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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:20:39 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:20:39 -0700 |
| commit | cdfe41ca041bdb82d5065f64f5d4492efcf1b945 (patch) | |
| tree | e24412d99a0e010c8c8e21788fb5c9ae773934c1 /3167-h | |
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diff --git a/3167-h/3167-h.htm b/3167-h/3167-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ddfcc9e --- /dev/null +++ b/3167-h/3167-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4141 @@ +<!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>Wessex Poems and Other Verses, 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, Wessex Poems and Other Verses, by Thomas +Hardy, Illustrated 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: Wessex Poems and Other Verses + + +Author: Thomas Hardy + + + +Release Date: January 30, 2015 [eBook #3167] +[This file was first posted on January 30, 2001] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WESSEX POEMS AND OTHER VERSES*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1919 Macmillan and Co. “Wessex +Poems and Other Verses; Poems of the Past and the Present” +edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>WESSEX POEMS AND<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">OTHER VERSES</span></h1> + +<div class="gapmediumline"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">BY</span><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 /> +1919</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="pageiv"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. iv</span><span +class="GutSmall">COPYRIGHT</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center">“<i>Wessex Poems</i>”: +<i>First Edition</i>, <i>Crown</i> 8vo, 1898. <i>New +Edition</i> 1903.<br /> +<i>First Pocket Edition June</i> 1907. <i>Reprinted +January</i> 1909, 1913</p> +<p style="text-align: center">“<i>Poems</i>, <i>Past and +Present</i>”: <i>First edition</i> 1901 (dated 1902)<br /> +<i>Second Edition</i> 1903. <i>First Pocket Edition +June</i> 1907<br /> +<i>Reprinted January</i> 1908, 1913, 1918, 1919</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<h2><a name="pagev"></a><span class="pagenum">p. v</span>PREFACE +TO WESSEX POEMS</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Of</span> the miscellaneous collection of +verse that follows, only four pieces have been published, though +many were written long ago, and other partly written. In +some few cases the verses were turned into prose and printed as +such, it having been unanticipated at that time that they might +see the light.</p> +<p>Whenever an ancient and legitimate word of the district, for +which there was no equivalent in received English, suggested +itself as the most natural, nearest, and often only expression of +a thought, it has been made use of, on what seemed good +grounds.</p> +<p><a name="pagevi"></a><span class="pagenum">p. vi</span>The +pieces are in a large degree dramatic or personative in +conception; and this even where they are not obviously so.</p> +<p>The dates attached to some of the poems do not apply to the +rough sketches given in illustration, which have been recently +made, and, as may be surmised, are inserted for personal and +local reasons rather than for their intrinsic qualities.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">T. H.</p> +<p><i>September</i> 1898.</p> +<h2><a name="pageix"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +ix</span>CONTENTS</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Temporary the All</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page1">1</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Amabel</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page4">4</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Hap</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page7">7</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>“<span class="smcap">In Vision I +Roamed</span>”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page9">9</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">At a Bridal</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page11">11</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Postponement</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page13">13</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">A Confession to a Friend in +Trouble</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page15">15</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Neutral Tones</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page17">17</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">She</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page19">19</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Her Initials</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page21">21</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Her Dilemma</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page23">23</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Revulsion</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page27">27</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">She, To Him</span>, I.</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page31">31</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> ,, +,, II.</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page33">33</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> ,, +,, III.</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page35">35</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> ,, +,, IV.