</p> +<p class="poetry"> Too, as that which saw her +leave me<br /> +On the rugged ridge of Waterstone, the peewits plaining round;<br +/> +<a name="page4"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 4</span>And a +lapsing twenty years had ruled that—as it were to grieve +me—<br /> + I should near the once-loved ground.</p> +<p class="poetry"> Though but now a war-worn +stranger<br /> +Chance had quartered here, I rose up and descended to the +yard.<br /> +All was soundless, save the troopers’ horses tossing at the +manger,<br /> + And the sentry keeping guard.</p> +<p class="poetry"> Through the gateway I betook +me<br /> +Down the High Street and beyond the lamps, across the battered +bridge,<br /> +Till the country darkness clasped me and the friendly shine +forsook me,<br /> + And I bore towards the Ridge,</p> +<p class="poetry"> With a dim unowned emotion<br +/> +Saying softly: “Small my reason, now at midnight, to be +here . . .<br /> +Yet a sleepless swain of fifty with a brief romantic notion<br /> + May retrace a track so dear.”</p> +<p class="poetry"> Thus I walked with thoughts +half-uttered<br /> +Up the lane I knew so well, the grey, gaunt, lonely Lane of +Slyre;<br /> +And at whiles behind me, far at sea, a sullen thunder muttered<br +/> + As I mounted high and higher.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page5"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 5</span>Till, the upper roadway quitting,<br +/> +I adventured on the open drouthy downland thinly grassed,<br /> +While the spry white scuts of conies flashed before me, earthward +flitting,<br /> + And an arid wind went past.</p> +<p class="poetry"> Round about me bulged the +barrows<br /> +As before, in antique silence—immemorial funeral +piles—<br /> +Where the sleek herds trampled daily the remains of flint-tipt +arrows<br /> + Mid the thyme and chamomiles;</p> +<p class="poetry"> And the Sarsen stone there, +dateless,<br /> +On whose breast we had sat and told the zephyrs many a tender +vow,<br /> +Held the heat of yester sun, as sank thereon one fated +mateless<br /> + From those far fond hours till now.</p> +<p class="poetry"> Maybe flustered by my +presence<br /> +Rose the peewits, just as all those years back, wailing soft and +loud,<br /> +And revealing their pale pinions like a fitful phosphorescence<br +/> + Up against the cope of cloud,</p> +<p class="poetry"> Where their dolesome +exclamations<br /> +Seemed the voicings of the self-same throats I had heard when +life was green,<br /> +<a name="page6"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 6</span>Though since +that day uncounted frail forgotten generations<br /> + Of their kind had flecked the scene.—</p> +<p class="poetry"> And so, living long and +longer<br /> +In a past that lived no more, my eyes discerned there, +suddenly,<br /> +That a figure broke the skyline—first in vague contour, +then stronger,<br /> + And was crossing near to me.</p> +<p class="poetry"> Some long-missed familiar +gesture,<br /> +Something wonted, struck me in the figure’s pause to list +and heed,<br /> +Till I fancied from its handling of its loosely wrapping +vesture<br /> + That it might be She indeed.</p> +<p class="poetry"> ’Twas not reasonless: +below there<br /> +In the vale, had been her home; the nook might hold her even +yet,<br /> +And the downlands were her father’s fief; she still might +come and go there;—<br /> + So I rose, and said, “Agnette!”</p> +<p class="poetry"> With a little leap, +half-frightened,<br /> +She withdrew some steps; then letting intuition smother fear<br +/> +In a place so long-accustomed, and as one whom thought +enlightened,<br /> + She replied: “What—<i>that</i> +voice?—here!”</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page7"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 7</span>“Yes, Agnette!—And did the +occasion<br /> +Of our marching hither make you think I <i>might</i> walk where +we two—”<br /> +“O, I often come,” she murmured with a moment’s +coy evasion,<br /> + “(’Tis not far),—and—think +of you.”</p> +<p class="poetry"> Then I took her hand, and led +her<br /> +To the ancient people’s stone whereon I had sat. +There now sat we;<br /> +And together talked, until the first reluctant shyness fled +her,<br /> + And she spoke confidingly.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “It is <i>just</i> as +ere we parted!”<br /> +Said she, brimming high with joy.—“And when, then, +came you here, and why?”<br /> +“—Dear, I could not sleep for thinking of our +trystings when twin-hearted.”<br /> + She responded, “Nor could I.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “There are few things I +would rather<br /> +Than be wandering at this spirit-hour—lone-lived, my +kindred dead—<br /> +On this wold of well-known feature I inherit from my father:<br +/> + Night or day, I have no dread . . .</p> +<p class="poetry"> “O I wonder, wonder +whether<br /> +Any heartstring bore a signal-thrill between us twain or +no?—<br /> +<a name="page8"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 8</span>Some such +influence can, at times, they say, draw severed souls +together.”<br /> + I said, “Dear, we’ll dream it +so.”</p> +<p class="poetry"> Each one’s hand the +other’s grasping,<br /> +And a mutual forgiveness won, we sank to silent thought,<br /> +A large content in us that seemed our rended lives reclasping,<br +/> + And contracting years to nought.</p> +<p class="poetry"> Till I, maybe overweary<br /> +From the lateness, and a wayfaring so full of strain and +stress<br /> +For one no longer buoyant, to a peak so steep and eery,<br /> + Sank to slow unconsciousness . . .</p> +<p class="poetry"> How long I slept I knew +not,<br /> +But the brief warm summer night had slid when, to my swift +surprise,<br /> +A red upedging sun, of glory chambered mortals view not,<br /> + Was blazing on my eyes,</p> +<p class="poetry"> From the Milton Woods to +Dole-Hill<br /> +All the spacious landscape lighting, and around about my feet<br +/> +Flinging tall thin tapering shadows from the meanest mound and +mole-hill,<br /> + And on trails the ewes had beat.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page9"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 9</span>She was sitting still beside me,<br /> +Dozing likewise; and I turned to her, to take her hanging +hand;<br /> +When, the more regarding, that which like a spectre shook and +tried me<br /> + In her image then I scanned;</p> +<p class="poetry"> That which Time’s +transforming chisel<br /> +Had been tooling night and day for twenty years, and tooled too +well,<br /> +In its rendering of crease where curve was, where was raven, +grizzle—<br /> + Pits, where peonies once did dwell.</p> +<p class="poetry"> She had wakened, and +perceiving<br /> +(I surmise) my sigh and shock, my quite involuntary dismay,<br /> +Up she started, and—her wasted figure all throughout it +heaving—<br /> + Said, “Ah, yes: I am <i>thus</i> by day!</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Can you really wince +and wonder<br /> +That the sunlight should reveal you such a thing of skin and +bone,<br /> +As if unaware a Death’s-head must of need lie not far +under<br /> + Flesh whose years out-count your own?</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Yes: that movement was +a warning<br /> +Of the worth of man’s devotion!—Yes, Sir, I am +<i>old</i>,” said she,<br /> +<a name="page10"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 10</span>“And +the thing which should increase love turns it quickly into +scorning—<br /> + And your new-won heart from me!”</p> +<p class="poetry"> Then she went, ere I could +call her,<br /> +With the too proud temper ruling that had parted us before,<br /> +And I saw her form descend the slopes, and smaller grow and +smaller,<br /> + Till I caught its course no more . . .</p> +<p class="poetry"> True; I might have dogged her +downward;<br /> +—But it <i>may</i> be (though I know not) that this trick +on us of Time<br /> +Disconcerted and confused me.—Soon I bent my footsteps +townward,<br /> + Like to one who had watched a crime.</p> +<p class="poetry"> Well I knew my native +weakness,<br /> +Well I know it still. I cherished her reproach like +physic-wine,<br /> +For I saw in that emaciate shape of bitterness and bleakness<br +/> + A nobler soul than mine.</p> +<p class="poetry"> Did I not return, then, +ever?—<br /> +Did we meet again?—mend all?—Alas, what greyhead +perseveres!—<br /> +Soon I got the Route elsewhither.—Since that hour I have +seen her never:<br /> + Love is lame at fifty years.</p> +<h3><a name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 11</span>A +TRAMPWOMAN’S TRAGEDY<br /> +(182–)</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">From</span> Wynyard’s +Gap the livelong day,<br /> + The livelong day,<br /> +We beat afoot the northward way<br /> + We had travelled times before.<br /> +The sun-blaze burning on our backs,<br /> +Our shoulders sticking to our packs,<br /> +By fosseway, fields, and turnpike tracks<br /> + We skirted sad Sedge-Moor.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">II</p> +<p class="poetry">Full twenty miles we jaunted on,<br /> + We jaunted on,—<br /> +My fancy-man, and jeering John,<br /> + And Mother Lee, and I.<br /> +And, as the sun drew down to west,<br /> +We climbed the toilsome Poldon crest,<br /> +And saw, of landskip sights the best,<br /> + The inn that beamed thereby.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page12"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 12</span>III</p> +<p class="poetry">For months we had padded side by side,<br /> + Ay, side by side<br /> +Through the Great Forest, Blackmoor wide,<br /> + And where the Parret ran.<br /> +We’d faced the gusts on Mendip ridge,<br /> +Had crossed the Yeo unhelped by bridge,<br /> +Been stung by every Marshwood midge,<br /> + I and my fancy-man.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IV</p> +<p class="poetry">Lone inns we loved, my man and I,<br /> + My man and I;<br /> +“King’s Stag,” “Windwhistle” high +and dry,<br /> + “The Horse” on Hintock Green,<br /> +The cosy house at Wynyard’s Gap,<br /> +“The Hut” renowned on Bredy Knap,<br /> +And many another wayside tap<br /> + Where folk might sit unseen.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">V</p> +<p class="poetry">Now as we trudged—O deadly day,<br /> + O deadly day!—<br /> +I teased my fancy-man in play<br /> + And wanton idleness.<br /> +I walked alongside jeering John,<br /> +I laid his hand my waist upon;<br /> +I would not bend my glances on<br /> + My lover’s dark distress.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page13"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 13</span>VI</p> +<p class="poetry">Thus Poldon top at last we won,<br /> + At last we won,<br /> +And gained the inn at sink of sun<br /> + Far-famed as “Marshal’s Elm.”<br +/> +Beneath us figured tor and lea,<br /> +From Mendip to the western sea—<br /> +I doubt if finer sight there be<br /> + Within this royal realm.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VII</p> +<p class="poetry">Inside the settle all a-row—<br /> + All four a-row<br /> +We sat, I next to John, to show<br /> + That he had wooed and won.<br /> +And then he took me on his knee,<br /> +And swore it was his turn to be<br /> +My favoured mate, and Mother Lee<br /> + Passed to my former one.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VIII</p> +<p class="poetry">Then in a voice I had never heard,<br /> + I had never heard,<br /> +My only Love to me: “One word,<br /> + My lady, if you please!<br /> +Whose is the child you are like to bear?—<br /> +<i>His</i>? After all my months o’ care?”<br /> +God knows ’twas not! But, O despair!<br /> + I nodded—still to tease.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page14"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 14</span>IX</p> +<p class="poetry">Then up he sprung, and with his knife—<br +/> + And with his knife<br /> +He let out jeering Johnny’s life,<br /> + Yes; there, at set of sun.<br /> +The slant ray through the window nigh<br /> +Gilded John’s blood and glazing eye,<br /> +Ere scarcely Mother Lee and I<br /> + Knew that the deed was done.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">X</p> +<p class="poetry">The taverns tell the gloomy tale,<br /> + The gloomy tale,<br /> +How that at Ivel-chester jail<br /> + My Love, my sweetheart swung;<br /> +Though stained till now by no misdeed<br /> +Save one horse ta’en in time o’ need;<br /> +(Blue Jimmy stole right many a steed<br /> + Ere his last fling he flung.)</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XI</p> +<p class="poetry">Thereaft I walked the world alone,<br /> + Alone, alone!<br /> +On his death-day I gave my groan<br /> + And dropt his dead-born child.<br /> +’Twas nigh the jail, beneath a tree,<br /> +None tending me; for Mother Lee<br /> +Had died at Glaston, leaving me<br /> + Unfriended on the wild.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page15"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 15</span>XII</p> +<p class="poetry">And in the night as I lay weak,<br /> + As I lay weak,<br /> +The leaves a-falling on my cheek,<br /> + The red moon low declined—<br /> +The ghost of him I’d die to kiss<br /> +Rose up and said: “Ah, tell me this!<br /> +Was the child mine, or was it his?<br /> + Speak, that I rest may find!”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XIII</p> +<p class="poetry">O doubt not but I told him then,<br /> + I told him then,<br /> +That I had kept me from all men<br /> + Since we joined lips and swore.<br /> +Whereat he smiled, and thinned away<br /> +As the wind stirred to call up day . . .<br /> +—’Tis past! And here alone I stray<br /> + Haunting the Western Moor.</p> +<p><span +class="smcap">Notes</span>.—“Windwhistle” +(Stanza iv.). The highness and dryness of Windwhistle Inn +was impressed upon the writer two or three years ago, when, after +climbing on a hot afternoon to the beautiful spot near which it +stands and entering the inn for tea, he was informed by the +landlady that none could be had, unless he would fetch water from +a valley half a mile off, the house containing not a drop, owing +to its situation. However, a tantalizing row of full +barrels behind her back testified to a wetness of a certain sort, +which was not at that time desired.</p> +<p>“Marshal’s Elm” (Stanza vi.) so +picturesquely <a name="page16"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +16</span>situated, is no longer an inn, though the house, or part +of it, still remains. It used to exhibit a fine old +swinging sign.</p> +<p>“Blue Jimmy” (Stanza x.) was a notorious +horse-stealer of Wessex in those days, who appropriated more than +a hundred horses before he was caught, among others one belonging +to a neighbour of the writer’s grandfather. He was +hanged at the now demolished Ivel-chester or Ilchester jail above +mentioned—that building formerly of so many sinister +associations in the minds of the local peasantry, and the +continual haunt of fever, which at last led to its +condemnation. Its site is now an innocent-looking green +meadow.</p> +<p><i>April</i> 1902.</p> +<h3><a name="page17"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 17</span>THE +TWO ROSALINDS</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"> <span +class="smcap">The</span> dubious daylight ended,<br /> +And I walked the Town alone, unminding whither bound and why,<br +/> +As from each gaunt street and gaping square a mist of light +ascended<br /> + And dispersed upon the sky.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">II</p> +<p class="poetry"> Files of evanescent faces<br +/> +Passed each other without heeding, in their travail, teen, or +joy,<br /> +Some in void unvisioned listlessness inwrought with pallid +traces<br /> + Of keen penury’s annoy.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">III</p> +<p class="poetry"> Nebulous flames in crystal +cages<br /> +Leered as if with discontent at city movement, murk, and +grime,<br /> +<a name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 18</span>And as +waiting some procession of great ghosts from bygone ages<br /> + To exalt the ignoble time.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IV</p> +<p class="poetry"> In a colonnade +high-lighted,<br /> +By a thoroughfare where stern utilitarian traffic dinned,<br /> +On a red and white emblazonment of players and parts, I +sighted<br /> + The name of “Rosalind,”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">V</p> +<p class="poetry"> And her famous mates of +“Arden,”<br /> +Who observed no stricter customs than “the seasons’ +difference” bade,<br /> +Who lived with running brooks for books in Nature’s +wildwood garden,<br /> + And called idleness their trade . . .</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VI</p> +<p class="poetry"> Now the poster stirred an +ember<br /> +Still remaining from my ardours of some forty years before,<br /> +When the selfsame portal on an eve it thrilled me to remember<br +/> + A like announcement bore;</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page19"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 19</span>VII</p> +<p class="poetry"> And expectantly I had +entered,<br /> +And had first beheld in human mould a Rosalind woo and plead,<br +/> +On whose transcendent figuring my speedy soul had centred<br /> + As it had been she indeed . . .</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VIII</p> +<p class="poetry"> So; all other plans +discarding,<br /> +I resolved on entrance, bent on seeing what I once had seen,<br +/> +And approached the gangway of my earlier knowledge, +disregarding<br /> + The tract of time between.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IX</p> +<p class="poetry"> “The words, sir?” +cried a creature<br /> +Hovering mid the shine and shade as ’twixt the live world +and the tomb;<br /> +But the well-known numbers needed not for me a text or teacher<br +/> + To revive and re-illume.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">X</p> +<p class="poetry"> Then the play . . . But how +unfitted<br /> +Was <i>this</i> Rosalind!—a mammet quite to me, in memories +nurst,<br /> +<a name="page20"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 20</span>And with +chilling disappointment soon I sought the street I had +quitted,<br /> + To re-ponder on the first.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XI</p> +<p class="poetry"> The hag still hawked,—I +met her<br /> +Just without the colonnade. “So you don’t like +her, sir?” said she.<br /> +“Ah—<i>I</i> was once that Rosalind!—I acted +her—none better—<br /> + Yes—in eighteen sixty-three.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XII</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Thus I won Orlando to +me<br /> +In my then triumphant days when I had charm and maidenhood,<br /> +Now some forty years ago.—I used to say, <i>Come woo +me</i>, <i>woo me</i>!”<br /> + And she struck the attitude.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XIII</p> +<p class="poetry"> It was when I had gone there +nightly;<br /> +And the voice—though raucous now—was yet the old +one.—Clear as noon<br /> +My Rosalind was here . . . Thereon the band withinside lightly<br +/> + Beat up a merry tune.</p> +<h3><a name="page21"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 21</span>A +SUNDAY MORNING TRAGEDY<br /> +(<i>circa</i> 186–)</h3> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">bore</span> a daughter +flower-fair,<br /> +In Pydel Vale, alas for me;<br /> +I joyed to mother one so rare,<br /> +But dead and gone I now would be.</p> +<p class="poetry">Men looked and loved her as she grew,<br /> +And she was won, alas for me;<br /> +She told me nothing, but I knew,<br /> +And saw that sorrow was to be.</p> +<p class="poetry">I knew that one had made her thrall,<br /> +A thrall to him, alas for me;<br /> +And then, at last, she told me all,<br /> +And wondered what her end would be.</p> +<p class="poetry">She owned that she had loved too well,<br /> +Had loved too well, unhappy she,<br /> +And bore a secret time would tell,<br /> +Though in her shroud she’d sooner be.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page22"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +22</span>I plodded to her sweetheart’s door<br /> +In Pydel Vale, alas for me:<br /> +I pleaded with him, pleaded sore,<br /> +To save her from her misery.</p> +<p class="poetry">He frowned, and swore he could not wed,<br /> +Seven times he swore it could not be;<br /> +“Poverty’s worse than shame,” he said,<br /> +Till all my hope went out of me.</p> +<p class="poetry">“I’ve packed my traps to sail the +main”—<br /> +Roughly he spake, alas did he—<br /> +“Wessex beholds me not again,<br /> +’Tis worse than any jail would be!”</p> +<p class="poetry">—There was a shepherd whom I knew,<br /> +A subtle man, alas for me:<br /> +I sought him all the pastures through,<br /> +Though better I had ceased to be.</p> +<p class="poetry">I traced him by his lantern light,<br /> +And gave him hint, alas for me,<br /> +Of how she found her in the plight<br /> +That is so scorned in Christendie.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Is there an herb . . . ?” I +asked. “Or none?”<br /> +Yes, thus I asked him desperately.<br /> +“—There is,” he said; “a certain one . . +. ”<br /> +Would he had sworn that none knew he!</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page23"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +23</span>“To-morrow I will walk your way,”<br /> +He hinted low, alas for me.—<br /> +Fieldwards I gazed throughout next day;<br /> +Now fields I never more would see!