</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page37">37</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Ditty</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page39">39</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Sergeant’s Song</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page43">43</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Valenciennes</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page45">45</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">San Sebastian</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page51">51</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Stranger’s Song</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page59">59</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><a name="pagex"></a><span class="pagenum">p. x</span><span +class="smcap">The Burghers</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page61">61</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Leipzig</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page67">67</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Peasant’s +Confession</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page79">79</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Alarm</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page91">91</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Her Death and After</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page103">103</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Dance at the +Phœnix</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page115">115</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Casterbridge Captains</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page125">125</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">A Sign-Seeker</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page129">129</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">My Cicely</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page133">133</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Her Immortality</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page143">143</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Ivy-Wife</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page147">147</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">A Meeting with Despair</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page149">149</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Unknowing</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page153">153</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Friends Beyond</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page155">155</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">To Outer Nature</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page159">159</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Thoughts of Phena</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page163">163</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Middle-Age Enthusiasms</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page167">167</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">In a Wood</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page169">169</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">To a Lady</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page173">173</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">To an Orphan Child</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page175">175</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Nature’s Questioning</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page177">177</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Impercipient</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page181">181</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">At an Inn</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page187">187</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Slow Nature</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page191">191</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">In a Eweleaze near +Weatherbury</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page195">195</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Fire at Tranter +Sweatley’s</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page201">201</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Heiress and Architect</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page211">211</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Two Men</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page217">217</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Lines</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page223">223</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>“<span class="smcap">I Look into my +Glass</span>”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page227">227</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page1"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 1</span> +<a href="images/p1b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Sketch of tower with sun-dial" +title= +"Sketch of tower with sun-dial" + src="images/p1s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2>THE TEMPORARY THE ALL</h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Change</span> and +chancefulness in my flowering youthtime,<br /> +Set me sun by sun near to one unchosen;<br /> +Wrought us fellow-like, and despite divergence,<br /> + Friends interlinked us.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page2"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +2</span>“Cherish him can I while the true one +forthcome—<br /> +Come the rich fulfiller of my prevision;<br /> +Life is roomy yet, and the odds unbounded.”<br /> + So self-communed I.</p> +<p class="poetry">Thwart my wistful way did a damsel saunter,<br +/> +Fair, the while unformed to be all-eclipsing;<br /> +“Maiden meet,” held I, “till arise my +forefelt<br /> + Wonder of women.