</p> +<p class="poetry">The sunset-shine, as curfew strook,<br /> +As curfew strook beyond the lea,<br /> +Lit his white smock and gleaming crook,<br /> +While slowly he drew near to me.</p> +<p class="poetry">He pulled from underneath his smock<br /> +The herb I sought, my curse to be—<br /> +“At times I use it in my flock,”<br /> +He said, and hope waxed strong in me.</p> +<p class="poetry">“’Tis meant to balk +ill-motherings”—<br /> +(Ill-motherings! Why should they be?)—<br /> +“If not, would God have sent such things?”<br /> +So spoke the shepherd unto me.</p> +<p class="poetry">That night I watched the poppling brew,<br /> +With bended back and hand on knee:<br /> +I stirred it till the dawnlight grew,<br /> +And the wind whiffled wailfully.</p> +<p class="poetry">“This scandal shall be slain,” said +I,<br /> +“That lours upon her innocency:<br /> +I’ll give all whispering tongues the lie;”—<br +/> +But worse than whispers was to be.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page24"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +24</span>“Here’s physic for untimely fruit,”<br +/> +I said to her, alas for me,<br /> +Early that morn in fond salute;<br /> +And in my grave I now would be.</p> +<p class="poetry">—Next Sunday came, with sweet church +chimes<br /> +In Pydel Vale, alas for me:<br /> +I went into her room betimes;<br /> +No more may such a Sunday be!</p> +<p class="poetry">“Mother, instead of rescue +nigh,”<br /> +She faintly breathed, alas for me,<br /> +“I feel as I were like to die,<br /> +And underground soon, soon should be.”</p> +<p class="poetry">From church that noon the people walked<br /> +In twos and threes, alas for me,<br /> +Showed their new raiment—smiled and talked,<br /> +Though sackcloth-clad I longed to be.</p> +<p class="poetry">Came to my door her lover’s friends,<br +/> +And cheerly cried, alas for me,<br /> +“Right glad are we he makes amends,<br /> +For never a sweeter bride can be.”</p> +<p class="poetry">My mouth dried, as ’twere scorched +within,<br /> +Dried at their words, alas for me:<br /> +More and more neighbours crowded in,<br /> +(O why should mothers ever be!)</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page25"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +25</span>“Ha-ha! Such well-kept news!” laughed +they,<br /> +Yes—so they laughed, alas for me.<br /> +“Whose banns were called in church to-day?”—<br +/> +Christ, how I wished my soul could flee!</p> +<p class="poetry">“Where is she? O the stealthy +miss,”<br /> +Still bantered they, alas for me,<br /> +“To keep a wedding close as this . . .”<br /> +Ay, Fortune worked thus wantonly!</p> +<p class="poetry">“But you are pale—you did not +know?”<br /> +They archly asked, alas for me,<br /> +I stammered, “Yes—some days-ago,”<br /> +While coffined clay I wished to be.</p> +<p class="poetry">“’Twas done to please her, we +surmise?”<br /> +(They spoke quite lightly in their glee)<br /> +“Done by him as a fond surprise?”<br /> +I thought their words would madden me.</p> +<p class="poetry">Her lover entered. “Where’s +my bird?—<br /> +My bird—my flower—my picotee?<br /> +First time of asking, soon the third!”<br /> +Ah, in my grave I well may be.</p> +<p class="poetry">To me he whispered: “Since your +call—”<br /> +So spoke he then, alas for me—<br /> +“I’ve felt for her, and righted all.”<br /> +—I think of it to agony.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page26"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +26</span>“She’s faint +to-day—tired—nothing more—”<br /> +Thus did I lie, alas for me . . .<br /> +I called her at her chamber door<br /> +As one who scarce had strength to be.</p> +<p class="poetry">No voice replied. I went within—<br +/> +O women! scourged the worst are we . . .<br /> +I shrieked. The others hastened in<br /> +And saw the stroke there dealt on me.</p> +<p class="poetry">There she lay—silent, breathless, +dead,<br /> +Stone dead she lay—wronged, sinless she!—<br /> +Ghost-white the cheeks once rosy-red:<br /> +Death had took her. Death took not me.</p> +<p class="poetry">I kissed her colding face and hair,<br /> +I kissed her corpse—the bride to be!—<br /> +My punishment I cannot bear,<br /> +But pray God <i>not</i> to pity me.</p> +<p><i>January</i> 1904.</p> +<h3><a name="page27"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 27</span>THE +HOUSE OF HOSPITALITIES</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Here</span> we broached the +Christmas barrel,<br /> + Pushed up the charred log-ends;<br /> +Here we sang the Christmas carol,<br /> + And called in friends.</p> +<p class="poetry">Time has tired me since we met here<br /> + When the folk now dead were young,<br /> +Since the viands were outset here<br /> + And quaint songs sung.</p> +<p class="poetry">And the worm has bored the viol<br /> + That used to lead the tune,<br /> +Rust eaten out the dial<br /> + That struck night’s +noon.</p> +<p class="poetry">Now no Christmas brings in neighbours,<br /> + And the New Year comes unlit;<br /> +Where we sang the mole now labours,<br /> + And spiders knit.</p> +<p class="poetry">Yet at midnight if here walking,<br /> + When the moon sheets wall and tree,<br /> +I see forms of old time talking,<br /> + Who smile on me.</p> +<h3><a name="page28"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +28</span>BEREFT</h3> +<p class="poetry"> <span class="smcap">In</span> +the black winter morning<br /> +No light will be struck near my eyes<br /> +While the clock in the stairway is warning<br /> +For five, when he used to rise.<br /> + Leave the door unbarred,<br /> + The clock unwound,<br /> + Make my lone bed hard—<br /> + Would ’twere +underground!</p> +<p class="poetry"> When the summer dawns +clearly,<br /> +And the appletree-tops seem alight,<br /> +Who will undraw the curtain and cheerly<br /> +Call out that the morning is bright?</p> +<p class="poetry"> When I tarry at market<br /> +No form will cross Durnover Lea<br /> +In the gathering darkness, to hark at<br /> +Grey’s Bridge for the pit-pat o’ me.</p> +<p class="poetry"> When the supper crock’s +steaming,<br /> +And the time is the time of his tread,<br /> +<a name="page29"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 29</span>I shall +sit by the fire and wait dreaming<br /> +In a silence as of the dead.<br /> + Leave the door unbarred,<br /> + The clock unwound,<br /> + Make my lone bed hard—<br /> + Would ’twere +underground!</p> +<p>1901.</p> +<h3><a name="page30"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 30</span>JOHN +AND JANE</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">He</span> sees the world as +a boisterous place<br /> +Where all things bear a laughing face,<br /> +And humorous scenes go hourly on,<br /> + Does John.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">II</p> +<p class="poetry">They find the world a pleasant place<br /> +Where all is ecstasy and grace,<br /> +Where a light has risen that cannot wane,<br /> + Do John and Jane.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">III</p> +<p class="poetry">They see as a palace their cottage-place,<br /> +Containing a pearl of the human race,<br /> +A hero, maybe, hereafter styled,<br /> + Do John and Jane with a baby-child.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IV</p> +<p class="poetry">They rate the world as a gruesome place,<br /> +Where fair looks fade to a skull’s grimace,—<br /> +As a pilgrimage they would fain get done—<br /> + Do John and Jane with their worthless son.</p> +<h3><a name="page31"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 31</span>THE +CURATE’S KINDNESS<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">A WORKHOUSE IRONY</span></h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">thought</span> +they’d be strangers aroun’ me,<br /> + But she’s to be there!<br /> +Let me jump out o’ waggon and go back and drown me<br /> +At Pummery or Ten-Hatches Weir.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">II</p> +<p class="poetry">I thought: “Well, I’ve come to the +Union—<br /> + The workhouse at last—<br /> +After honest hard work all the week, and Communion<br /> +O’ Zundays, these fifty years past.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">III</p> +<p class="poetry">“’Tis hard; but,” I thought, +“never mind it:<br /> + There’s gain in the end:<br /> +And when I get used to the place I shall find it<br /> + A home, and may find there a friend.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page32"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 32</span>IV</p> +<p class="poetry">“Life there will be better than +t’other.<br /> + For peace is assured.<br /> +<i>The men in one wing and their wives in another</i><br /> + Is strictly the rule of the Board.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">V</p> +<p class="poetry">Just then one young Pa’son arriving<br /> + Steps up out of breath<br /> +To the side o’ the waggon wherein we were driving<br /> + To Union; and calls out and saith:</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VI</p> +<p class="poetry">“Old folks, that harsh order is +altered,<br /> + Be not sick of heart!<br /> +The Guardians they poohed and they pished and they paltered<br /> + When urged not to keep you apart.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VII</p> +<p class="poetry">“‘It is wrong,’ I maintained, +‘to divide them,<br /> + Near forty years wed.’<br /> +‘Very well, sir. We promise, then, they shall abide +them<br /> + In one wing together,’ they said.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page33"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 33</span>VIII</p> +<p class="poetry">Then I sank—knew ’twas quite a +foredone thing<br /> + That misery should be<br /> +To the end! . . . To get freed of her there was the one thing<br +/> + Had made the change welcome to me.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IX</p> +<p class="poetry">To go there was ending but badly;<br /> + ’Twas shame and ’twas pain;<br /> +“But anyhow,” thought I, “thereby I shall +gladly<br /> + Get free of this forty years’ +chain.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">X</p> +<p class="poetry">I thought they’d be strangers +aroun’ me,<br /> + But she’s to be there!<br /> +Let me jump out o’ waggon and go back and drown me<br /> + At Pummery or Ten-Hatches Weir.</p> +<h3><a name="page34"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 34</span>THE +FLIRT’S TRAGEDY<br /> +(17–)</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Here</span> alone by the +logs in my chamber,<br /> + Deserted, decrepit—<br /> +Spent flames limning ghosts on the wainscot<br /> + Of friends I once knew—</p> +<p class="poetry">My drama and hers begins weirdly<br /> + Its dumb re-enactment,<br /> +Each scene, sigh, and circumstance passing<br /> + In spectral review.</p> +<p class="poetry">—Wealth was mine beyond wish when I met +her—<br /> + The pride of the lowland—<br /> +Embowered in Tintinhull Valley<br /> + By laurel and yew;</p> +<p class="poetry">And love lit my soul, notwithstanding<br /> + My features’ ill favour,<br /> +Too obvious beside her perfections<br /> + Of line and of hue.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page35"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +35</span>But it pleased her to play on my passion,<br /> + And whet me to pleadings<br /> +That won from her mirthful negations<br /> + And scornings undue.</p> +<p class="poetry">Then I fled her disdains and derisions<br /> + To cities of pleasure,<br /> +And made me the crony of idlers<br /> + In every purlieu.</p> +<p class="poetry">Of those who lent ear to my story,<br /> + A needy Adonis<br /> +Gave hint how to grizzle her garden<br /> + From roses to rue,</p> +<p class="poetry">Could his price but be paid for so purging<br +/> + My scorner of scornings:<br /> +Thus tempted, the lust to avenge me<br /> + Germed inly and grew.</p> +<p class="poetry">I clothed him in sumptuous apparel,<br /> + Consigned to him coursers,<br /> +Meet equipage, liveried attendants<br /> + In full retinue.</p> +<p class="poetry">So dowered, with letters of credit<br /> + He wayfared to England,<br /> +And spied out the manor she goddessed,<br /> + And handy thereto,</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page36"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +36</span>Set to hire him a tenantless mansion<br /> + As coign-stone of vantage<br /> +For testing what gross adulation<br /> + Of beauty could do.</p> +<p class="poetry">He laboured through mornings and evens,<br /> + On new moons and sabbaths,<br /> +By wiles to enmesh her attention<br /> + In park, path, and pew;</p> +<p class="poetry">And having afar played upon her,<br /> + Advanced his lines nearer,<br /> +And boldly outleaping conventions,<br /> + Bent briskly to woo.</p> +<p class="poetry">His gay godlike face, his rare seeming<br /> + Anon worked to win her,<br /> +And later, at noontides and night-tides<br /> + They held rendezvous.</p> +<p class="poetry">His tarriance full spent, he departed<br /> + And met me in Venice,<br /> +And lines from her told that my jilter<br /> + Was stooping to sue.</p> +<p class="poetry">Not long could be further concealment,<br /> + She pled to him humbly:<br /> +“By our love and our sin, O protect me;<br /> + I fly unto you!”</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page37"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +37</span>A mighty remorse overgat me,<br /> + I heard her low anguish,<br /> +And there in the gloom of the <i>calle</i><br /> + My steel ran him through.</p> +<p class="poetry">A swift push engulphed his hot carrion<br /> + Within the canal there—<br /> +That still street of waters dividing<br /> + The city in two.</p> +<p class="poetry">—I wandered awhile all unable<br /> + To smother my torment,<br /> +My brain racked by yells as from Tophet<br /> + Of Satan’s whole crew.</p> +<p class="poetry">A month of unrest brought me hovering<br /> + At home in her precincts,<br /> +To whose hiding-hole local story<br /> + Afforded a clue.</p> +<p class="poetry">Exposed, and expelled by her people,<br /> + Afar off in London<br /> +I found her alone, in a sombre<br /> + And soul-stifling mew.</p> +<p class="poetry">Still burning to make reparation<br /> + I pleaded to wive her,<br /> +And father her child, and thus faintly<br /> + My mischief undo.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +38</span>She yielded, and spells of calm weather<br /> + Succeeded the tempest;<br /> +And one sprung of him stood as scion<br /> + Of my bone and thew . . .</p> +<p class="poetry">But Time unveils sorrows and secrets,<br /> + And so it befell now:<br /> +By inches the curtain was twitched at,<br /> + And slowly undrew.</p> +<p class="poetry">As we lay, she and I, in the night-time,<br /> + We heard the boy moaning:<br /> +“O misery mine! My false father<br /> + Has murdered my true!”</p> +<p class="poetry">She gasped: yea, she heard; understood it.<br +/> + Next day the child fled us;<br /> +And nevermore sighted was even<br /> + A print of his shoe.</p> +<p class="poetry">Thenceforward she shunned me, and +languished;<br /> + Till one day the park-pool<br /> +Embraced her fair form, and extinguished<br /> + Her eyes’ living blue.</p> +<p class="poetry">—So; ask not what blast may account +for<br /> + This aspect of pallor,<br /> +These bones that just prison within them<br /> + Life’s poor residue;</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page39"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +39</span>But pass by, and leave unregarded<br /> + A Cain to his suffering,<br /> +For vengeance too dark on the woman<br /> + Whose lover he slew.</p> +<h3><a name="page40"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 40</span>THE +REJECTED MEMBER’S WIFE</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">We</span> shall see her no +more<br /> + On the balcony,<br /> +Smiling, while hurt, at the roar<br /> + As of surging sea<br /> +From the stormy sturdy band<br /> + Who have doomed her lord’s cause,<br /> +Though she waves her little hand<br /> + As it were applause.</p> +<p class="poetry">Here will be candidates yet,<br /> + And candidates’ wives,<br /> +Fervid with zeal to set<br /> + Their ideals on our lives:<br /> +Here will come market-men<br /> + On the market-days,<br /> +Here will clash now and then<br /> + More such party assays.</p> +<p class="poetry">And the balcony will fill<br /> + When such times are renewed,<br /> +And the throng in the street will thrill<br /> + With to-day’s mettled mood;<br /> +<a name="page41"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 41</span>But she +will no more stand<br /> + In the sunshine there,<br /> +With that wave of her white-gloved hand,<br /> + And that chestnut hair.</p> +<p><i>January</i> 1906.</p> +<h3><a name="page42"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 42</span>THE +FARM-WOMAN’S WINTER</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry">If seasons all were summers,<br /> + And leaves would never fall,<br /> +And hopping casement-comers<br /> + Were foodless not at all,<br /> +And fragile folk might be here<br /> + That white winds bid depart;<br /> +Then one I used to see here<br /> + Would warm my wasted heart!</p> +<p style="text-align: center">II</p> +<p class="poetry">One frail, who, bravely tilling<br /> + Long hours in gripping gusts,<br /> +Was mastered by their chilling,<br /> + And now his ploughshare rusts.<br /> +So savage winter catches<br /> + The breath of limber things,<br /> +And what I love he snatches,<br /> + And what I love not, brings.</p> +<h3><a name="page43"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 43</span>AUTUMN +IN KING’S<br /> +HINTOCK PARK</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Here</span> by the baring +bough<br /> + Raking up leaves,<br /> +Often I ponder how<br /> + Springtime deceives,—<br /> +I, an old woman now,<br /> + Raking up leaves.</p> +<p class="poetry">Here in the avenue<br /> + Raking up leaves,<br /> +Lords’ ladies pass in view,<br /> + Until one heaves<br /> +Sighs at life’s russet hue,<br /> + Raking up leaves!</p> +<p class="poetry">Just as my shape you see<br /> + Raking up leaves,<br /> +I saw, when fresh and free,<br /> + Those memory weaves<br /> +Into grey ghosts by me,<br /> + Raking up leaves.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page44"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +44</span>Yet, Dear, though one may sigh,<br /> + Raking up leaves,<br /> +New leaves will dance on high—<br /> + Earth never grieves!—<br /> +Will not, when missed am I<br /> + Raking up leaves.</p> +<p>1901.</p> +<h3><a name="page45"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 45</span>SHUT +OUT THAT MOON</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Close</span> up the +casement, draw the blind,<br /> + Shut out that stealing moon,<br /> +She wears too much the guise she wore<br /> + Before our lutes were strewn<br /> +With years-deep dust, and names we read<br /> + On a white stone were hewn.</p> +<p class="poetry">Step not out on the dew-dashed lawn<br /> + To view the Lady’s Chair,<br /> +Immense Orion’s glittering form,<br /> + The Less and Greater Bear:<br /> +Stay in; to such sights we were drawn<br /> + When faded ones were fair.</p> +<p class="poetry">Brush not the bough for midnight scents<br /> + That come forth lingeringly,<br /> +And wake the same sweet sentiments<br /> + They breathed to you and me<br /> +When living seemed a laugh, and love<br /> + All it was said to be.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page46"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +46</span>Within the common lamp-lit room<br /> + Prison my eyes and thought;<br /> +Let dingy details crudely loom,<br /> + Mechanic speech be wrought:<br /> +Too fragrant was Life’s early bloom,<br /> + Too tart the fruit it brought!</p> +<p>1904.</p> +<h3><a name="page47"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +47</span>REMINISCENCES OF A DANCING MAN</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Who</span> now remembers +Almack’s balls—<br /> + Willis’s sometime named—<br /> +In those two smooth-floored upper halls<br /> + For faded ones so famed?<br /> +Where as we trod to trilling sound<br /> +The fancied phantoms stood around,<br /> + Or joined us in the maze,<br /> +Of the powdered Dears from Georgian years,<br /> +Whose dust lay in sightless sealed-up biers,<br /> + The fairest of former days.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">II</p> +<p class="poetry">Who now remembers gay Cremorne,<br /> + And all its jaunty jills,<br /> +And those wild whirling figures born<br /> + Of Jullien’s grand quadrilles?<br /> +With hats on head and morning coats<br /> +There footed to his prancing notes<br /> + <a name="page48"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +48</span>Our partner-girls and we;<br /> +And the gas-jets winked, and the lustres clinked,<br /> +And the platform throbbed as with arms enlinked<br /> + We moved to the minstrelsy.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">III</p> +<p class="poetry">Who now recalls those crowded rooms<br /> + Of old yclept “The Argyle,”<br /> +Where to the deep Drum-polka’s booms<br /> + We hopped in standard style?<br /> +Whither have danced those damsels now!<br /> +Is Death the partner who doth moue<br /> + Their wormy chaps and bare?<br /> +Do their spectres spin like sparks within<br /> +The smoky halls of the Prince of Sin<br /> + To a thunderous Jullien air?</p> +<h3><a name="page49"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 49</span>THE +DEAD MAN WALKING</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">They</span> hail me as one +living,<br /> + But don’t they know<br /> +That I have died of late years,<br /> + Untombed although?</p> +<p class="poetry">I am but a shape that stands here,<br /> + A pulseless mould,<br /> +A pale past picture, screening<br /> + Ashes gone cold.</p> +<p class="poetry">Not at a minute’s warning,<br /> + Not in a loud hour,<br /> +For me ceased Time’s enchantments<br /> + In hall and bower.</p> +<p class="poetry">There was no tragic transit,<br /> + No catch of breath,<br /> +When silent seasons inched me<br /> + On to this death . . .</p> +<p class="poetry">—A Troubadour-youth I rambled<br /> + With Life for lyre,<br /> +The beats of being raging<br /> + In me like fire.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page50"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +50</span>But when I practised eyeing<br /> + The goal of men,<br /> +It iced me, and I perished<br /> + A little then.</p> +<p class="poetry">When passed my friend, my kinsfolk<br /> + Through the Last Door,<br /> +And left me standing bleakly,<br /> + I died yet more;</p> +<p class="poetry">And when my Love’s heart kindled<br /> + In hate of me,<br /> +Wherefore I knew not, died I<br /> + One more degree.</p> +<p class="poetry">And if when I died fully<br /> + I cannot say,<br /> +And changed into the corpse-thing<br /> + I am to-day;</p> +<p class="poetry">Yet is it that, though whiling<br /> + The time somehow<br /> +In walking, talking, smiling,<br /> + I live not now.</p> +<h2><a name="page51"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 51</span>MORE +LOVE LYRICS</h2> +<h3><a name="page53"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +53</span>1967</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">In</span> five-score +summers! All new eyes,<br /> +New minds, new modes, new fools, new wise;<br /> +New woes to weep, new joys to prize;</p> +<p class="poetry">With nothing left of me and you<br /> +In that live century’s vivid view<br /> +Beyond a pinch of dust or two;</p> +<p class="poetry">A century which, if not sublime,<br /> +Will show, I doubt not, at its prime,<br /> +A scope above this blinkered time.</p> +<p class="poetry">—Yet what to me how far above?<br /> +For I would only ask thereof<br /> +That thy worm should be my worm, Love!</p> +<p>16 <span class="smcap">Westbourne Park Villas</span>, +1867.</p> +<h3><a name="page54"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 54</span>HER +DEFINITION</h3> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">lingered</span> through +the night to break of day,<br /> +Nor once did sleep extend a wing to me,<br /> +Intently busied with a vast array<br /> +Of epithets that should outfigure thee.</p> +<p class="poetry">Full-featured terms—all +fitless—hastened by,<br /> +And this sole speech remained: “That maiden +mine!”—<br /> +Debarred from due description then did I<br /> +Perceive the indefinite phrase could yet define.</p> +<p class="poetry">As common chests encasing wares of price<br /> +Are borne with tenderness through halls of state,<br /> +For what they cover, so the poor device<br /> +Of homely wording I could tolerate,<br /> +Knowing its unadornment held as freight<br /> +The sweetest image outside Paradise.</p> +<p>W. P. V.,<br /> +Summer: 1866.</p> +<h3><a name="page55"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 55</span>THE +DIVISION</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Rain</span> on the windows, +creaking doors,<br /> + With blasts that besom the green,<br /> +And I am here, and you are there,<br /> + And a hundred miles between!</p> +<p class="poetry">O were it but the weather, Dear,<br /> + O were it but the miles<br /> +That summed up all our severance,<br /> + There might be room for smiles.</p> +<p class="poetry">But that thwart thing betwixt us twain,<br /> + Which nothing cleaves or clears,<br /> +Is more than distance, Dear, or rain,<br /> + And longer than the years!</p> +<p>1893.</p> +<h3><a name="page56"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 56</span>ON THE +DEPARTURE PLATFORM</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">We</span> kissed at the +barrier; and passing through<br /> +She left me, and moment by moment got<br /> +Smaller and smaller, until to my view<br /> + She was but a spot;</p> +<p class="poetry">A wee white spot of muslin fluff<br /> +That down the diminishing platform bore<br /> +Through hustling crowds of gentle and rough<br /> + To the carriage door.</p> +<p class="poetry">Under the lamplight’s fitful glowers,<br +/> +Behind dark groups from far and near,<br /> +Whose interests were apart from ours,<br /> + She would disappear,</p> +<p class="poetry">Then show again, till I ceased to see<br /> +That flexible form, that nebulous white;<br /> +And she who was more than my life to me<br /> + Had vanished quite . . .</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page57"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +57</span>We have penned new plans since that fair fond day,<br /> +And in season she will appear again—<br /> +Perhaps in the same soft white array—<br /> + But never as then!</p> +<p class="poetry">—“And why, young man, must +eternally fly<br /> +A joy you’ll repeat, if you love her well?”<br /> +—O friend, nought happens twice thus; why,<br /> + I cannot tell!</p> +<h3><a name="page58"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 58</span>IN A +CATHEDRAL CITY</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">These</span> people have +not heard your name;<br /> +No loungers in this placid place<br /> +Have helped to bruit your beauty’s fame.</p> +<p class="poetry">The grey Cathedral, towards whose face<br /> +Bend eyes untold, has met not yours;<br /> +Your shade has never swept its base,</p> +<p class="poetry">Your form has never darked its doors,<br /> +Nor have your faultless feet once thrown<br /> +A pensive pit-pat on its floors.</p> +<p class="poetry">Along the street to maids well known<br /> +Blithe lovers hum their tender airs,<br /> +But in your praise voice not a tone.</p> +<p class="poetry">—Since nought bespeaks you here, or +bears,<br /> +As I, your imprint through and through,<br /> +Here might I rest, till my heart shares<br /> +The spot’s unconsciousness of you!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Salisbury</span>.</p> +<h3><a name="page59"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +59</span>“I SAY I’LL SEEK HER”</h3> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">say</span>, +“I’ll seek her side<br /> + Ere hindrance interposes;”<br /> + But eve in midnight closes,<br /> +And here I still abide.</p> +<p class="poetry">When darkness wears I see<br /> + Her sad eyes in a vision;<br /> + They ask, “What indecision<br /> +Detains you, Love, from me?—</p> +<p class="poetry">“The creaking hinge is oiled,<br /> + I have unbarred the backway,<br /> + But you tread not the trackway;<br /> +And shall the thing be spoiled?</p> +<p class="poetry">“Far cockcrows echo shrill,<br /> + The shadows are abating,<br /> + And I am waiting, waiting;<br /> +But O, you tarry still!”</p> +<h3><a name="page60"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 60</span>HER +FATHER</h3> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">met</span> her, as we had +privily planned,<br /> +Where passing feet beat busily:<br /> +She whispered: “Father is at hand!<br /> + He wished to walk with me.”</p> +<p class="poetry">His presence as he joined us there<br /> +Banished our words of warmth away;<br /> +We felt, with cloudings of despair,<br /> + What Love must lose that day.</p> +<p class="poetry">Her crimson lips remained unkissed,<br /> +Our fingers kept no tender hold,<br /> +His lack of feeling made the tryst<br /> + Embarrassed, stiff, and cold.</p> +<p class="poetry">A cynic ghost then rose and said,<br /> +“But is his love for her so small<br /> +That, nigh to yours, it may be read<br /> + As of no worth at all?</p> +<p class="poetry">“You love her for her pink and white;<br +/> +But what when their fresh splendours close?<br /> +His love will last her in despite<br /> + Of Time, and wrack, and foes.”</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Weymouth</span>.</p> +<h3><a name="page61"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 61</span>AT +WAKING</h3> +<p class="poetry"> <span +class="smcap">When</span> night was lifting,<br /> +And dawn had crept under its shade,<br /> + Amid cold clouds drifting<br /> +Dead-white as a corpse outlaid,<br /> + With a sudden scare<br /> + I seemed to behold<br /> + My Love in bare<br /> + Hard lines unfold.</p> +<p class="poetry"> Yea, in a moment,<br /> +An insight that would not die<br /> + Killed her old endowment<br /> +Of charm that had capped all nigh,<br /> + Which vanished to none<br /> + Like the gilt of a cloud,<br /> + And showed her but one<br /> + Of the common crowd.</p> +<p class="poetry"> She seemed but a sample<br /> +Of earth’s poor average kind,<br /> + Lit up by no ample<br /> +Enrichments of mien or mind.<br /> + <a name="page62"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 62</span>I covered my eyes<br /> + As to cover the thought,<br /> + And unrecognize<br /> + What the morn had taught.</p> +<p class="poetry"> O vision appalling<br /> +When the one believed-in thing<br /> + Is seen falling, falling,<br /> +With all to which hope can cling.<br /> + Off: it is not true;<br /> + For it cannot be<br /> + That the prize I drew<br /> + Is a blank to me!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Weymouth</span>, 1869.</p> +<h3><a name="page63"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 63</span>FOUR +FOOTPRINTS</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Here</span> are the tracks +upon the sand<br /> +Where stood last evening she and I—<br /> +Pressed heart to heart and hand to hand;<br /> +The morning sun has baked them dry.</p> +<p class="poetry">I kissed her wet face—wet with rain,<br +/> +For arid grief had burnt up tears,<br /> +While reached us as in sleeping pain<br /> +The distant gurgling of the weirs.</p> +<p class="poetry">“I have married him—yes; feel that +ring;<br /> +’Tis a week ago that he put it on . . .<br /> +A dutiful daughter does this thing,<br /> +And resignation succeeds anon!</p> +<p class="poetry">“But that I body and soul was yours<br /> +Ere he’d possession, he’ll never know.<br /> +He’s a confident man. ‘The husband +scores,’<br /> +He says, ‘in the long run’ . . . Now, Dear, +go!”</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page64"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +64</span>I went. And to-day I pass the spot;<br /> +It is only a smart the more to endure;<br /> +And she whom I held is as though she were not,<br /> +For they have resumed their honeymoon tour.</p> +<h3><a name="page65"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 65</span>IN THE +VAULTED WAY</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">In</span> the vaulted way, +where the passage turned<br /> +To the shadowy corner that none could see,<br /> +You paused for our parting,—plaintively;<br /> +Though overnight had come words that burned<br /> +My fond frail happiness out of me.</p> +<p class="poetry">And then I kissed you,—despite my +thought<br /> +That our spell must end when reflection came<br /> +On what you had deemed me, whose one long aim<br /> +Had been to serve you; that what I sought<br /> +Lay not in a heart that could breathe such blame.</p> +<p class="poetry">But yet I kissed you; whereon you again<br /> +As of old kissed me. Why, why was it so?<br /> +Do you cleave to me after that light-tongued blow?<br /> +If you scorned me at eventide, how love then?<br /> +The thing is dark, Dear. I do not know.</p> +<h3><a name="page66"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 66</span>IN THE +MIND’S EYE</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">That</span> was once her +casement,<br /> + And the taper nigh,<br /> +Shining from within there,<br /> + Beckoned, “Here am I!”</p> +<p class="poetry">Now, as then, I see her<br /> + Moving at the pane;<br /> +Ah; ’tis but her phantom<br /> + Borne within my brain!—</p> +<p class="poetry">Foremost in my vision<br /> + Everywhere goes she;<br /> +Change dissolves the landscapes,<br /> + She abides with me.</p> +<p class="poetry">Shape so sweet and shy, Dear,<br /> + Who can say thee nay?<br /> +Never once do I, Dear,<br /> + Wish thy ghost away.</p> +<h3><a name="page67"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 67</span>THE +END OF THE EPISODE</h3> +<p class="poetry"> <span +class="smcap">Indulge</span> no more may we<br /> +In this sweet-bitter pastime:<br /> +The love-light shines the last time<br /> + Between you, Dear, and me.</p> +<p class="poetry"> There shall remain no +trace<br /> +Of what so closely tied us,<br /> +And blank as ere love eyed us<br /> + Will be our meeting-place.</p> +<p class="poetry"> The flowers and thymy air,<br +/> +Will they now miss our coming?<br /> +The dumbles thin their humming<br /> + To find we haunt not there?</p> +<p class="poetry"> Though fervent was our +vow,<br /> +Though ruddily ran our pleasure,<br /> +Bliss has fulfilled its measure,<br /> + And sees its sentence now.</p> +<p class="poetry"> Ache deep; but make no +moans:<br /> +Smile out; but stilly suffer:<br /> +The paths of love are rougher<br /> + Than thoroughfares of stones.</p> +<h3><a name="page68"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 68</span>THE +SIGH</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Little</span> head against +my shoulder,<br /> +Shy at first, then somewhat bolder,<br /> + And up-eyed;<br /> +Till she, with a timid quaver,<br /> +Yielded to the kiss I gave her;<br /> + But, she sighed.</p> +<p class="poetry">That there mingled with her feeling<br /> +Some sad thought she was concealing<br /> + It implied.<br /> +—Not that she had ceased to love me,<br /> +None on earth she set above me;<br /> + But she sighed.</p> +<p class="poetry">She could not disguise a passion,<br /> +Dread, or doubt, in weakest fashion<br /> + If she tried:<br /> +Nothing seemed to hold us sundered,<br /> +Hearts were victors; so I wondered<br /> + Why she sighed.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page69"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +69</span>Afterwards I knew her throughly,<br /> +And she loved me staunchly, truly,<br /> + Till she died;<br /> +But she never made confession<br /> +Why, at that first sweet concession,<br /> + She had sighed.</p> +<p class="poetry">It was in our May, remember;<br /> +And though now I near November,<br /> + And abide<br /> +Till my appointed change, unfretting,<br /> +Sometimes I sit half regretting<br /> + That she sighed.</p> +<h3><a name="page70"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +70</span>“IN THE NIGHT SHE CAME”</h3> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">told</span> her when I +left one day<br /> +That whatsoever weight of care<br /> +Might strain our love, Time’s mere assault<br /> + Would work no changes there.<br /> +And in the night she came to me,<br /> + Toothless, and wan, and old,<br /> +With leaden concaves round her eyes,<br /> + And wrinkles manifold.</p> +<p class="poetry">I tremblingly exclaimed to her,<br /> +“O wherefore do you ghost me thus!<br /> +I have said that dull defacing Time<br /> + Will bring no dreads to us.”<br /> +“And is that true of <i>you</i>?” she cried<br /> + In voice of troubled tune.<br /> +I faltered: “Well . . . I did not think<br /> + You would test me quite so soon!”</p> +<p class="poetry">She vanished with a curious smile,<br /> +Which told me, plainlier than by word,<br /> +That my staunch pledge could scarce beguile<br /> + The fear she had averred.<br /> +<a name="page71"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 71</span>Her doubts +then wrought their shape in me,<br /> + And when next day I paid<br /> +My due caress, we seemed to be<br /> + Divided by some shade.</p> +<h3><a name="page72"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 72</span>THE +CONFORMERS</h3> +<p class="poetry"> <span +class="smcap">Yes</span>; we’ll wed, my little fay,<br /> + And you shall write you mine,<br /> +And in a villa chastely gray<br /> + We’ll house, and sleep, and dine.<br /> + But those night-screened, divine,<br /> + Stolen trysts of heretofore,<br /> +We of choice ecstasies and fine<br /> + Shall know no more.</p> +<p class="poetry"> The formal faced cohue<br /> + Will then no more upbraid<br /> +With smiting smiles and whisperings two<br /> + Who have thrown less loves in shade.<br /> + We shall no more evade<br /> + The searching light of the sun,<br /> +Our game of passion will be played,<br /> + Our dreaming done.</p> +<p class="poetry"> We shall not go in stealth<br +/> + To rendezvous unknown,<br /> +But friends will ask me of your health,<br /> + And you about my own.<br /> + <a name="page73"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +73</span>When we abide alone,<br /> + No leapings each to each,<br /> +But syllables in frigid tone<br /> + Of household speech.</p> +<p class="poetry"> When down to dust we glide<br +/> + Men will not say askance,<br /> +As now: “How all the country side<br /> + Rings with their mad romance!”<br /> + But as they graveward glance<br /> + Remark: “In them we lose<br /> +A worthy pair, who helped advance<br /> + Sound parish views.”</p> +<h3><a name="page74"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 74</span>THE +DAWN AFTER THE DANCE</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Here</span> is your +parents’ dwelling with its curtained windows telling<br /> +Of no thought of us within it or of our arrival here;<br /> +Their slumbers have been normal after one day more of formal<br +/> +Matrimonial commonplace and household life’s mechanic +gear.</p> +<p class="poetry">I would be candid willingly, but dawn draws on +so chillingly<br /> +As to render further cheerlessness intolerable now,<br /> +So I will not stand endeavouring to declare a day for +severing,<br /> +But will clasp you just as always—just the olden love +avow.</p> +<p class="poetry">Through serene and surly weather we have walked +the ways together,<br /> +And this long night’s dance this year’s end eve now +finishes the spell;<br /> +<a name="page75"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 75</span>Yet we +dreamt us but beginning a sweet sempiternal spinning<br /> +Of a cord we have spun to breaking—too intemperately, too +well.</p> +<p class="poetry">Yes; last night we danced I know, Dear, as we +did that year ago, Dear,<br /> +When a new strange bond between our days was formed, and felt, +and heard;<br /> +Would that dancing were the worst thing from the latest to the +first thing<br /> +That the faded year can charge us with; but what avails a +word!</p> +<p class="poetry">That which makes man’s love the lighter +and the woman’s burn no brighter<br /> +Came to pass with us inevitably while slipped the shortening year +. . .<br /> +And there stands your father’s dwelling with its blind +bleak windows telling<br /> +That the vows of man and maid are frail as filmy gossamere.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Weymouth</span>, 1869.</p> +<h3><a name="page76"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 76</span>THE +SUN ON THE LETTER</h3> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">drew</span> the letter +out, while gleamed<br /> +The sloping sun from under a roof<br /> +Of cloud whose verge rose visibly.</p> +<p class="poetry">The burning ball flung rays that seemed<br /> +Stretched like a warp without a woof<br /> +Across the levels of the lea</p> +<p class="poetry">To where I stood, and where they beamed<br /> +As brightly on the page of proof<br /> +That she had shown her false to me</p> +<p class="poetry">As if it had shown her true—had teemed<br +/> +With passionate thought for my behoof<br /> +Expressed with their own ardency!</p> +<h3><a name="page77"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 77</span>THE +NIGHT OF THE DANCE</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> cold moon hangs +to the sky by its horn,<br /> + And centres its gaze on me;<br /> +The stars, like eyes in reverie,<br /> +Their westering as for a while forborne,<br /> + Quiz downward curiously.</p> +<p class="poetry">Old Robert draws the backbrand in,<br /> + The green logs steam and spit;<br /> +The half-awakened sparrows flit<br /> +From the riddled thatch; and owls begin<br /> + To whoo from the gable-slit.</p> +<p class="poetry">Yes; far and nigh things seem to know<br /> + Sweet scenes are impending here;<br /> +That all is prepared; that the hour is near<br /> +For welcomes, fellowships, and flow<br /> + Of sally, song, and cheer;</p> +<p class="poetry">That spigots are pulled and viols strung;<br /> + That soon will arise the sound<br /> +Of measures trod to tunes renowned;<br /> +That She will return in Love’s low tongue<br /> + My vows as we wheel around.</p> +<h3><a name="page78"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +78</span>MISCONCEPTION</h3> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">busied</span> myself to +find a sure<br /> + Snug hermitage<br /> +That should preserve my Love secure<br /> + From the world’s rage;<br /> +Where no unseemly saturnals,<br /> + Or strident traffic-roars,<br /> +Or hum of intervolved cabals<br /> + Should echo at her doors.</p> +<p class="poetry">I laboured that the diurnal spin<br /> + Of vanities<br /> +Should not contrive to suck her in<br /> + By dark degrees,<br /> +And cunningly operate to blur<br /> + Sweet teachings I had begun;<br /> +And then I went full-heart to her<br /> + To expound the glad deeds done.