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Long a visioned hermitage deep desiring,<br /> +Tenements uncouth I was fain to house in;<br /> +“Let such lodging be for a breath-while,” thought +I,<br /> + “Soon a more seemly.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Then, high handiwork will I make my +life-deed,<br /> +Truth and Light outshow; but the ripe time pending,<br /> +Intermissive aim at the thing sufficeth.”<br /> + Thus I . . . But lo, me!</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +3</span>Mistress, friend, place, aims to be bettered +straightway,<br /> +Bettered not has Fate or my hand’s achieving;<br /> +Sole the showance those of my onward earth-track—<br /> + Never transcended!</p> +<h2><a name="page4"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +4</span>AMABEL</h2> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">marked</span> her ruined +hues,<br /> +Her custom-straitened views,<br /> +And asked, “Can there indwell<br /> + My Amabel?”</p> +<p class="poetry">I looked upon her gown,<br /> +Once rose, now earthen brown;<br /> +The change was like the knell<br /> + Of Amabel.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page5"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +5</span>Her step’s mechanic ways<br /> +Had lost the life of May’s;<br /> +Her laugh, once sweet in swell,<br /> + Spoilt Amabel.</p> +<p class="poetry">I mused: “Who sings the strain<br /> +I sang ere warmth did wane?<br /> +Who thinks its numbers spell<br /> + His Amabel?”—</p> +<p class="poetry">Knowing that, though Love cease,<br /> +Love’s race shows undecrease;<br /> +All find in dorp or dell<br /> + An Amabel.</p> +<p class="poetry">—I felt that I could creep<br /> +To some housetop, and weep,<br /> +That Time the tyrant fell<br /> + Ruled Amabel!</p> +<p class="poetry">I said (the while I sighed<br /> +That love like ours had died),<br /> +“Fond things I’ll no more tell<br /> + To Amabel,</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page6"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +6</span>“But leave her to her fate,<br /> +And fling across the gate,<br /> +‘Till the Last Trump, farewell,<br /> + O Amabel!’”</p> +<p>1865.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p6b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Sketch of hour-glass" +title= +"Sketch of hour-glass" + src="images/p6s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2><a name="page7"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 7</span>HAP</h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">If</span> but some vengeful +god would call to me <br /> +From up the sky, and laugh: “Thou suffering thing,<br /> +Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,<br /> +That thy love’s loss is my hate’s +profiting!”</p> +<p class="poetry">Then would I bear, and clench myself, and +die,<br /> +Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;<br /> +Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I<br /> +Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page8"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +8</span>But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain,<br /> +And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?<br /> +—Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,<br /> +And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan . . .<br /> +These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown<br /> +Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.</p> +<p>1866.</p> +<h2><a name="page9"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +9</span>“IN VISION I ROAMED”<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">TO —</span></h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">In</span> vision I roamed +the flashing Firmament,<br /> +So fierce in blazon that the Night waxed wan,<br /> +As though with an awed sense of such ostent;<br /> +And as I thought my spirit ranged on and on</p> +<p class="poetry">In footless traverse through ghast heights of +sky,<br /> +To the last chambers of the monstrous Dome,<br /> +Where stars the brightest here to darkness die:<br /> +Then, any spot on our own Earth seemed Home!</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page10"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +10</span>And the sick grief that you were far away<br /> +Grew pleasant thankfulness that you were near?<br /> +Who might have been, set on some outstep sphere,<br /> +Less than a Want to me, as day by day<br /> +I lived unware, uncaring all that lay<br /> +Locked in that Universe taciturn and drear.</p> +<p>1866.</p> +<h2><a name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 11</span>AT A +BRIDAL<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">TO —</span></h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">When</span> you paced +forth, to wait maternity,<br /> +A dream of other offspring held my mind,<br /> +Compounded of us twain as Love designed;<br /> +Rare forms, that corporate now will never be!</p> +<p class="poetry">Should I, too, wed as slave to Mode’s +decree,<br /> +And each thus found apart, of false desire,<br /> +A stolid line, whom no high aims will fire<br /> +As had fired ours could ever have mingled we;</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page12"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +12</span>And, grieved that lives so matched should +mis-compose,<br /> +Each mourn the double waste; and question dare<br /> +To the Great Dame whence incarnation flows.<br /> +Why those high-purposed children never were:<br /> +What will she answer? That she does not care<br /> +If the race all such sovereign types unknows.</p> +<p>1866.