</p> +<p class="poetry">She looked at me, and said thereto<br /> + With a pitying smile,<br /> +“And <i>this</i> is what has busied you<br /> + So long a while?<br /> +<a name="page79"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 79</span>O poor +exhausted one, I see<br /> + You have worn you old and thin<br /> +For naught! Those moils you fear for me<br /> + I find most pleasure in!”</p> +<h3><a name="page80"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 80</span>THE +VOICE OF THE THORN</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">When</span> the thorn on +the down<br /> +Quivers naked and cold,<br /> +And the mid-aged and old<br /> +Pace the path there to town,<br /> +In these words dry and drear<br /> +It seems to them sighing:<br /> +“O winter is trying<br /> +To sojourners here!”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">II</p> +<p class="poetry">When it stands fully tressed<br /> +On a hot summer day,<br /> +And the ewes there astray<br /> +Find its shade a sweet rest,<br /> +By the breath of the breeze<br /> +It inquires of each farer:<br /> +“Who would not be sharer<br /> +Of shadow with these?”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page81"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 81</span>III</p> +<p class="poetry">But by day or by night,<br /> +And in winter or summer,<br /> +Should I be the comer<br /> +Along that lone height,<br /> +In its voicing to me<br /> +Only one speech is spoken:<br /> +“Here once was nigh broken<br /> +A heart, and by thee.”</p> +<h3><a name="page82"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 82</span>FROM +HER IN THE COUNTRY</h3> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">thought</span> and +thought of thy crass clanging town<br /> +To folly, till convinced such dreams were ill,<br /> +I held my heart in bond, and tethered down<br /> +Fancy to where I was, by force of will.</p> +<p class="poetry">I said: How beautiful are these flowers, this +wood,<br /> +One little bud is far more sweet to me<br /> +Than all man’s urban shows; and then I stood<br /> +Urging new zest for bird, and bush, and tree;</p> +<p class="poetry">And strove to feel my nature brought it +forth<br /> +Of instinct, or no rural maid was I;<br /> +But it was vain; for I could not see worth<br /> +Enough around to charm a midge or fly,</p> +<p class="poetry">And mused again on city din and sin,<br /> +Longing to madness I might move therein!</p> +<p>16 W. P. V., 1866.</p> +<h3><a name="page83"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 83</span>HER +CONFESSION</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">As</span> some bland soul, +to whom a debtor says<br /> +“I’ll now repay the amount I owe to you,”<br /> +In inward gladness feigns forgetfulness<br /> +That such a payment ever was his due</p> +<p class="poetry">(His long thought notwithstanding), so did I<br +/> +At our last meeting waive your proffered kiss<br /> +With quick divergent talk of scenery nigh,<br /> +By such suspension to enhance my bliss.</p> +<p class="poetry">And as his looks in consternation fall<br /> +When, gathering that the debt is lightly deemed,<br /> +The debtor makes as not to pay at all,<br /> +So faltered I, when your intention seemed</p> +<p class="poetry">Converted by my false uneagerness<br /> +To putting off for ever the caress.</p> +<p>W. P. V., 1865–67.</p> +<h3><a name="page84"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 84</span>TO AN +IMPERSONATOR OF ROSALIND</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Did</span> he who drew her +in the years ago—<br /> +Till now conceived creator of her grace—<br /> +With telescopic sight high natures know,<br /> +Discern remote in Time’s untravelled space</p> +<p class="poetry">Your soft sweet mien, your gestures, as do +we,<br /> +And with a copyist’s hand but set them down,<br /> +Glowing yet more to dream our ecstasy<br /> +When his Original should be forthshown?</p> +<p class="poetry">For, kindled by that animated eye,<br /> +Whereto all fairnesses about thee brim,<br /> +And by thy tender tones, what wight can fly<br /> +The wild conviction welling up in him</p> +<p class="poetry">That he at length beholds woo, parley, +plead,<br /> +The “very, very Rosalind” indeed!</p> +<p>8 <span class="smcap">Adelphi Terrace</span>, 21<i>st</i> +<i>April</i> 1867.</p> +<h3><a name="page85"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 85</span>TO AN +ACTRESS</h3> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">read</span> your name +when you were strange to me,<br /> +Where it stood blazoned bold with many more;<br /> +I passed it vacantly, and did not see<br /> +Any great glory in the shape it wore.</p> +<p class="poetry">O cruelty, the insight barred me then!<br /> +Why did I not possess me with its sound,<br /> +And in its cadence catch and catch again<br /> +Your nature’s essence floating therearound?</p> +<p class="poetry">Could <i>that</i> man be this I, unknowing +you,<br /> +When now the knowing you is all of me,<br /> +And the old world of then is now a new,<br /> +And purpose no more what it used to be—<br /> +A thing of formal journeywork, but due<br /> +To springs that then were sealed up utterly?</p> +<p>1867.</p> +<h3><a name="page86"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 86</span>THE +MINUTE BEFORE MEETING</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> grey gaunt days +dividing us in twain<br /> +Seemed hopeless hills my strength must faint to climb,<br /> +But they are gone; and now I would detain<br /> +The few clock-beats that part us; rein back Time,</p> +<p class="poetry">And live in close expectance never closed<br /> +In change for far expectance closed at last,<br /> +So harshly has expectance been imposed<br /> +On my long need while these slow blank months passed.</p> +<p class="poetry">And knowing that what is now about to be<br /> +Will all <i>have been</i> in O, so short a space!<br /> +I read beyond it my despondency<br /> +When more dividing months shall take its place,<br /> +Thereby denying to this hour of grace<br /> +A full-up measure of felicity.</p> +<p>1871.</p> +<h3><a name="page87"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 87</span>HE +ABJURES LOVE</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">At</span> last I put off +love,<br /> + For twice ten years<br /> +The daysman of my thought,<br /> + And hope, and doing;<br /> +Being ashamed thereof,<br /> + And faint of fears<br /> +And desolations, wrought<br /> +In his pursuing,</p> +<p class="poetry">Since first in youthtime those<br /> + Disquietings<br /> +That heart-enslavement brings<br /> + To hale and hoary,<br /> +Became my housefellows,<br /> + And, fool and blind,<br /> +I turned from kith and kind<br /> + To give him glory.</p> +<p class="poetry">I was as children be<br /> + Who have no care;<br /> +I did not shrink or sigh,<br /> + I did not sicken;<br /> +<a name="page88"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 88</span>But lo, +Love beckoned me,<br /> + And I was bare,<br /> +And poor, and starved, and dry,<br /> + And fever-stricken.</p> +<p class="poetry">Too many times ablaze<br /> + With fatuous fires,<br /> +Enkindled by his wiles<br /> + To new embraces,<br /> +Did I, by wilful ways<br /> + And baseless ires,<br /> +Return the anxious smiles<br /> + Of friendly faces.</p> +<p class="poetry">No more will now rate I<br /> + The common rare,<br /> +The midnight drizzle dew,<br /> + The gray hour golden,<br /> +The wind a yearning cry,<br /> + The faulty fair,<br /> +Things dreamt, of comelier hue<br /> + Than things beholden! . . .</p> +<p class="poetry">—I speak as one who plumbs<br /> + Life’s dim profound,<br /> +One who at length can sound<br /> + Clear views and certain.<br /> +But—after love what comes?<br /> + A scene that lours,<br /> +A few sad vacant hours,<br /> + And then, the Curtain.</p> +<p>1883.</p> +<h2><a name="page89"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 89</span>A SET +OF COUNTRY SONGS</h2> +<h3><a name="page91"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 91</span>LET ME +ENJOY</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">(MINOR KEY)</p> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Let</span> me enjoy the +earth no less<br /> +Because the all-enacting Might<br /> +That fashioned forth its loveliness<br /> +Had other aims than my delight.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">II</p> +<p class="poetry">About my path there flits a Fair,<br /> +Who throws me not a word or sign;<br /> +I’ll charm me with her ignoring air,<br /> +And laud the lips not meant for mine.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">III</p> +<p class="poetry">From manuscripts of moving song<br /> +Inspired by scenes and dreams unknown<br /> +I’ll pour out raptures that belong<br /> +To others, as they were my own.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page92"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 92</span>IV</p> +<p class="poetry">And some day hence, towards Paradise,<br /> +And all its blest—if such should be—<br /> +I will lift glad, afar-off eyes,<br /> +Though it contain no place for me.</p> +<h3><a name="page93"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 93</span>AT +CASTERBRIDGE FAIR</h3> +<h4>I<br /> +The Ballad-Singer</h4> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Sing</span>, Ballad-singer, +raise a hearty tune;<br /> +Make me forget that there was ever a one<br /> +I walked with in the meek light of the moon<br /> + When the day’s work was done.</p> +<p class="poetry">Rhyme, Ballad-rhymer, start a country song;<br +/> +Make me forget that she whom I loved well<br /> +Swore she would love me dearly, love me long,<br /> + Then—what I cannot tell!</p> +<p class="poetry">Sing, Ballad-singer, from your little book;<br +/> +Make me forget those heart-breaks, achings, fears;<br /> +Make me forget her name, her sweet sweet look—<br /> + Make me forget her tears.</p> +<h4><a name="page94"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 94</span>II<br +/> +Former Beauties</h4> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">These</span> market-dames, +mid-aged, with lips thin-drawn,<br /> + And tissues sere,<br /> +Are they the ones we loved in years agone,<br /> + And courted here?</p> +<p class="poetry">Are these the muslined pink young things to +whom<br /> + We vowed and swore<br /> +In nooks on summer Sundays by the Froom,<br /> + Or Budmouth shore?</p> +<p class="poetry">Do they remember those gay tunes we trod<br /> + Clasped on the green;<br /> +Aye; trod till moonlight set on the beaten sod<br /> + A satin sheen?</p> +<p class="poetry">They must forget, forget! They cannot +know<br /> + What once they were,<br /> +Or memory would transfigure them, and show<br /> + Them always fair.</p> +<h4><a name="page95"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 95</span>III<br +/> +<span class="smcap">After the Club-Dance</span></h4> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Black’on</span> +frowns east on Maidon,<br /> + And westward to the sea,<br /> +But on neither is his frown laden<br /> + With scorn, as his frown on me!</p> +<p class="poetry">At dawn my heart grew heavy,<br /> + I could not sip the wine,<br /> +I left the jocund bevy<br /> + And that young man o’ mine.</p> +<p class="poetry">The roadside elms pass by me,—<br /> + Why do I sink with shame<br /> +When the birds a-perch there eye me?<br /> + They, too, have done the same!</p> +<h4>IV<br /> +<span class="smcap">The Market-Girl</span></h4> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Nobody</span> took any +notice of her as she stood on the causey kerb,<br /> +All eager to sell her honey and apples and bunches of garden +herb;<br /> +<a name="page96"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 96</span>And if she +had offered to give her wares and herself with them too that +day,<br /> +I doubt if a soul would have cared to take a bargain so choice +away.</p> +<p class="poetry">But chancing to trace her sunburnt grace that +morning as I passed nigh,<br /> +I went and I said “Poor maidy dear!—and will none of +the people buy?”<br /> +And so it began; and soon we knew what the end of it all must +be,<br /> +And I found that though no others had bid, a prize had been won +by me.</p> +<h4>V<br /> +<span class="smcap">The Inquiry</span></h4> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">And</span> are ye one of +Hermitage—<br /> +Of Hermitage, by Ivel Road,<br /> +And do ye know, in Hermitage<br /> +A thatch-roofed house where sengreens grow?<br /> +And does John Waywood live there still—<br /> +He of the name that there abode<br /> +When father hurdled on the hill<br /> + Some fifteen years ago?</p> +<p class="poetry">Does he now speak o’ Patty Beech,<br /> +The Patty Beech he used to—see,<br /> +Or ask at all if Patty Beech<br /> +Is known or heard of out this way?<br /> +<a name="page97"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 97</span>—Ask +ever if she’s living yet,<br /> +And where her present home may be,<br /> +And how she bears life’s fag and fret<br /> + After so long a day?</p> +<p class="poetry">In years agone at Hermitage<br /> +This faded face was counted fair,<br /> +None fairer; and at Hermitage<br /> +We swore to wed when he should thrive.<br /> +But never a chance had he or I,<br /> +And waiting made his wish outwear,<br /> +And Time, that dooms man’s love to die,<br /> + Preserves a maid’s alive.</p> +<h4>VI<br /> +A <span class="smcap">Wife Waits</span></h4> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Will’s</span> at the +dance in the Club-room below,<br /> + Where the tall liquor-cups foam;<br /> +I on the pavement up here by the Bow,<br /> + Wait, wait, to steady him home.</p> +<p class="poetry">Will and his partner are treading a tune,<br /> + Loving companions they be;<br /> +Willy, before we were married in June,<br /> + Said he loved no one but me;</p> +<p class="poetry">Said he would let his old pleasures all go<br +/> + Ever to live with his Dear.<br /> +<a name="page98"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +98</span>Will’s at the dance in the Club-room below,<br /> + Shivering I wait for him here.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Note</span>.—“The Bow” +(line 3). The old name for the curved corner by the +cross-streets in the middle of Casterbridge.</p> +<h4>VII<br /> +<span class="smcap">After the Fair</span></h4> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> singers are gone +from the Cornmarket-place<br /> + With their broadsheets of +rhymes,<br /> +The street rings no longer in treble and bass<br /> + With their skits on the times,<br +/> +And the Cross, lately thronged, is a dim naked space<br /> + That but echoes the stammering chimes.</p> +<p class="poetry">From Clock-corner steps, as each quarter +ding-dongs,<br /> + Away the folk roam<br /> +By the “Hart” and Grey’s Bridge into byways and +“drongs,”<br /> + Or across the ridged loam;<br /> +The younger ones shrilling the lately heard songs,<br /> + The old saying, “Would we were +home.”</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page99"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +99</span>The shy-seeming maiden so mute in the fair<br /> + Now rattles and talks,<br /> +And that one who looked the most swaggering there<br /> + Grows sad as she walks,<br /> +And she who seemed eaten by cankering care<br /> + In statuesque sturdiness stalks.</p> +<p class="poetry">And midnight clears High Street of all but the +ghosts<br /> + Of its buried burghees,<br /> +From the latest far back to those old Roman hosts<br /> + Whose remains one yet sees,<br /> +Who loved, laughed, and fought, hailed their friends, drank their +toasts<br /> + At their meeting-times here, just as these!</p> +<p>1902.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Note</span>.—“The +Chimes” (line 6) will be listened for in vain here at +midnight now, having been abolished some years ago.</p> +<h3><a name="page100"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 100</span>THE +DARK-EYED GENTLEMAN</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">pitched</span> my +day’s leazings in Crimmercrock Lane,<br /> +To tie up my garter and jog on again,<br /> +When a dear dark-eyed gentleman passed there and said,<br /> +In a way that made all o’ me colour rose-red,<br /> + “What do I see—<br /> + O pretty knee!”<br /> +And he came and he tied up my garter for me.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">II</p> +<p class="poetry">’Twixt sunset and moonrise it was, I can +mind:<br /> +Ah, ’tis easy to lose what we nevermore find!—<br /> +Of the dear stranger’s home, of his name, I knew nought,<br +/> +<a name="page101"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 101</span>But I +soon knew his nature and all that it brought.<br /> + Then bitterly<br /> + Sobbed I that he<br /> +Should ever have tied up my garter for me!</p> +<p style="text-align: center">III</p> +<p class="poetry">Yet now I’ve beside me a fine lissom +lad,<br /> +And my slip’s nigh forgot, and my days are not sad;<br /> +My own dearest joy is he, comrade, and friend,<br /> +He it is who safe-guards me, on him I depend;<br /> + No sorrow brings he,<br /> + And thankful I be<br /> +That his daddy once tied up my garter for me!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Note</span>.—“Leazings” +(line 1).—Bundle of gleaned corn.</p> +<h3><a name="page102"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 102</span>TO +CARREY CLAVEL</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">You</span> turn your back, +you turn your back,<br /> + And never your face to me,<br /> +Alone you take your homeward track,<br /> + And scorn my company.</p> +<p class="poetry">What will you do when Charley’s seen<br +/> + Dewbeating down this way?<br /> +—You’ll turn your back as now, you mean?<br /> + Nay, Carrey Clavel, nay!</p> +<p class="poetry">You’ll see none’s looking; put your +lip<br /> + Up like a tulip, so;<br /> +And he will coll you, bend, and sip:<br /> + Yes, Carrey, yes; I know!</p> +<h3><a name="page103"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 103</span>THE +ORPHANED OLD MAID</h3> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">wanted</span> to marry, +but father said, “No—<br /> +’Tis weakness in women to give themselves so;<br /> +If you care for your freedom you’ll listen to me,<br /> +Make a spouse in your pocket, and let the men be.”</p> +<p class="poetry">I spake on’t again and again: father +cried,<br /> +“Why—if you go husbanding, where shall I bide?<br /> +For never a home’s for me elsewhere than here!”<br /> +And I yielded; for father had ever been dear.</p> +<p class="poetry">But now father’s gone, and I feel growing +old,<br /> +And I’m lonely and poor in this house on the wold,<br /> +And my sweetheart that was found a partner elsewhere,<br /> +And nobody flings me a thought or a care.</p> +<h3><a name="page104"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 104</span>THE +SPRING CALL</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Down</span> Wessex way, +when spring’s a-shine,<br /> + The blackbird’s “pret-ty +de-urr!”<br /> +In Wessex accents marked as mine<br /> + Is heard afar and near.</p> +<p class="poetry">He flutes it strong, as if in song<br /> + No R’s of feebler tone<br /> +Than his appear in “pretty dear,”<br /> + Have blackbirds ever known.</p> +<p class="poetry">Yet they pipe “prattie deerh!” I +glean,<br /> + Beneath a Scottish sky,<br /> +And “pehty de-aw!” amid the treen<br /> + Of Middlesex or nigh.</p> +<p class="poetry">While some folk say—perhaps in +play—<br /> + Who know the Irish isle,<br /> +’Tis “purrity dare!” in treeland there<br /> + When songsters would beguile.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page105"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +105</span>Well: I’ll say what the listening birds<br /> + Say, hearing “pret-ty de-urr!”—<br +/> +However strangers sound such words,<br /> + That’s how we sound them here.</p> +<p class="poetry">Yes, in this clime at pairing time,<br /> + As soon as eyes can see her<br /> +At dawn of day, the proper way<br /> + To call is “pret-ty de-urr!”</p> +<h3><a name="page106"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +106</span>JULIE-JANE</h3> +<p class="poetry"> <span +class="smcap">Sing</span>; how ’a would sing!<br /> + How ’a would raise the tune<br /> +When we rode in the waggon from harvesting<br /> + By the light o’ the +moon!</p> +<p class="poetry"> Dance; how ’a would +dance!<br /> + If a fiddlestring did but sound<br /> +She would hold out her coats, give a slanting glance,<br /> + And go round and round.</p> +<p class="poetry"> Laugh; how ’a would +laugh!<br /> + Her peony lips would part<br /> +As if none such a place for a lover to quaff<br /> + At the deeps of a heart.</p> +<p class="poetry"> Julie, O girl of joy,<br /> + Soon, soon that lover he came.<br /> +Ah, yes; and gave thee a baby-boy,<br /> + But never his name . . .</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page107"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 107</span>—Tolling for her, as you +guess;<br /> + And the baby too . . . ’Tis well.<br /> +You knew her in maidhood likewise?—Yes,<br /> + That’s her burial bell.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “I suppose,” with +a laugh, she said,<br /> + “I should blush that I’m not a wife;<br +/> +But how can it matter, so soon to be dead,<br /> + What one does in life!”</p> +<p class="poetry"> When we sat making the +mourning<br /> + By her death-bed side, said she,<br /> +“Dears, how can you keep from your lovers, adorning<br /> + In honour of me!”</p> +<p class="poetry"> Bubbling and brightsome +eyed!