</p> +<h2><a name="page13"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +13</span>POSTPONEMENT</h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Snow-bound</span> in +woodland, a mournful word,<br /> +Dropt now and then from the bill of a bird,<br /> +Reached me on wind-wafts; and thus I heard,<br /> + Wearily waiting:—</p> +<p class="poetry">“I planned her a nest in a leafless +tree,<br /> +But the passers eyed and twitted me,<br /> +And said: ‘How reckless a bird is he,<br /> + Cheerily mating!’</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page14"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +14</span>“Fear-filled, I stayed me till summer-tide,<br /> +In lewth of leaves to throne her bride;<br /> +But alas! her love for me waned and died,<br /> + Wearily waiting.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Ah, had I been like some I see,<br /> +Born to an evergreen nesting-tree,<br /> +None had eyed and twitted me,<br /> + Cheerily mating!”</p> +<p>1866.</p> +<h2><a name="page15"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 15</span>A +CONFESSION TO A FRIEND IN TROUBLE</h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Your</span> troubles shrink +not, though I feel them less<br /> +Here, far away, than when I tarried near;<br /> +I even smile old smiles—with listlessness—<br /> +Yet smiles they are, not ghastly mockeries mere.</p> +<p class="poetry">A thought too strange to house within my +brain<br /> +Haunting its outer precincts I discern:<br /> +—<i>That I will not show zeal again to learn</i><br /> +<i>Your griefs</i>, <i>and sharing them</i>, <i>renew my pain</i> +. . .</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page16"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +16</span>It goes, like murky bird or buccaneer<br /> +That shapes its lawless figure on the main,<br /> +And each new impulse tends to make outflee<br /> +The unseemly instinct that had lodgment here;<br /> +Yet, comrade old, can bitterer knowledge be<br /> +Than that, though banned, such instinct was in me!</p> +<p>1866.</p> +<h2><a name="page17"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +17</span>NEUTRAL TONES</h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">We</span> stood by a pond +that winter day,<br /> +And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,<br /> +And a few leaves lay on the starving sod,<br /> + —They had fallen from an ash, and were +gray.</p> +<p class="poetry">Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove<br /> +Over tedious riddles solved years ago;<br /> +And some words played between us to and fro—<br /> + On which lost the more by our love.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +18</span>The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing<br /> +Alive enough to have strength to die;<br /> +And a grin of bitterness swept thereby<br /> + Like an ominous bird a-wing . . .</p> +<p class="poetry">Since then, keen lessons that love deceives,<br +/> +And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me<br /> +Your face, and the God-curst sun, and a tree,<br /> + And a pond edged with grayish leaves.</p> +<p>1867.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page19"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 19</span> +<a href="images/p19b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Sketch of church with person outside wall" +title= +"Sketch of church with person outside wall" + src="images/p19s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2>SHE<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">AT HIS FUNERAL</span></h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">They</span> bear him to his +resting-place—<br /> +In slow procession sweeping by;<br /> +I follow at a stranger’s space;<br /> +His kindred they, his sweetheart I.<br /> +Unchanged my gown of garish dye,<br /> +Though sable-sad is their attire;<br /> +But they stand round with griefless eye,<br /> +Whilst my regret consumes like fire!</p> +<p>187–.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page21"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 21</span> +<a href="images/p21b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Sketch of open book with two letters hand-written on left-hand +page" +title= +"Sketch of open book with two letters hand-written on left-hand +page" + src="images/p21s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2>HER INITIALS</h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Upon</span> a poet’s +page I wrote<br /> +Of old two letters of her name;<br /> +Part seemed she of the effulgent thought<br /> +Whence that high singer’s rapture came.<br /> +—When now I turn the leaf the same<br /> +Immortal light illumes the lay,<br /> +But from the letters of her name<br /> +The radiance has died away!</p> +<p>1869.</p> +<h2><a name="page23"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 23</span>HER +DILEMMA<br /> +(IN — CHURCH)</h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> two were silent +in a sunless church,<br /> +Whose mildewed walls, uneven paving-stones,<br /> +And wasted carvings passed antique research;<br /> +And nothing broke the clock’s dull monotones.</p> +<p class="poetry">Leaning against a wormy poppy-head,<br /> +So wan and worn that he could scarcely stand,<br /> +<a name="page24"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 24</span>—For +he was soon to die,—he softly said,<br /> +“Tell me you love me!”—holding hard her +hand.</p> +<p class="poetry">She would have given a world to breathe +“yes” truly,<br /> +So much his life seemed handing on her mind,<br /> +And hence she lied, her heart persuaded throughly<br /> +’Twas worth her soul to be a moment kind.</p> +<p class="poetry">But the sad need thereof, his nearing death,<br +/> +So mocked humanity that she shamed to prize<br /> +A world conditioned thus, or care for breath<br /> +Where Nature such dilemmas could devise.</p> +<p>1866.