<br /> + But now—O never again.<br /> +She chose her bearers before she died<br /> + From her fancy-men.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Note</span>.—It is, or was, a common +custom in Wessex, and probably other country places, to prepare +the mourning beside the death-bed, the dying person sometimes +assisting, who also selects his or her bearers on such +occasions.</p> +<p>“Coats” (line 7).—Old name for +petticoats.</p> +<h3><a name="page108"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 108</span>NEWS +FOR HER MOTHER</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"> <span +class="smcap">One</span> mile more is<br /> + Where your door is<br /> + Mother mine!—<br /> + Harvest’s coming,<br /> + Mills are strumming,<br /> + Apples fine,<br /> +And the cider made to-year will be as wine.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">II</p> +<p class="poetry"> Yet, not viewing<br /> + What’s a-doing<br /> + Here around<br /> + Is it thrills me,<br /> + And so fills me<br /> + That I bound<br /> +Like a ball or leaf or lamb along the ground.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page109"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 109</span>III</p> +<p class="poetry"> Tremble not now<br /> + At your lot now,<br /> + Silly soul!<br /> + Hosts have sped them<br /> + Quick to wed them,<br /> + Great and small,<br /> +Since the first two sighing half-hearts made a whole.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IV</p> +<p class="poetry"> Yet I wonder,<br /> + Will it sunder<br /> + Her from me?<br /> + Will she guess that<br /> + I said “Yes,”—that<br /> + His I’d be,<br /> +Ere I thought she might not see him as I see!</p> +<p style="text-align: center">V</p> +<p class="poetry"> Old brown gable,<br /> + Granary, stable,<br /> + Here you are!<br /> + O my mother,<br /> + Can another<br /> + Ever bar<br /> +Mine from thy heart, make thy nearness seem afar?</p> +<h3><a name="page110"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 110</span>THE +FIDDLER</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> fiddler knows +what’s brewing<br /> + To the lilt of his lyric wiles:<br /> +The fiddler knows what rueing<br /> + Will come of this night’s smiles!</p> +<p class="poetry">He sees couples join them for dancing,<br /> + And afterwards joining for life,<br /> +He sees them pay high for their prancing<br /> + By a welter of wedded strife.</p> +<p class="poetry">He twangs: “Music hails from the +devil,<br /> + Though vaunted to come from heaven,<br /> +For it makes people do at a revel<br /> + What multiplies sins by seven.</p> +<p class="poetry">“There’s many a heart now +mangled,<br /> + And waiting its time to go,<br /> +Whose tendrils were first entangled<br /> + By my sweet viol and bow!”</p> +<h3><a name="page111"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 111</span>THE +HUSBAND’S VIEW</h3> +<p class="poetry">“<span class="smcap">Can</span> anything +avail<br /> +Beldame, for my hid grief?—<br /> +Listen: I’ll tell the tale,<br /> +It may bring faint relief!—</p> +<p class="poetry">“I came where I was not known,<br /> +In hope to flee my sin;<br /> +And walking forth alone<br /> +A young man said, ‘Good e’en.’</p> +<p class="poetry">“In gentle voice and true<br /> +He asked to marry me;<br /> +‘You only—only you<br /> +Fulfil my dream!’ said he.</p> +<p class="poetry">“We married o’ Monday morn,<br /> +In the month of hay and flowers;<br /> +My cares were nigh forsworn,<br /> +And perfect love was ours.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page112"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +112</span>“But ere the days are long<br /> +Untimely fruit will show;<br /> +My Love keeps up his song,<br /> +Undreaming it is so.</p> +<p class="poetry">“And I awake in the night,<br /> +And think of months gone by,<br /> +And of that cause of flight<br /> +Hidden from my Love’s eye.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Discovery borders near,<br /> +And then! . . . But something stirred?—<br /> +My husband—he is here!<br /> +Heaven—has he overheard?”—</p> +<p class="poetry">“Yes; I have heard, sweet Nan;<br /> +I have known it all the time.<br /> +I am not a particular man;<br /> +Misfortunes are no crime:</p> +<p class="poetry">“And what with our serious need<br /> +Of sons for soldiering,<br /> +That accident, indeed,<br /> +To maids, is a useful thing!”</p> +<h3><a name="page113"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +113</span>ROSE-ANN</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Why</span> didn’t you +say you was promised, Rose-Ann?<br /> + Why didn’t you name it to me,<br /> +Ere ever you tempted me hither, Rose-Ann,<br /> + So often, so wearifully?</p> +<p class="poetry">O why did you let me be near ’ee, +Rose-Ann,<br /> + Talking things about wedlock so free,<br /> +And never by nod or by whisper, Rose-Ann,<br /> + Give a hint that it wasn’t to be?</p> +<p class="poetry">Down home I was raising a flock of stock +ewes,<br /> + Cocks and hens, and wee chickens by scores,<br /> +And lavendered linen all ready to use,<br /> + A-dreaming that they would be yours.</p> +<p class="poetry">Mother said: “She’s a sport-making +maiden, my son”;<br /> + And a pretty sharp quarrel had we;<br /> +<a name="page114"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 114</span>O why do +you prove by this wrong you have done<br /> + That I saw not what mother could see?</p> +<p class="poetry">Never once did you say you was promised, +Rose-Ann,<br /> + Never once did I dream it to be;<br /> +And it cuts to the heart to be treated, Rose-Ann,<br /> + As you in your scorning treat me!</p> +<h3><a name="page115"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 115</span>THE +HOMECOMING</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap"><i>Gruffly</i></span><i> +growled the wind on Toller downland broad and bare</i>,<br /> +<i>And lonesome was the house</i>, <i>and dark</i>; <i>and few +came there</i>.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Now don’t ye rub your eyes so red; +we’re home and have no cares;<br /> +Here’s a skimmer-cake for supper, peckled onions, and some +pears;<br /> +I’ve got a little keg o’ summat strong, too, under +stairs:<br /> +—What, slight your husband’s victuals? Other +brides can tackle theirs!”</p> +<p class="poetry"><i>The wind of winter mooed and mouthed their +chimney like a horn</i>,<br /> +<i>And round the house and past the house ’twas leafless +and lorn</i>.</p> +<p class="poetry">“But my dear and tender poppet, then, how +came ye to agree<br /> +In Ivel church this morning? Sure, there-right you married +me!”<br /> +<a name="page116"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +116</span>—“Hoo-hoo!—I don’t know—I +forgot how strange and far ’twould be,<br /> +An’ I wish I was at home again with dear daddee!”</p> +<p class="poetry"><i>Gruffly growled the wind on Toller downland +broad and bare</i>,<br /> +<i>And lonesome was the house and dark</i>; <i>and few came +there</i>.</p> +<p class="poetry">“I didn’t think such furniture as +this was all you’d own,<br /> +And great black beams for ceiling, and a floor o’ wretched +stone,<br /> +And nasty pewter platters, horrid forks of steel and bone,<br /> +And a monstrous crock in chimney. ’Twas to me quite +unbeknown!”</p> +<p class="poetry"><i>Rattle rattle went the door</i>; <i>down +flapped a cloud of smoke</i>,<br /> +<i>As shifting north the wicked wind assayed a smarter +stroke</i>.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Now sit ye by the fire, poppet; put +yourself at ease:<br /> +And keep your little thumb out of your mouth, dear, please!<br /> +And I’ll sing to ’ee a pretty song of lovely flowers +and bees,<br /> +And happy lovers taking walks within a grove o’ +trees.”</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page117"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +117</span><i>Gruffly growled the wind on Toller Down</i>, <i>so +bleak and bare</i>,<br /> +<i>And lonesome was the house</i>, <i>and dark</i>; <i>and few +came there</i>.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Now, don’t ye gnaw your +handkercher; ’twill hurt your little tongue,<br /> +And if you do feel spitish, ’tis because ye are over +young;<br /> +But you’ll be getting older, like us all, ere very long,<br +/> +And you’ll see me as I am—a man who never did +’ee wrong.”</p> +<p class="poetry"><i>Straight from Whit’sheet Hill to +Benvill Lane the blusters pass</i>,<br /> +<i>Hitting hedges</i>, <i>milestones</i>, <i>handposts</i>, +<i>trees</i>, <i>and tufts of grass</i>.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Well, had I only known, my dear, that +this was how you’d be,<br /> +I’d have married her of riper years that was so fond of +me.<br /> +But since I can’t, I’ve half a mind to run away to +sea,<br /> +And leave ’ee to go barefoot to your d—d +daddee!”</p> +<p class="poetry"><i>Up one wall and down the other—past +each window-pane—</i><br /> +<i>Prance the gusts</i>, <i>and then away down +Crimmercrock’s long lane</i>.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page118"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +118</span>“I—I—don’t know what to say +to’t, since your wife I’ve vowed to be;<br /> +And as ’tis done, I s’pose here I must +bide—poor me!<br /> +Aye—as you are ki-ki-kind, I’ll try to live along +with ’ee,<br /> +Although I’d fain have stayed at home with dear +daddee!”</p> +<p class="poetry"><i>Gruffly growled the wind on Toller Down</i>, +<i>so bleak and bare</i>,<br /> +<i>And lonesome was the house and dark</i>; <i>and few came +there</i>.</p> +<p class="poetry">“That’s right, my Heart! And +though on haunted Toller Down we be,<br /> +And the wind swears things in chimley, we’ll to supper +merrily!<br /> +So don’t ye tap your shoe so pettish-like; but smile at +me,<br /> +And ye’ll soon forget to sock and sigh for dear +daddee!”</p> +<p><i>December</i> 1901.</p> +<h2><a name="page119"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +119</span>PIECES OCCASIONAL AND VARIOUS</h2> +<h3><a name="page121"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 121</span>A +CHURCH ROMANCE<br /> +(<span class="smcap">Mellstock</span> <i>circa</i> 1835)</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">She</span> turned in the +high pew, until her sight<br /> +Swept the west gallery, and caught its row<br /> +Of music-men with viol, book, and bow<br /> +Against the sinking sad tower-window light.</p> +<p class="poetry">She turned again; and in her pride’s +despite<br /> +One strenuous viol’s inspirer seemed to throw<br /> +A message from his string to her below,<br /> +Which said: “I claim thee as my own forthright!”</p> +<p class="poetry">Thus their hearts’ bond began, in due +time signed.<br /> +And long years thence, when Age had scared Romance,<br /> +At some old attitude of his or glance<br /> +That gallery-scene would break upon her mind,<br /> +With him as minstrel, ardent, young, and trim,<br /> +Bowing “New Sabbath” or “Mount +Ephraim.”</p> +<h3><a name="page122"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 122</span>THE +RASH BRIDE<br /> +<span class="smcap">An Experience of the Mellstock +Quire</span></h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">We</span> +Christmas-carolled down the Vale, and up the Vale, and round the +Vale,<br /> +We played and sang that night as we were yearly wont to +do—<br /> +A carol in a minor key, a carol in the major D,<br /> +Then at each house: “Good wishes: many Christmas joys to +you!”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">II</p> +<p class="poetry">Next, to the widow’s John and I and all +the rest drew on. And I<br /> +Discerned that John could hardly hold the tongue of him for +joy.<br /> +The widow was a sweet young thing whom John was bent on +marrying,<br /> +And quiring at her casement seemed romantic to the boy.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page123"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 123</span>III</p> +<p class="poetry">“She’ll make reply, I trust,” +said he, “to our salute? She must!” said he,<br +/> +“And then I will accost her gently—much to her +surprise!—<br /> +For knowing not I am with you here, when I speak up and call her +dear<br /> +A tenderness will fill her voice, a bashfulness her eyes.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IV</p> +<p class="poetry">So, by her window-square we stood; ay, with our +lanterns there we stood,<br /> +And he along with us,—not singing, waiting for a sign;<br +/> +And when we’d quired her carols three a light was lit and +out looked she,<br /> +A shawl about her bedgown, and her colour red as wine.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">V</p> +<p class="poetry">And sweetly then she bowed her thanks, and +smiled, and spoke aloud her thanks;<br /> +When lo, behind her back there, in the room, a man appeared.<br +/> +I knew him—one from Woolcomb way—Giles +Swetman—honest as the day,<br /> +But eager, hasty; and I felt that some strange trouble +neared.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page124"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 124</span>VI</p> +<p class="poetry">“How comes he there? . . . +Suppose,” said we, “she’s wed of late! +Who knows?” said we.<br /> +—“She married yester-morning—only mother yet +has known<br /> +The secret o’t!” shrilled one small boy. +“But now I’ve told, let’s wish ’em +joy!”<br /> +A heavy fall aroused us: John had gone down like a stone.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VII</p> +<p class="poetry">We rushed to him and caught him round, and +lifted him, and brought him round,<br /> +When, hearing something wrong had happened, oped the window +she:<br /> +“Has one of you fallen ill?” she asked, “by +these night labours overtasked?”<br /> +None answered. That she’d done poor John a cruel turn +felt we.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VIII</p> +<p class="poetry">Till up spoke Michael: “Fie, young +dame! You’ve broke your promise, sly young dame,<br +/> +By forming this new tie, young dame, and jilting John so true,<br +/> +<a name="page125"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 125</span>Who +trudged to-night to sing to ’ee because he thought +he’d bring to ’ee<br /> +Good wishes as your coming spouse. May ye such trifling +rue!”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IX</p> +<p class="poetry">Her man had said no word at all; but being +behind had heard it all,<br /> +And now cried: “Neighbours, on my soul I knew not +’twas like this!”<br /> +And then to her: “If I had known you’d had in tow not +me alone,<br /> +No wife should you have been of mine. It is a dear bought +bliss!”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">X</p> +<p class="poetry">She changed death-white, and heaved a cry: +we’d never heard so grieved a cry<br /> +As came from her at this from him: heart-broken quite seemed +she;<br /> +And suddenly, as we looked on, she turned, and rushed; and she +was gone,<br /> +Whither, her husband, following after, knew not; nor knew we.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page126"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 126</span>XI</p> +<p class="poetry">We searched till dawn about the house; within +the house, without the house,<br /> +We searched among the laurel boughs that grew beneath the +wall,<br /> +And then among the crocks and things, and stores for winter +junketings,<br /> +In linhay, loft, and dairy; but we found her not at all.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XII</p> +<p class="poetry">Then John rushed in: “O friends,” +he said, “hear this, this, this!” and bends his +head:<br /> +“I’ve—searched round by the—<i>well</i>, +and find the cover open wide!<br /> +I am fearful that—I can’t say what . . . Bring +lanterns, and some cords to knot.”<br /> +We did so, and we went and stood the deep dark hole beside.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XIII</p> +<p class="poetry">And then they, ropes in hand, and I—ay, +John, and all the band, and I<br /> +Let down a lantern to the depths—some hundred feet and +more;<br /> +It glimmered like a fog-dimmed star; and there, beside its light, +afar,<br /> +White drapery floated, and we knew the meaning that it bore.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page127"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 127</span>XIV</p> +<p class="poetry">The rest is naught . . . We buried her o’ +Sunday. Neighbours carried her;<br /> +And Swetman—he who’d married her—now +miserablest of men,<br /> +Walked mourning first; and then walked John; just quivering, but +composed anon;<br /> +And we the quire formed round the grave, as was the custom +then.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XV</p> +<p class="poetry">Our old bass player, as I recall—his +white hair blown—but why recall!—<br /> +His viol upstrapped, bent figure—doomed to follow her full +soon—<br /> +Stood bowing, pale and tremulous; and next to him the rest of us +. . .<br /> +We sang the Ninetieth Psalm to her—set to Saint +Stephen’s tune.</p> +<h3><a name="page128"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 128</span>THE +DEAD QUIRE</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Beside</span> the Mead of +Memories,<br /> +Where Church-way mounts to Moaning Hill,<br /> +The sad man sighed his phantasies:<br /> + He seems to sigh them still.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">II</p> +<p class="poetry">“’Twas the Birth-tide Eve, and the +hamleteers<br /> +Made merry with ancient Mellstock zest,<br /> +But the Mellstock quire of former years<br /> + Had entered into rest.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">III</p> +<p class="poetry">“Old Dewy lay by the gaunt yew tree,<br +/> +And Reuben and Michael a pace behind,<br /> +And Bowman with his family<br /> + By the wall that the ivies bind.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page129"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 129</span>IV</p> +<p class="poetry">“The singers had followed one by one,<br +/> +Treble, and tenor, and thorough-bass;<br /> +And the worm that wasteth had begun<br /> + To mine their mouldering place.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">V</p> +<p class="poetry">“For two-score years, ere Christ-day +light,<br /> +Mellstock had throbbed to strains from these;<br /> +But now there echoed on the night<br /> + No Christmas harmonies.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VI</p> +<p class="poetry">“Three meadows off, at a dormered inn,<br +/> +The youth had gathered in high carouse,<br /> +And, ranged on settles, some therein<br /> + Had drunk them to a drowse.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VII</p> +<p class="poetry">“Loud, lively, reckless, some had +grown,<br /> +Each dandling on his jigging knee<br /> +Eliza, Dolly, Nance, or Joan—<br /> + Livers in levity.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page130"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 130</span>VIII</p> +<p class="poetry">“The taper flames and hearthfire shine<br +/> +Grew smoke-hazed to a lurid light,<br /> +And songs on subjects not divine<br /> + Were warbled forth that night.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IX</p> +<p class="poetry">“Yet many were sons and grandsons here<br +/> +Of those who, on such eves gone by,<br /> +At that still hour had throated clear<br /> + Their anthems to the sky.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">X</p> +<p class="poetry">“The clock belled midnight; and ere +long<br /> +One shouted, ‘Now ’tis Christmas morn;<br /> +Here’s to our women old and young,<br /> + And to John Barleycorn!’</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XI</p> +<p class="poetry">“They drink the toast and shout again:<br +/> +The pewter-ware rings back the boom,<br /> +And for a breath-while follows then<br /> + A silence in the room.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page131"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 131</span>XII</p> +<p class="poetry">“When nigh without, as in old days,<br /> +The ancient quire of voice and string<br /> +Seemed singing words of prayer and praise<br /> + As they had used to sing:</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XIII</p> +<p class="poetry">“‘While shepherds watch’d +their flocks by night,’—<br /> +Thus swells the long familiar sound<br /> +In many a quaint symphonic flight—<br /> + To, ‘Glory shone around.’</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XIV</p> +<p class="poetry">“The sons defined their fathers’ +tones,<br /> +The widow his whom she had wed,<br /> +And others in the minor moans<br /> + The viols of the dead.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XV</p> +<p class="poetry">“Something supernal has the sound<br /> +As verse by verse the strain proceeds,<br /> +And stilly staring on the ground<br /> + Each roysterer holds and heeds.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page132"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 132</span>XVI</p> +<p class="poetry">“Towards its chorded closing bar<br /> +Plaintively, thinly, waned the hymn,<br /> +Yet lingered, like the notes afar<br /> + Of banded seraphim.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XVII</p> +<p class="poetry">“With brows abashed, and reverent +tread,<br /> +The hearkeners sought the tavern door:<br /> +But nothing, save wan moonlight, spread<br /> + The empty highway o’er.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XVIII</p> +<p class="poetry">“While on their hearing fixed and +tense<br /> +The aerial music seemed to sink,<br /> +As it were gently moving thence<br /> + Along the river brink.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XIX</p> +<p class="poetry">“Then did the Quick pursue the Dead<br /> +By crystal Froom that crinkles there;<br /> +And still the viewless quire ahead<br /> + Voiced the old holy air.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page133"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 133</span>XX</p> +<p class="poetry">“By Bank-walk wicket, brightly +bleached,<br /> +It passed, and ’twixt the hedges twain,<br /> +Dogged by the living; till it reached<br /> + The bottom of Church Lane.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XXI</p> +<p class="poetry">“There, at the turning, it was heard<br +/> +Drawing to where the churchyard lay:<br /> +But when they followed thitherward<br /> + It smalled, and died away.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XXII</p> +<p class="poetry">“Each headstone of the quire, each +mound,<br /> +Confronted them beneath the moon;<br /> +But no more floated therearound<br /> + That ancient Birth-night tune.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XXIII</p> +<p class="poetry">“There Dewy lay by the gaunt yew tree,<br +/> +There Reuben and Michael, a pace behind,<br /> +And Bowman with his family<br /> + By the wall that the ivies bind . . .</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page134"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 134</span>XXIV</p> +<p class="poetry">“As from a dream each sobered son<br /> +Awoke, and musing reached his door:<br /> +’Twas said that of them all, not one<br /> + Sat in a tavern more.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XXV</p> +<p class="poetry">—The sad man ceased; and ceased to +heed<br /> +His listener, and crossed the leaze<br /> +From Moaning Hill towards the mead—<br /> + The Mead of Memories.</p> +<p>1897.</p> +<h3><a name="page135"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 135</span>THE +CHRISTENING</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Whose</span> child is this +they bring<br /> + Into the aisle?—<br /> +At so superb a thing<br /> +The congregation smile<br /> +And turn their heads awhile.</p> +<p class="poetry">Its eyes are blue and bright,<br /> + Its cheeks like rose;<br /> +Its simple robes unite<br /> +Whitest of calicoes<br /> +With lawn, and satin bows.</p> +<p class="poetry">A pride in the human race<br /> + At this paragon<br /> +Of mortals, lights each face<br /> +While the old rite goes on;<br /> +But ah, they are shocked anon.</p> +<p class="poetry">What girl is she who peeps<br /> + From the gallery stair,<br /> +Smiles palely, redly weeps,<br /> +With feverish furtive air<br /> +As though not fitly there?</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page136"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +136</span>“I am the baby’s mother;<br /> + This gem of the race<br /> +The decent fain would smother,<br /> +And for my deep disgrace<br /> +I am bidden to leave the place.”</p> +<p class="poetry">“Where is the baby’s +father?”—<br /> + “In the woods afar.<br /> +He says there is none he’d rather<br /> +Meet under moon or star<br /> +Than me, of all that are.</p> +<p class="poetry">“To clasp me in lovelike weather,<br /> + Wish fixing when,<br /> +He says: To be together<br /> +At will, just now and then,<br /> +Makes him the blest of men;</p> +<p class="poetry">“But chained and doomed for life<br /> + To slovening<br /> +As vulgar man and wife,<br /> +He says, is another thing:<br /> +Yea: sweet Love’s sepulchring!”</p> +<p>1904.</p> +<h3><a name="page137"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 137</span>A +DREAM QUESTION</h3> +<blockquote><p>“It shall be dark unto you, that ye shall +not divine.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Micah</span> +iii. 6.</p> +</blockquote> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">asked</span> the Lord: +“Sire, is this true<br /> +Which hosts of theologians hold,<br /> +That when we creatures censure you<br /> +For shaping griefs and ails untold<br /> +(Deeming them punishments undue)<br /> +You rage, as Moses wrote of old?</p> +<p class="poetry">When we exclaim: ‘Beneficent<br /> +He is not, for he orders pain,<br /> +Or, if so, not omnipotent:<br /> +To a mere child the thing is plain!’<br /> +Those who profess to represent<br /> +You, cry out: ‘Impious and profane!’”</p> +<p class="poetry">He: “Save me from my friends, who deem<br +/> +That I care what my creatures say!<br /> +Mouth as you list: sneer, rail, blaspheme,<br /> +O manikin, the livelong day,<br /> +Not one grief-groan or pleasure-gleam<br /> +Will you increase or take away.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page138"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +138</span>“Why things are thus, whoso derides,<br /> +May well remain my secret still . . .<br /> +A fourth dimension, say the guides,<br /> +To matter is conceivable.<br /> +Think some such mystery resides<br /> +Within the ethic of my will.”</p> +<h3><a name="page139"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 139</span>BY +THE BARROWS</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Not</span> far from +Mellstock—so tradition saith—<br /> +Where barrows, bulging as they bosoms were<br /> +Of Multimammia stretched supinely there,<br /> +Catch night and noon the tempest’s wanton breath,</p> +<p class="poetry">A battle, desperate doubtless unto death,<br /> +Was one time fought. The outlook, lone and bare,<br /> +The towering hawk and passing raven share,<br /> +And all the upland round is called “The +He’th.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Here once a woman, in our modern age,<br /> +Fought singlehandedly to shield a child—<br /> +One not her own—from a man’s senseless rage.<br /> +And to my mind no patriots’ bones there piled<br /> +So consecrate the silence as her deed<br /> +Of stoic and devoted self-unheed.</p> +<h3><a name="page140"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 140</span>A +WIFE AND ANOTHER</h3> +<p class="poetry"> “<span +class="smcap">War</span> ends, and he’s returning<br /> + Early; yea,<br /> + The evening next to-morrow’s!”—<br +/> + —This I say<br /> +To her, whom I suspiciously survey,</p> +<p class="poetry"> Holding my husband’s +letter<br /> + To her view.—<br /> + She glanced at it but lightly,<br /> + And I knew<br /> +That one from him that day had reached her too.</p> +<p class="poetry"> There was no time for +scruple;<br /> + Secretly<br /> + I filched her missive, conned it,<br /> + Learnt that he<br /> +Would lodge with her ere he came home to me.</p> +<p class="poetry"> To reach the port before +her,<br /> + And, unscanned,<br /> + <a name="page141"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +141</span>There wait to intercept them<br /> + Soon I planned:<br /> +That, in her stead, <i>I</i> might before him stand.</p> +<p class="poetry"> So purposed, so effected;<br +/> + At the inn<br /> + Assigned, I found her hidden:—<br /> + O that sin<br /> +Should bear what she bore when I entered in!</p> +<p class="poetry"> Her heavy lids grew laden<br +/> + With despairs,<br /> + Her lips made soundless movements<br /> + Unawares,<br /> +While I peered at the chamber hired as theirs.</p> +<p class="poetry"> And as beside its doorway,<br +/> + Deadly hued,<br /> + One inside, one withoutside<br /> + We two stood,<br /> +He came—my husband—as she knew he would.</p> +<p class="poetry"> No pleasurable triumph<br /> + Was that sight!<br /> + The ghastly disappointment<br /> + Broke them quite.<br /> +What love was theirs, to move them with such might!</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page142"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 142</span>“Madam, forgive me!” +said she,<br /> + Sorrow bent,<br /> + “A child—I soon shall bear him . . .<br +/> + Yes—I meant<br /> +To tell you—that he won me ere he went.”</p> +<p class="poetry"> Then, as it were, within +me<br /> + Something snapped,<br /> + As if my soul had largened:<br /> + Conscience-capped, <br /> +I saw myself the snarer—them the trapped.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “My hate dies, and I +promise,<br /> + Grace-beguiled,”<br /> + I said, “to care for you, be<br /> + Reconciled;<br /> +And cherish, and take interest in the child.”</p> +<p class="poetry"> Without more words I pressed +him<br /> + Through the door<br /> + Within which she stood, powerless<br /> + To say more,<br /> +And closed it on them, and downstairward bore.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “He joins his +wife—my sister,”<br /> + I, below,<br /> + Remarked in going—lightly—<br /> + Even as though<br /> +All had come right, and we had arranged it so . . .</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page143"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 143</span>As I, my road retracing,<br /> + Left them free,<br /> + The night alone embracing<br /> + Childless me,<br /> +I held I had not stirred God wrothfully.</p> +<h3><a name="page144"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 144</span>THE +ROMAN ROAD</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> Roman Road runs +straight and bare<br /> +As the pale parting-line in hair<br /> +Across the heath. And thoughtful men<br /> +Contrast its days of Now and Then,<br /> +And delve, and measure, and compare;</p> +<p class="poetry">Visioning on the vacant air<br /> +Helmed legionaries, who proudly rear<br /> +The Eagle, as they pace again<br /> + The Roman Road.</p> +<p class="poetry">But no tall brass-helmed legionnaire<br /> +Haunts it for me. Uprises there<br /> +A mother’s form upon my ken,<br /> +Guiding my infant steps, as when<br /> +We walked that ancient thoroughfare,<br /> + The Roman Road.</p> +<h3><a name="page145"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 145</span>THE +VAMPIRINE FAIR</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span> had sailed +to India’s shore,<br /> + And I was all alone:<br /> +My lord came in at my open door<br /> + And said, “O fairest one!”</p> +<p class="poetry">He leant upon the slant bureau,<br /> + And sighed, “I am sick for thee!”<br /> +“My lord,” said I, “pray speak not so,<br /> + Since wedded wife I be.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Leaning upon the slant bureau,<br /> + Bitter his next words came:<br /> +“So much I know; and likewise know<br /> + My love burns on the same!</p> +<p class="poetry">“But since you thrust my love away,<br /> + And since it knows no cure,<br /> +I must live out as best I may<br /> + The ache that I endure.”</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page146"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +146</span>When Michaelmas browned the nether Coomb,<br /> + And Wingreen Hill above,<br /> +And made the hollyhocks rags of bloom,<br /> + My lord grew ill of love.</p> +<p class="poetry">My lord grew ill with love for me; <br /> + Gilbert was far from port;<br /> +And—so it was—that time did see<br /> + Me housed at Manor Court.</p> +<p class="poetry">About the bowers of Manor Court<br /> + The primrose pushed its head<br /> +When, on a day at last, report<br /> + Arrived of him I had wed.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Gilbert, my lord, is homeward bound,<br +/> + His sloop is drawing near,<br /> +What shall I do when I am found<br /> + Not in his house but here?”</p> +<p class="poetry">“O I will heal the injuries<br /> + I’ve done to him and thee.<br /> +I’ll give him means to live at ease<br /> + Afar from Shastonb’ry.”</p> +<p class="poetry">When Gilbert came we both took thought:<br /> + “Since comfort and good cheer,”<br /> +Said he, “So readily are bought,<br /> + He’s welcome to thee, Dear.”</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page147"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +147</span>So when my lord flung liberally<br /> + His gold in Gilbert’s hands,<br /> +I coaxed and got my brothers three<br /> + Made stewards of his lands.</p> +<p class="poetry">And then I coaxed him to install<br /> + My other kith and kin,<br /> +With aim to benefit them all<br /> + Before his love ran thin.</p> +<p class="poetry">And next I craved to be possessed<br /> + Of plate and jewels rare.<br /> +He groaned: “You give me, Love, no rest,<br /> + Take all the law will spare!”</p> +<p class="poetry">And so in course of years my wealth<br /> + Became a goodly hoard,<br /> +My steward brethren, too, by stealth<br /> + Had each a fortune stored.</p> +<p class="poetry">Thereafter in the gloom he’d walk,<br /> + And by and by began<br /> +To say aloud in absent talk,<br /> + “I am a ruined man!—</p> +<p class="poetry">“I hardly could have thought,” he +said,<br /> + “When first I looked on thee,<br /> +That one so soft, so rosy red,<br /> + Could thus have beggared me!”</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page148"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +148</span>Seeing his fair estates in pawn,<br /> + And him in such decline,<br /> +I knew that his domain had gone<br /> + To lift up me and mine.</p> +<p class="poetry">Next month upon a Sunday morn<br /> + A gunshot sounded nigh:<br /> +By his own hand my lordly born<br /> + Had doomed himself to die.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Live, my dear lord, and much of thine<br +/> + Shall be restored to thee!”<br /> +He smiled, and said ’twixt word and sign,<br /> + “Alas—that cannot be!”</p> +<p class="poetry">And while I searched his cabinet<br /> + For letters, keys, or will,<br /> +’Twas touching that his gaze was set<br /> + With love upon me still.</p> +<p class="poetry">And when I burnt each document<br /> + Before his dying eyes,<br /> +’Twas sweet that he did not resent<br /> + My fear of compromise.</p> +<p class="poetry">The steeple-cock gleamed golden when<br /> + I watched his spirit go:<br /> +And I became repentant then<br /> + That I had wrecked him so.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page149"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +149</span>Three weeks at least had come and gone,<br /> + With many a saddened word,<br /> +Before I wrote to Gilbert on<br /> + The stroke that so had stirred.</p> +<p class="poetry">And having worn a mournful gown,<br /> + I joined, in decent while,<br /> +My husband at a dashing town<br /> + To live in dashing style.</p> +<p class="poetry">Yet though I now enjoy my fling,<br /> + And dine and dance and drive,<br /> +I’d give my prettiest emerald ring<br /> + To see my lord alive.</p> +<p class="poetry">And when the meet on hunting-days<br /> + Is near his churchyard home,<br /> +I leave my bantering beaux to place<br /> + A flower upon his tomb;</p> +<p class="poetry">And sometimes say: “Perhaps too late<br +/> + The saints in Heaven deplore<br /> +That tender time when, moved by Fate,<br /> + He darked my cottage door.”</p> +<h3><a name="page150"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 150</span>THE +REMINDER</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">While</span> I watch the +Christmas blaze<br /> +Paint the room with ruddy rays,<br /> +Something makes my vision glide<br /> +To the frosty scene outside.</p> +<p class="poetry">There, to reach a rotting berry,<br /> +Toils a thrush,—constrained to very<br /> +Dregs of food by sharp distress,<br /> +Taking such with thankfulness.</p> +<p class="poetry">Why, O starving bird, when I<br /> +One day’s joy would justify, <br /> +And put misery out of view,<br /> +Do you make me notice you!</p> +<h3><a name="page151"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 151</span>THE +RAMBLER</h3> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">do</span> not see the +hills around,<br /> +Nor mark the tints the copses wear;<br /> +I do not note the grassy ground<br /> +And constellated daisies there.</p> +<p class="poetry">I hear not the contralto note<br /> +Of cuckoos hid on either hand,<br /> +The whirr that shakes the nighthawk’s throat<br /> +When eve’s brown awning hoods the land.</p> +<p class="poetry">Some say each songster, tree, and +mead—<br /> +All eloquent of love divine—<br /> +Receives their constant careful heed:<br /> +Such keen appraisement is not mine.</p> +<p class="poetry">The tones around me that I hear,<br /> +The aspects, meanings, shapes I see,<br /> +Are those far back ones missed when near,<br /> +And now perceived too late by me!</p> +<h3><a name="page152"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +152</span>NIGHT IN THE OLD HOME</h3> +<p class="poetry">When the wasting embers redden the +chimney-breast,<br /> +And Life’s bare pathway looms like a desert track to me,<br +/> +And from hall and parlour the living have gone to their rest,<br +/> +My perished people who housed them here come back to me.</p> +<p class="poetry">They come and seat them around in their mouldy +places,<br /> +Now and then bending towards me a glance of wistfulness,<br /> +A strange upbraiding smile upon all their faces,<br /> +And in the bearing of each a passive tristfulness.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Do you uphold me, lingering and +languishing here,<br /> +A pale late plant of your once strong stock?” I say to +them;<br /> +<a name="page153"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 153</span>“A +thinker of crooked thoughts upon Life in the sere,<br /> +And on That which consigns men to night after showing the day to +them?”</p> +<p class="poetry">“—O let be the Wherefore! We +fevered our years not thus:<br /> +Take of Life what it grants, without question!” they answer +me seemingly.<br /> +“Enjoy, suffer, wait: spread the table here freely like +us,<br /> +And, satisfied, placid, unfretting, watch Time away +beamingly!”</p> +<h3><a name="page154"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +154</span>AFTER THE LAST BREATH<br /> +(J. H. 1813–1904)</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">There’s</span> no +more to be done, or feared, or hoped;<br /> +None now need watch, speak low, and list, and tire;<br /> +No irksome crease outsmoothed, no pillow sloped<br /> + Does she require.</p> +<p class="poetry">Blankly we gaze. We are free to go or +stay;<br /> +Our morrow’s anxious plans have missed their aim;<br /> +Whether we leave to-night or wait till day<br /> + Counts as the same.</p> +<p class="poetry">The lettered vessels of medicaments<br /> +Seem asking wherefore we have set them here;<br /> +Each palliative its silly face presents<br /> + As useless gear.</p> +<p class="poetry">And yet we feel that something savours well;<br +/> +We note a numb relief withheld before;<br /> +<a name="page155"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 155</span>Our +well-beloved is prisoner in the cell<br /> + Of Time no more.</p> +<p class="poetry">We see by littles now the deft achievement<br +/> +Whereby she has escaped the Wrongers all,<br /> +In view of which our momentary bereavement<br /> + Outshapes but small.</p> +<p>1904.</p> +<h3><a name="page156"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 156</span>IN +CHILDBED</h3> +<p class="poetry"> <span class="smcap">In</span> +the middle of the night<br /> +Mother’s spirit came and spoke to me,<br /> + Looking weariful and white—<br /> +As ’twere untimely news she broke to me.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “O my daughter, joyed +are you<br /> +To own the weetless child you mother there;<br /> + ‘Men may search the wide world +through,’<br /> +You think, ‘nor find so fair another there!’</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Dear, this midnight +time unwombs<br /> +Thousands just as rare and beautiful;<br /> + Thousands whom High Heaven foredooms<br /> +To be as bright, as good, as dutiful.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Source of ecstatic +hopes and fears<br /> +And innocent maternal vanity,<br /> + Your fond exploit but shapes for tears<br /> +New thoroughfares in sad humanity.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page157"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 157</span>“Yet as you dream, so dreamt +I<br /> +When Life stretched forth its morning ray to me;<br /> + Other views for by and by!” . . .<br /> +Such strange things did mother say to me.</p> +<h3><a name="page158"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 158</span>THE +PINE PLANTERS<br /> +(<span class="smcap">Marty South’s Reverie</span>)</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">We</span> work here +together<br /> + In blast and breeze;<br /> +He fills the earth in,<br /> + I hold the trees.</p> +<p class="poetry">He does not notice<br /> + That what I do<br /> +Keeps me from moving<br /> + And chills me through.</p> +<p class="poetry">He has seen one fairer<br /> + I feel by his eye,<br /> +Which skims me as though<br /> + I were not by.</p> +<p class="poetry">And since she passed here<br /> + He scarce has known<br /> +But that the woodland<br /> + Holds him alone.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page159"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +159</span>I have worked here with him<br /> + Since morning shine,<br /> +He busy with his thoughts<br /> + And I with mine.</p> +<p class="poetry">I have helped him so many,<br /> + So many days,<br /> +But never win any<br /> + Small word of praise!</p> +<p class="poetry">Shall I not sigh to him<br /> + That I work on<br /> +Glad to be nigh to him<br /> + Though hope is gone?</p> +<p class="poetry">Nay, though he never<br /> + Knew love like mine,<br /> +I’ll bear it ever<br /> + And make no sign!</p> +<p style="text-align: center">II</p> +<p class="poetry">From the bundle at hand here<br /> + I take each tree,<br /> +And set it to stand, here<br /> + Always to be;<br /> +When, in a second,<br /> + As if from fear<br /> +Of Life unreckoned<br /> + Beginning here,<br /> +<a name="page160"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 160</span>It +starts a sighing<br /> + Through day and night,<br /> +Though while there lying<br /> + ’Twas voiceless quite.</p> +<p class="poetry">It will sigh in the morning,<br /> + Will sigh at noon,<br /> +At the winter’s warning,<br /> + In wafts of June;<br /> +Grieving that never<br /> + Kind Fate decreed <br /> +It should for ever<br /> + Remain a seed,<br /> +And shun the welter<br /> + Of things without,<br /> +Unneeding shelter<br /> + From storm and drought.</p> +<p class="poetry">Thus, all unknowing<br /> + For whom or what<br /> +We set it growing<br /> + In this bleak spot,<br /> +It still will grieve here<br /> + Throughout its time,<br /> +Unable to leave here,<br /> + Or change its clime;<br /> +Or tell the story<br /> + Of us to-day<br /> +When, halt and hoary,<br /> + We pass away.</p> +<h3><a name="page161"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 161</span>THE +DEAR</h3> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">plodded</span> to +Fairmile Hill-top, where<br /> + A maiden one fain would guard<br /> +From every hazard and every care<br /> + Advanced on the roadside sward.</p> +<p class="poetry">I wondered how succeeding suns<br /> + Would shape her wayfarings,<br /> +And wished some Power might take such ones<br /> + Under Its warding wings.</p> +<p class="poetry">The busy breeze came up the hill<br /> + And smartened her cheek to red,<br /> +And frizzled her hair to a haze. With a will<br /> + “Good-morning, my Dear!” I said.</p> +<p class="poetry">She glanced from me to the far-off gray,<br /> + And, with proud severity,<br /> +“Good-morning to you—though I may say<br /> + I am not <i>your</i> Dear,” quoth she:</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page162"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +162</span>“For I am the Dear of one not here—<br /> + One far from his native land!”—<br /> +And she passed me by; and I did not try<br /> + To make her understand.</p> +<p>1901</p> +<h3><a name="page163"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 163</span>ONE +WE KNEW<br /> +(M. H. 1772–1857)</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">She</span> told how they +used to form for the country dances—<br /> + “The Triumph,” “The New-rigged +Ship”—<br /> +To the light of the guttering wax in the panelled manses,<br /> + And in cots to the blink of a dip.</p> +<p class="poetry">She spoke of the wild “poussetting” +and “allemanding”<br /> + On carpet, on oak, and on sod;<br /> +And the two long rows of ladies and gentlemen standing,<br /> + And the figures the couples trod.</p> +<p class="poetry">She showed us the spot where the maypole was +yearly planted,<br /> + And where the bandsmen stood<br /> +While breeched and kerchiefed partners whirled, and panted <br /> + To choose each other for good.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page164"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +164</span>She told of that far-back day when they learnt +astounded<br /> + Of the death of the King of France:<br /> +Of the Terror; and then of Bonaparte’s unbounded<br /> + Ambition and arrogance.</p> +<p class="poetry">Of how his threats woke warlike preparations<br +/> + Along the southern strand,<br /> +And how each night brought tremors and trepidations<br /> + Lest morning should see him land.</p> +<p class="poetry">She said she had often heard the gibbet +creaking<br /> + As it swayed in the lightning flash,<br /> +Had caught from the neighbouring town a small child’s +shrieking<br /> + At the cart-tail under the lash . . .</p> +<p class="poetry">With cap-framed face and long gaze into the +embers—<br /> + We seated around her knees—<br /> +She would dwell on such dead themes, not as one who remembers,<br +/> + But rather as one who sees.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page165"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +165</span>She seemed one left behind of a band gone distant<br /> + So far that no tongue could hail:<br /> +Past things retold were to her as things existent,<br /> + Things present but as a tale.</p> +<p><i>May</i> 20, 1902.</p> +<h3><a name="page166"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 166</span>SHE +HEARS THE STORM</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">There</span> was a time in +former years—<br /> + While my roof-tree was his—<br /> +When I should have been distressed by fears<br /> + At such a night as this!</p> +<p class="poetry">I should have murmured anxiously,<br /> + “The pricking rain strikes cold;<br /> +His road is bare of hedge or tree,<br /> + And he is getting old.”</p> +<p class="poetry">But now the fitful chimney-roar,<br /> + The drone of Thorncombe trees,<br /> +The Froom in flood upon the moor,<br /> + The mud of Mellstock Leaze,</p> +<p class="poetry">The candle slanting sooty wick’d,<br /> + The thuds upon the thatch,<br /> +The eaves-drops on the window flicked,<br /> + The clacking garden-hatch,</p> +<p class="poetry">And what they mean to wayfarers,<br /> + I scarcely heed or mind;<br /> +He has won that storm-tight roof of hers<br /> + Which Earth grants all her kind.</p> +<h3><a name="page167"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 167</span>A +WET NIGHT</h3> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">pace</span> along, the +rain-shafts riddling me,<br /> +Mile after mile out by the moorland way,<br /> +And up the hill, and through the ewe-leaze gray<br /> +Into the lane, and round the corner tree;</p> +<p class="poetry">Where, as my clothing clams me, +mire-bestarred,<br /> +And the enfeebled light dies out of day,<br /> +Leaving the liquid shades to reign, I say,<br /> +“This is a hardship to be calendared!”</p> +<p class="poetry">Yet sires of mine now perished and forgot,<br +/> +When worse beset, ere roads were shapen here,<br /> +And night and storm were foes indeed to fear,<br /> +Times numberless have trudged across this spot<br /> +In sturdy muteness on their strenuous lot,<br /> +And taking all such toils as trifles mere.</p> +<h3><a name="page168"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +168</span>BEFORE LIFE AND AFTER</h3> +<p class="poetry"> A <span +class="smcap">time</span> there was—as one may guess<br /> +And as, indeed, earth’s testimonies tell—<br /> + Before the birth of consciousness,<br /> + When all went well.</p> +<p class="poetry"> None suffered sickness, love, +or loss,<br /> +None knew regret, starved hope, or heart-burnings;<br /> + None cared whatever crash or cross <br /> + Brought wrack to things.</p> +<p class="poetry"> If something ceased, no +tongue bewailed,<br /> +If something winced and waned, no heart was wrung;<br /> + If brightness dimmed, and dark prevailed,<br /> + No sense was stung.</p> +<p class="poetry"> But the disease of feeling +germed,<br /> +And primal rightness took the tinct of wrong;<br /> + Ere nescience shall be reaffirmed<br /> + How long, how long?</p> +<h3><a name="page169"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 169</span>NEW +YEAR’S EVE</h3> +<p class="poetry">“I <span class="smcap">have</span> +finished another year,” said God,<br /> + “In grey, green, white, and brown;<br /> +I have strewn the leaf upon the sod,<br /> +Sealed up the worm within the clod,<br /> + And let the last sun down.”</p> +<p class="poetry">“And what’s the good of it?” +I said.<br /> + “What reasons made you call<br /> +From formless void this earth we tread,<br /> +When nine-and-ninety can be read<br /> + Why nought should be at all?</p> +<p class="poetry">“Yea, Sire; why shaped you us, ‘who +in<br /> + This tabernacle groan’—<br /> +If ever a joy be found herein,<br /> +Such joy no man had wished to win<br /> + If he had never known!”</p> +<p class="poetry">Then he: “My +labours—logicless—<br /> + You may explain; not I:<br /> +Sense-sealed I have wrought, without a guess<br /> +That I evolved a Consciousness<br /> + To ask for reasons why.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page170"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +170</span>“Strange that ephemeral creatures who<br /> + By my own ordering are,<br /> +Should see the shortness of my view,<br /> +Use ethic tests I never knew,<br /> + Or made provision for!”</p> +<p class="poetry">He sank to raptness as of yore,<br /> + And opening New Year’s Day<br /> +Wove it by rote as theretofore,<br /> +And went on working evermore<br /> + In his unweeting way.</p> +<p>1906.</p> +<h3><a name="page171"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +171</span>GOD’S EDUCATION</h3> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">saw</span> him steal the +light away<br /> + That haunted in her eye:<br /> +It went so gently none could say<br /> +More than that it was there one day<br /> + And missing by-and-by.</p> +<p class="poetry">I watched her longer, and he stole<br /> + Her lily tincts and rose;<br /> +All her young sprightliness of soul<br /> +Next fell beneath his cold control,<br /> + And disappeared like those.</p> +<p class="poetry">I asked: “Why do you serve her so?<br /> + Do you, for some glad day,<br /> +Hoard these her sweets—?” He said, “O +no,<br /> +They charm not me; I bid Time throw<br /> + Them carelessly away.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Said I: “We call that cruelty—<br +/> + We, your poor mortal kind.”<br /> +He mused. “The thought is new to me.<br /> +Forsooth, though I men’s master be,<br /> + Theirs is the teaching mind!”</p> +<h3><a name="page172"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 172</span>TO +SINCERITY</h3> +<p class="poetry">O <span class="smcap">sweet</span> +sincerity!—<br /> +Where modern methods be<br /> +What scope for thine and thee?</p> +<p class="poetry">Life may be sad past saying,<br /> +Its greens for ever graying,<br /> +Its faiths to dust decaying;</p> +<p class="poetry">And youth may have foreknown it,<br /> +And riper seasons shown it,<br /> +But custom cries: “Disown it:</p> +<p class="poetry">“Say ye rejoice, though grieving,<br /> +Believe, while unbelieving,<br /> +Behold, without perceiving!”</p> +<p class="poetry">—Yet, would men look at true things,<br +/> +And unilluded view things,<br /> +And count to bear undue things,</p> +<p class="poetry">The real might mend the seeming,<br /> +Facts better their foredeeming,<br /> +And Life its disesteeming.</p> +<p><i>February</i> 1899.</p> +<h3><a name="page173"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +173</span>PANTHERA</h3> +<p>(For other forms of this legend—first met with in the +second century—see Origen contra Celsum; the Talmud; Sepher +Toldoth Jeschu; quoted fragments of lost Apocryphal gospels; +Strauss, Haeckel; etc.)</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Yea</span>, as I sit here, +crutched, and cricked, and bent,<br /> +I think of Panthera, who underwent<br /> +Much from insidious aches in his decline;<br /> +But his aches were not radical like mine;<br /> +They were the twinges of old wounds—the feel<br /> +Of the hand he had lost, shorn by barbarian steel,<br /> +Which came back, so he said, at a change in the air,<br /> +Fingers and all, as if it still were there.<br /> +My pains are otherwise: upclosing cramps<br /> +And stiffened tendons from this country’s damps,<br /> +Where Panthera was never commandant.—<br /> +The Fates sent him by way of the Levant.<br /> + <a name="page174"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +174</span>He had been blithe in his young manhood’s +time,<br /> +And as centurion carried well his prime.<br /> +In Ethiop, Araby, climes fair and fell,<br /> +He had seen service and had borne him well.<br /> +Nought shook him then: he was serene as brave;<br /> +Yet later knew some shocks, and would grow grave<br /> +When pondering them; shocks less of corporal kind<br /> +Than phantom-like, that disarranged his mind;<br /> +And it was in the way of warning me<br /> +(By much his junior) against levity<br /> +That he recounted them; and one in chief<br /> +Panthera loved to set in bold relief.</p> +<p class="poetry"> This was a tragedy of his +Eastern days,<br /> +Personal in touch—though I have sometimes thought<br /> +That touch a possible delusion—wrought<br /> +Of half-conviction carried to a craze—<br /> +His mind at last being stressed by ails and age:—<br /> +Yet his good faith thereon I well could wage.</p> +<p class="poetry"> I had said it long had been a +wish with me<br /> +That I might leave a scion—some small tree<br /> +As channel for my sap, if not my name—<br /> +Ay, offspring even of no legitimate claim,<br /> +<a name="page175"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 175</span>In whose +advance I secretly could joy.<br /> +Thereat he warned.<br /> + “Cancel such wishes, boy!<br +/> +A son may be a comfort or a curse,<br /> +A seer, a doer, a coward, a fool; yea, worse—<br /> +A criminal . . . That I could testify!”<br /> +“Panthera has no guilty son!” cried I<br /> +All unbelieving. “Friend, you do not know,”<br +/> +He darkly dropt: “True, I’ve none now to show,<br /> +For <i>the law took him</i>. Ay, in sooth, Jove shaped it +so!”</p> +<p class="poetry"> “This noon is not +unlike,” he again began,<br /> +“The noon these pricking memories print on me—<br /> +Yea, that day, when the sun grew copper-red,<br /> +And I served in Judæa . . . ’Twas a date<br /> +Of rest for arms. The <i>Pax Romana</i> ruled,<br /> +To the chagrin of frontier legionaries!<br /> +Palestine was annexed—though sullen yet,—<br /> +I, being in age some two-score years and ten<br /> +And having the garrison in Jerusalem<br /> +Part in my hands as acting officer<br /> +Under the Governor. A tedious time<br /> +I found it, of routine, amid a folk<br /> +Restless, contentless, and irascible.—<br /> +Quelling some riot, sentrying court and hall,<br /> +Sending men forth on public meeting-days<br /> +To maintain order, were my duties there.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page176"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 176</span>“Then came a morn in spring, +and the cheerful sun<br /> +Whitened the city and the hills around,<br /> +And every mountain-road that clambered them,<br /> +Tincturing the greyness of the olives warm,<br /> +And the rank cacti round the valley’s sides.<br /> +The day was one whereon death-penalties<br /> +Were put in force, and here and there were set<br /> +The soldiery for order, as I said,<br /> +Since one of the condemned had raised some heat,<br /> +And crowds surged passionately to see him slain.<br /> +I, mounted on a Cappadocian horse,<br /> +With some half-company of auxiliaries,<br /> +Had captained the procession through the streets<br /> +When it came streaming from the judgment-hall<br /> +After the verdicts of the Governor.<br /> +It drew to the great gate of the northern way<br /> +That bears towards Damascus; and to a knoll<br /> +Upon the common, just beyond the walls—<br /> +Whence could be swept a wide horizon round<br /> +Over the housetops to the remotest heights.<br /> +Here was the public execution-ground<br /> +For city crimes, called then and doubtless now<br /> +Golgotha, Kranion, or Calvaria.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page177"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 177</span>“The usual dooms were duly +meted out;<br /> +Some three or four were stript, transfixed, and nailed,<br /> +And no great stir occurred. A day of wont<br /> +It was to me, so far, and would have slid<br /> +Clean from my memory at its squalid close<br /> +But for an incident that followed these.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Among the tag-rag +rabble of either sex<br /> +That hung around the wretches as they writhed,<br /> +Till thrust back by our spears, one held my eye—<br /> +A weeping woman, whose strained countenance,<br /> +Sharpened against a looming livid cloud,<br /> +Was mocked by the crude rays of afternoon—<br /> +The mother of one of those who suffered there<br /> +I had heard her called when spoken roughly to<br /> +By my ranged men for pressing forward so.<br /> +It stole upon me hers was a face I knew;<br /> +Yet when, or how, I had known it, for a while<br /> +Eluded me. And then at once it came.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Some thirty years or +more before that noon<br /> +I was sub-captain of a company<br /> +Drawn from the legion of Calabria,<br /> +That marched up from Judæa north to Tyre.<br /> +We had pierced the old flat country of Jezreel, <br /> +<a name="page178"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 178</span>The +great Esdraelon Plain and fighting-floor<br /> +Of Jew with Canaanite, and with the host<br /> +Of Pharaoh-Necho, king of Egypt, met<br /> +While crossing there to strike the Assyrian pride.<br /> +We left behind Gilboa; passed by Nain;<br /> +Till bulging Tabor rose, embossed to the top <br /> +With arbute, terabinth, and locust growths.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Encumbering me were +sundry sick, so fallen<br /> +Through drinking from a swamp beside the way;<br /> +But we pressed on, till, bearing over a ridge,<br /> +We dipt into a world of pleasantness—<br /> +A vale, the fairest I had gazed upon—<br /> +Which lapped a village on its furthest slopes<br /> +Called Nazareth, brimmed round by uplands nigh.<br /> +In the midst thereof a fountain bubbled, where,<br /> +Lime-dry from marching, our glad halt we made<br /> +To rest our sick ones, and refresh us all.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Here a day onward, +towards the eventide,<br /> +Our men were piping to a Pyrrhic dance<br /> +Trod by their comrades, when the young women came<br /> +<a name="page179"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 179</span>To fill +their pitchers, as their custom was.<br /> +I proffered help to one—a slim girl, coy<br /> +Even as a fawn, meek, and as innocent.<br /> +Her long blue gown, the string of silver coins<br /> +That hung down by her banded beautiful hair,<br /> +Symboled in full immaculate modesty.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Well, I was young, and +hot, and readily stirred<br /> +To quick desire. ’Twas tedious timing out<br /> +The convalescence of the soldiery;<br /> +And I beguiled the long and empty days<br /> +By blissful yieldance to her sweet allure,<br /> +Who had no arts, but what out-arted all,<br /> +The tremulous tender charm of trustfulness.<br /> +We met, and met, and under the winking stars<br /> +That passed which peoples earth—true union, yea,<br /> +To the pure eye of her simplicity.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Meanwhile the sick +found health; and we pricked on.<br /> +I made her no rash promise of return,<br /> +As some do use; I was sincere in that;<br /> +I said we sundered never to meet again—<br /> +And yet I spoke untruth unknowingly!—<br /> +For meet again we did. Now, guess you aught?<br /> +<a name="page180"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 180</span>The +weeping mother on Calvaria<br /> +Was she I had known—albeit that time and tears<br /> +Had wasted rudely her once flowerlike form,<br /> +And her soft eyes, now swollen with sorrowing.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Though I betrayed some +qualms, she marked me not;<br /> +And I was scarce of mood to comrade her<br /> +And close the silence of so wide a time<br /> +To claim a malefactor as my son—<br /> +(For so I guessed him). And inquiry made<br /> +Brought rumour how at Nazareth long before<br /> +An old man wedded her for pity’s sake<br /> +On finding she had grown pregnant, none knew how,<br /> +Cared for her child, and loved her till he died.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Well; there it ended; +save that then I learnt<br /> +That he—the man whose ardent blood was mine—<br /> +Had waked sedition long among the Jews,<br /> +And hurled insulting parlance at their god,<br /> +Whose temple bulked upon the adjoining hill,<br /> +Vowing that he would raze it, that himself<br /> +<a name="page181"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 181</span>Was god +as great as he whom they adored,<br /> +And by descent, moreover, was their king;<br /> +With sundry other incitements to misrule.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “The impalements done, +and done the soldiers’ game<br /> +Of raffling for the clothes, a legionary,<br /> +Longinus, pierced the young man with his lance<br /> +At signs from me, moved by his agonies<br /> +Through naysaying the drug they had offered him.<br /> +It brought the end. And when he had breathed his last<br /> +The woman went. I saw her never again . . .<br /> +Now glares my moody meaning on you, friend?—<br /> +That when you talk of offspring as sheer joy<br /> +So trustingly, you blink contingencies.<br /> +Fors Fortuna! He who goes fathering<br /> +Gives frightful hostages to hazardry!”</p> +<p class="poetry"> Thus Panthera’s +tale. ’Twas one he seldom told,<br /> +But yet it got abroad. He would unfold,<br /> +At other times, a story of less gloom,<br /> +Though his was not a heart where jests had room.<br /> +He would regret discovery of the truth<br /> +Was made too late to influence to ruth<br /> +The Procurator who had condemned his son—<br /> +<a name="page182"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 182</span>Or +rather him so deemed. For there was none<br /> +To prove that Panthera erred not: and indeed,<br /> +When vagueness of identity I would plead,<br /> +Panther himself would sometimes own as much—<br /> +Yet lothly. But, assuming fact was such,<br /> +That the said woman did not recognize<br /> +Her lover’s face, is matter for surprise.<br /> +However, there’s his tale, fantasy or otherwise.</p> +<p class="poetry"> Thereafter shone not men of +Panthera’s kind:<br /> +The indolent heads at home were ill-inclined<br /> +To press campaigning that would hoist the star <br /> +Of their lieutenants valorous afar.<br /> +Jealousies kept him irked abroad, controlled<br /> +And stinted by an Empire no more bold.<br /> +Yet in some actions southward he had share—<br /> +In Mauretania and Numidia; there<br /> +With eagle eye, and sword and steed and spur,<br /> +Quelling uprisings promptly. Some small stir<br /> +In Parthia next engaged him, until maimed,<br /> +As I have said; and cynic Time proclaimed<br /> +His noble spirit broken. What a waste<br /> +<a name="page183"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 183</span>Of such +a Roman!—one in youth-time graced<br /> +With indescribable charm, so I have heard,<br /> +Yea, magnetism impossible to word<br /> +When faltering as I saw him. What a fame,<br /> +O Son of Saturn, had adorned his name,<br /> +Might the Three so have urged Thee!—Hour by hour<br /> +His own disorders hampered Panthera’s power<br /> +To brood upon the fate of those he had known,<br /> +Even of that one he always called his own—<br /> +Either in morbid dream or memory . . .<br /> +He died at no great age, untroublously,<br /> +An exit rare for ardent soldiers such as he.</p> +<h3><a name="page184"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 184</span>THE +UNBORN</h3> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">rose</span> at night, and +visited<br /> + The Cave of the Unborn:<br /> +And crowding shapes surrounded me<br /> +For tidings of the life to be,<br /> +Who long had prayed the silent Head<br /> + To haste its advent morn.</p> +<p class="poetry">Their eyes were lit with artless trust,<br /> + Hope thrilled their every tone;<br /> +“A scene the loveliest, is it not?<br /> +A pure delight, a beauty-spot<br /> +Where all is gentle, true and just,<br /> + And darkness is unknown?”</p> +<p class="poetry">My heart was anguished for their sake,<br /> + I could not frame a word;<br /> +And they descried my sunken face,<br /> +And seemed to read therein, and trace<br /> +The news that pity would not break,<br /> + Nor truth leave unaverred.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page185"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +185</span>And as I silently retired<br /> + I turned and watched them still,<br /> +And they came helter-skelter out,<br /> +Driven forward like a rabble rout<br /> +Into the world they had so desired<br /> + By the all-immanent Will.</p> +<p>1905.</p> +<h3><a name="page186"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 186</span>THE +MAN HE KILLED</h3> +<p class="poetry"> “<span +class="smcap">Had</span> he and I but met<br /> + By some old ancient inn,<br /> +We should have sat us down to wet<br /> + Right many a nipperkin!</p> +<p class="poetry"> “But ranged as +infantry,<br /> + And staring face to face,<br /> +I shot at him as he at me,<br /> + And killed him in his place.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “I shot him dead +because—<br /> + Because he was my foe,<br /> +Just so: my foe of course he was;<br /> + That’s clear enough; although</p> +<p class="poetry"> “He thought he’d +’list, perhaps,<br /> + Off-hand like—just as I—<br /> +Was out of work—had sold his traps—<br /> + No other reason why.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Yes; quaint and +curious war is!<br /> + You shoot a fellow down<br /> +You’d treat if met where any bar is,<br /> + Or help to half-a-crown.”</p> +<p>1902.</p> +<h3><a name="page187"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +187</span>GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE<br /> +(A <span class="smcap">Memory of Christiana</span> C—)</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Where</span> Blackmoor was, +the road that led<br /> + To Bath, she could not show,<br /> +Nor point the sky that overspread<br /> + Towns ten miles off or so.</p> +<p class="poetry">But that Calcutta stood this way,<br /> + Cape Horn there figured fell,<br /> +That here was Boston, here Bombay,<br /> + She could declare full well.</p> +<p class="poetry">Less known to her the track athwart<br /> + Froom Mead or Yell’ham Wood<br /> +Than how to make some Austral port<br /> + In seas of surly mood.</p> +<p class="poetry">She saw the glint of Guinea’s shore<br /> + Behind the plum-tree nigh,<br /> +Heard old unruly Biscay’s roar<br /> + In the weir’s purl hard by . . .</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page188"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +188</span>“My son’s a sailor, and he knows<br /> + All seas and many lands,<br /> +And when he’s home he points and shows<br /> + Each country where it stands.</p> +<p class="poetry">“He’s now just there—by +Gib’s high rock—<br /> + And when he gets, you see,<br /> +To Portsmouth here, behind the clock,<br /> + Then he’ll come back to me!”</p> +<h3><a name="page189"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 189</span>ONE +RALPH BLOSSOM SOLILOQUIZES</h3> +<p>(“It being deposed that vij women who were mayds before +he knew them have been brought upon the towne [rates?] by the +fornicacions of one Ralph Blossom, Mr Major inquired why he +should not contribute xiv pence weekly toward their +mayntenance. But it being shewn that the sayd R. B. was +dying of a purple feaver, no order was +made.”—<i>Budmouth Borough Minutes</i>: +16–.)</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">When</span> I am in hell or +some such place,<br /> +A-groaning over my sorry case,<br /> +What will those seven women say to me<br /> +Who, when I coaxed them, answered “Aye” to me?</p> +<p class="poetry">“I did not understand your +sign!”<br /> +Will be the words of Caroline;<br /> +While Jane will cry, “If I’d had proof of you,<br /> +I should have learnt to hold aloof of you!”</p> +<p class="poetry">“I won’t reproach: it was to +be!”<br /> +Will dryly murmur Cicely;<br /> +And Rosa: “I feel no hostility,<br /> +For I must own I lent facility.”</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page190"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +190</span>Lizzy says: “Sharp was my regret,<br /> +And sometimes it is now! But yet<br /> +I joy that, though it brought notoriousness,<br /> +I knew Love once and all its gloriousness!”</p> +<p class="poetry">Says Patience: “Why are we apart?<br /> +Small harm did you, my poor Sweet Heart!<br /> +A manchild born, now tall and beautiful,<br /> +Was worth the ache of days undutiful.”</p> +<p class="poetry">And Anne cries: “O the time was fair,<br +/> +So wherefore should you burn down there?<br /> +There is a deed under the sun, my Love,<br /> +And that was ours. What’s done is done, my Love.<br +/> +These trumpets here in Heaven are dumb to me<br /> +With you away. Dear, come, O come to me!”</p> +<h3><a name="page191"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 191</span>THE +NOBLE LADY’S TALE<br /> +(<i>circa</i> 1790)</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"> “<span +class="smcap">We</span> moved with pensive paces,<br /> + I and he,<br /> + And bent our faded faces<br /> + Wistfully,<br /> +For something troubled him, and troubled me.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “The lanthorn feebly +lightened<br /> + Our grey hall,<br /> + Where ancient brands had brightened<br /> + Hearth and wall,<br /> +And shapes long vanished whither vanish all.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “‘O why, Love, +nightly, daily,’<br /> + I had said,<br /> + ‘Dost sigh, and smile so palely,<br /> + As if shed<br /> +Were all Life’s blossoms, all its dear things +dead?’</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page192"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 192</span>“‘Since silence sets +thee grieving,’<br /> + He replied,<br /> + ‘And I abhor deceiving<br /> + One so tried,<br /> +Why, Love, I’ll speak, ere time us twain divide.’</p> +<p class="poetry"> “He held me, I +remember,<br /> + Just as when<br /> + Our life was June—(September<br /> + It was then);<br /> +And we walked on, until he spoke again.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “‘Susie, an Irish +mummer,<br /> + Loud-acclaimed<br /> + Through the gay London summer,<br /> + Was I; named<br /> +A master in my art, who would be famed.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “‘But lo, there +beamed before me<br /> + Lady Su;<br /> + God’s altar-vow she swore me<br /> + When none knew,<br /> +And for her sake I bade the sock adieu.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “‘My Lord your +father’s pardon<br /> + Thus I won:<br /> + He let his heart unharden<br /> + Towards his son,<br /> +And honourably condoned what we had done;</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page193"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 193</span>“‘But said—recall +you, dearest?—<br /> + <i>As for Su</i>,<br /> + <i>I’d see her—ay</i>, <i>though +nearest</i><br /> + <i>Me unto</i>—<br /> +<i>Sooner entombed than in a stage purlieu</i>!</p> +<p class="poetry"> “‘Just +so.—And here he housed us,<br /> + In this nook,<br /> + Where Love like balm has drowsed us:<br /> + Robin, rook,<br /> +Our chief familiars, next to string and book.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “‘Our days here, +peace-enshrouded,<br /> + Followed strange<br /> + The old stage-joyance, crowded,<br /> + Rich in range;<br /> +But never did my soul desire a change,</p> +<p class="poetry"> “‘Till now, when +far uncertain<br /> + Lips of yore<br /> + Call, call me to the curtain,<br /> + There once more,<br /> +But <i>once</i>, to tread the boards I trod before.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “‘A +night—the last and single<br /> + Ere I die—<br /> + To face the lights, to mingle<br /> + As did I<br /> +Once in the game, and rivet every eye!’</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Such was his +wish. He feared it,<br /> + Feared it though<br /> + Rare memories endeared it.<br /> + I, also,<br /> +Feared it still more; its outcome who could know?</p> +<p class="poetry"> “‘Alas, my +Love,’ said I then,<br /> + ‘Since it be<br /> + A wish so mastering, why, then,<br /> + E’en go ye!—<br /> +Despite your pledge to father and to me . . . ’</p> +<p class="poetry"> “’Twas fixed; no +more was spoken<br /> + Thereupon;<br /> + Our silences were broken<br /> + Only on<br /> +The petty items of his needs were gone.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Farewell he bade me, +pleading<br /> + That it meant<br /> + So little, thus conceding<br /> + To his bent;<br /> +And then, as one constrained to go, he went.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Thwart thoughts I let +deride me,<br /> + As, ’twere vain<br /> + To hope him back beside me<br /> + Ever again:<br /> +Could one plunge make a waxing passion wane?</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page195"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 195</span>“I thought, ‘Some wild +stage-woman,<br /> + Honour-wrecked . . . ’<br /> + But no: it was inhuman<br /> + To suspect;<br /> +Though little cheer could my lone heart affect!</p> +<p style="text-align: center">II</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Yet came it, to my +gladness,<br /> + That, as vowed,<br /> + He did return.—But sadness<br /> + Swiftly cowed<br /> +The job with which my greeting was endowed.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Some woe was +there. Estrangement<br /> + Marked his mind.<br /> + Each welcome-warm arrangement<br /> + I had designed<br /> +Touched him no more than deeds of careless kind.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> “‘I—<i>failed</i>!’ +escaped him glumly.<br /> + ‘—I went on<br /> + In my old part. But dumbly—<br /> + Memory gone—<br /> +Advancing, I sank sick; my vision drawn</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page196"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 196</span>“‘To something drear, +distressing<br /> + As the knell<br /> + Of all hopes worth possessing!’ . . .<br /> + —What befell<br /> +Seemed linked with me, but how I could not tell.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Hours passed; till I +implored him,<br /> + As he knew<br /> + How faith and frankness toward him<br /> + Ruled me through,<br /> +To say what ill I had done, and could undo.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> “‘<i>Faith—frankness</i>. +Ah! Heaven save such!’<br /> + Murmured he,<br /> + ‘They are wedded wealth! <i>I</i> gave +such<br /> + Liberally,<br /> +But you, Dear, not. For you suspected me.’</p> +<p class="poetry"> “I was about +beseeching<br /> + In hurt haste<br /> + More meaning, when he, reaching<br /> + To my waist,<br /> +Led me to pace the hall as once we paced.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “‘I never meant +to draw you<br /> + To own all,’<br /> + Declared he. ‘But—I <i>saw</i> +you—<br /> + By the wall,<br /> +Half-hid. And that was why I failed withal!’</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page197"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 197</span>“‘Where? when?’ +said I—‘Why, nigh me,<br /> + At the play<br /> + That night. That you should spy me,<br /> + Doubt my fay,<br /> +And follow, furtive, took my heart away!’</p> +<p class="poetry"> “That I had never been +there,<br /> + But had gone<br /> + To my locked room—unseen there,<br /> + Curtains drawn,<br /> +Long days abiding—told I, wonder-wan.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “‘Nay, +’twas your form and vesture,<br /> + Cloak and gown,<br /> + Your hooded features—gesture<br /> + Half in frown,<br /> +That faced me, pale,’ he urged, ‘that night in +town.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “‘And when, +outside, I handed<br /> + To her chair<br /> + (As courtesy demanded<br /> + Of me there)<br /> +The leading lady, you peeped from the stair.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Straight pleaded I: +‘Forsooth, Love,<br /> + Had I gone,<br /> + I must have been in truth, Love,<br /> + Mad to don<br /> +Such well-known raiment.’ But he still went on</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page198"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 198</span>“That he was not mistaken<br +/> + Nor misled.—<br /> + I felt like one forsaken,<br /> + Wished me dead,<br /> +That he could think thus of the wife he had wed!</p> +<p class="poetry"> “His going seemed to +waste him<br /> + Like a curse,<br /> + To wreck what once had graced him;<br /> + And, averse<br /> +To my approach, he mused, and moped, and worse.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Till, what no words +effected<br /> + Thought achieved:<br /> + <i>It was my wraith</i>—projected,<br /> + He conceived,<br /> +Thither, by my tense brain at home aggrieved.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Thereon his credence +centred<br /> + Till he died;<br /> + And, no more tempted, entered<br /> + Sanctified,<br /> +The little vault with room for one beside.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page199"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 199</span>III</p> +<p class="poetry"> Thus far the lady’s +story.—<br /> + Now she, too,<br /> + Reclines within that hoary<br /> + Last dark mew<br /> +In Mellstock Quire with him she loved so true.</p> +<p class="poetry"> A yellowing marble, placed +there<br /> + Tablet-wise,<br /> + And two joined hearts enchased there<br /> + Meet the eyes;<br /> +And reading their twin names we moralize:</p> +<p class="poetry"> Did she, we wonder, follow<br +/> + Jealously?<br /> + And were those protests hollow?—<br /> + Or saw he<br /> +Some semblant dame? Or can wraiths really be?</p> +<p class="poetry"> Were it she went, her +honour,<br /> + All may hold,<br /> + Pressed truth at last upon her<br /> + Till she told—<br /> +(Him only—others as these lines unfold.)</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page200"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 200</span>Riddle death-sealed for ever,<br /> + Let it rest! . . .<br /> + One’s heart could blame her never<br /> + If one guessed<br /> +That go she did. She knew her actor best.</p> +<h3><a name="page201"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +201</span>UNREALIZED</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Down</span> comes the +winter rain—<br /> + Spoils my hat and bow—<br /> +Runs into the poll of me;<br /> + But mother won’t know.</p> +<p class="poetry">We’ve been out and caught a cold,<br /> + Knee-deep in snow;<br /> +Such a lucky thing it is<br /> + That mother won’t know!</p> +<p class="poetry">Rosy lost herself last night—<br /> + Couldn’t tell where to go.<br /> +Yes—it rather frightened her,<br /> + But mother didn’t know.</p> +<p class="poetry">Somebody made Willy drunk<br /> + At the Christmas show:<br /> +O ’twas fun! It’s well for him<br /> + That mother won’t know!</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page202"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +202</span>Howsoever wild we are,<br /> + Late at school or slow,<br /> +Mother won’t be cross with us,<br /> + Mother won’t know.</p> +<p class="poetry">How we cried the day she died!<br /> + Neighbours whispering low . . .<br /> +But we now do what we will—<br /> + Mother won’t know.</p> +<h3><a name="page203"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +203</span>WAGTAIL AND BABY</h3> +<p class="poetry">A <span class="smcap">baby</span> watched a +ford, whereto<br /> + A wagtail came for drinking;<br /> +A blaring bull went wading through,<br /> + The wagtail showed no shrinking.</p> +<p class="poetry">A stallion splashed his way across,<br /> + The birdie nearly sinking;<br /> +He gave his plumes a twitch and toss,<br /> + And held his own unblinking.</p> +<p class="poetry">Next saw the baby round the spot<br /> + A mongrel slowly slinking;<br /> +The wagtail gazed, but faltered not<br /> + In dip and sip and prinking.</p> +<p class="poetry">A perfect gentleman then neared;<br /> + The wagtail, in a winking,<br /> +With terror rose and disappeared;<br /> + The baby fell a-thinking.</p> +<h3><a name="page204"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +204</span>ABERDEEN<br /> +(April: 1905)</h3> +<blockquote><p>“And wisdom and knowledge shall be the +stability of thy times.”—Isaiah xxxiii. 6.</p> +</blockquote> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">looked</span> and +thought, “All is too gray and cold<br /> +To wake my place-enthusiasms of old!”<br /> +Till a voice passed: “Behind that granite mien<br /> +Lurks the imposing beauty of a Queen.”<br /> +I looked anew; and saw the radiant form<br /> +Of Her who soothes in stress, who steers in storm,<br /> +On the grave influence of whose eyes sublime<br /> +Men count for the stability of the time.</p> +<h3><a name="page205"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +205</span>GEORGE MEREDITH<br /> +1828–1909</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Forty</span> years back, +when much had place<br /> +That since has perished out of mind,<br /> +I heard that voice and saw that face.</p> +<p class="poetry">He spoke as one afoot will wind<br /> +A morning horn ere men awake;<br /> +His note was trenchant, turning kind.</p> +<p class="poetry">He was of those whose wit can shake<br /> +And riddle to the very core<br /> +The counterfeits that Time will break . . .</p> +<p class="poetry">Of late, when we two met once more,<br /> +The luminous countenance and rare<br /> +Shone just as forty years before.</p> +<p class="poetry">So that, when now all tongues declare<br /> +His shape unseen by his green hill,<br /> +I scarce believe he sits not there.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page206"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +206</span>No matter. Further and further still<br /> +Through the world’s vaporous vitiate air<br /> +His words wing on—as live words will.</p> +<p><i>May</i> 1909.</p> +<h3><a name="page207"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +207</span>YELL’HAM-WOOD’S STORY</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Coomb-Firtrees</span> say +that Life is a moan,<br /> + And Clyffe-hill Clump says “Yea!”<br /> +But Yell’ham says a thing of its own:<br /> + It’s not “Gray, +gray<br /> + Is Life alway!”<br /> + That Yell’ham says,<br /> + Nor that Life is for ends unknown.</p> +<p class="poetry">It says that Life would signify<br /> + A thwarted purposing:<br /> +That we come to live, and are called to die,<br /> + Yes, that’s the thing<br /> + In fall, in spring,<br /> + That Yell’ham +says:—<br /> + “Life offers—to deny!”</p> +<p>1902.</p> +<h3><a name="page208"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 208</span>A +YOUNG MAN’S EPIGRAM ON EXISTENCE</h3> +<p class="poetry">A senseless school, where we must give<br /> +Our lives that we may learn to live!<br /> +A dolt is he who memorizes<br /> +Lessons that leave no time for prizes.</p> +<p>16 W. P. V., 1866.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Printed in Great Britain by</i> +R. & R. <span class="smcap">Clark</span>, <span +class="smcap">Limited</span>, <i>Edinburgh</i></p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TIME'S LAUGHINGSTOCKS***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 2997-h.htm or 2997-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/9/9/2997 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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