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p25b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Sketch of two people in a church" +title= +"Sketch of two people in a church" + src="images/p25s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2><a name="page27"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +27</span>REVULSION</h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Though</span> I waste +watches framing words to fetter <br /> +Some spirit to mine own in clasp and kiss,<br /> +Out of the night there looms a sense ’twere better<br /> +To fail obtaining whom one fails to miss.</p> +<p class="poetry">For winning love we win the risk of losing,<br +/> +And losing love is as one’s life were riven;<br /> +It cuts like contumely and keen ill-using<br /> +To cede what was superfluously given.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page28"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +28</span>Let me then feel no more the fateful thrilling<br /> +That devastates the love-worn wooer’s frame,<br /> +The hot ado of fevered hopes, the chilling<br /> +That agonizes disappointed aim!<br /> +So may I live no junctive law fulfilling,<br /> +And my heart’s table bear no woman’s name.</p> +<p>1866.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p30b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Sketch of person walking long path to building on hill" +title= +"Sketch of person walking long path to building on hill" + src="images/p30s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2><a name="page31"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 31</span>SHE, +TO HIM<br /> +I</h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">When</span> you shall see +me in the toils of Time,<br /> +My lauded beauties carried off from me,<br /> +My eyes no longer stars as in their prime,<br /> +My name forgot of Maiden Fair and Free;</p> +<p class="poetry">When in your being heart concedes to mind,<br +/> +And judgment, though you scarce its process know,<br /> +Recalls the excellencies I once enshrined,<br /> +And you are irked that they have withered so:</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page32"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +32</span>Remembering that with me lies not the blame,<br /> +That Sportsman Time but rears his brood to kill,<br /> +Knowing me in my soul the very same—<br /> +One who would die to spare you touch of ill!—<br /> +Will you not grant to old affection’s claim<br /> +The hand of friendship down Life’s sunless hill?</p> +<p>1866.</p> +<h2><a name="page33"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 33</span>SHE, +TO HIM<br /> +II</h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Perhaps</span>, long hence, +when I have passed away,<br /> +Some other’s feature, accent, thought like mine,<br /> +Will carry you back to what I used to say,<br /> +And bring some memory of your love’s decline.</p> +<p class="poetry">Then you may pause awhile and think, +“Poor jade!”<br /> +And yield a sigh to me—as ample due,<br /> +Not as the tittle of a debt unpaid<br /> +To one who could resign her all to you—</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page34"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +34</span>And thus reflecting, you will never see<br /> +That your thin thought, in two small words conveyed,<br /> +Was no such fleeting phantom-thought to me,<br /> +But the Whole Life wherein my part was played;<br /> +And you amid its fitful masquerade<br /> +A Thought—as I in yours but seem to be.</p> +<p>1866.</p> +<h2><a name="page35"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 35</span>SHE, +TO HIM<br /> +III</h2> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">will</span> be faithful +to thee; aye, I will!<br /> +And Death shall choose me with a wondering eye <br /> +That he did not discern and domicile<br /> +One his by right ever since that last Good-bye!</p> +<p class="poetry">I have no care for friends, or kin, or prime<br +/> +Of manhood who deal gently with me here;<br /> +Amid the happy people of my time<br /> +Who work their love’s fulfilment, I appear</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page36"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +36</span>Numb as a vane that cankers on its point,<br /> +True to the wind that kissed ere canker came;<br /> +Despised by souls of Now, who would disjoint<br /> +The mind from memory, and make Life all aim,</p> +<p class="poetry">My old dexterities of hue quite gone,<br /> +And nothing left for Love to look upon.</p> +<p>1866.</p> +<h2><a name="page37"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 37</span>SHE, +TO HIM<br /> +IV</h2> +<p class="poetry">This love puts all humanity from me;<br /> +I can but maledict her, pray her dead,<br /> +For giving love and getting love of thee—<br /> +Feeding a heart that else mine own had fed!</p> +<p class="poetry">How much I love I know not, life not known,<br +/> +Save as some unit I would add love by;<br /> +But this I know, my being is but thine own—<br /> +Fused from its separateness by ecstasy.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +38</span>And thus I grasp thy amplitudes, of her<br /> +Ungrasped, though helped by nigh-regarding eyes;<br /> +Canst thou then hate me as an envier<br /> +Who see unrecked what I so dearly prize?<br /> +Believe me, Lost One, Love is lovelier<br /> +The more it shapes its moan in selfish-wise.</p> +<p>1866.</p> +<h2><a name="page39"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +39</span>DITTY<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">(E. L G.)</span></h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Beneath</span> a knap where +flown<br /> + Nestlings play,<br /> +Within walls of weathered stone,<br /> + Far away<br /> +From the files of formal houses,<br /> +By the bough the firstling browses,<br /> +Lives a Sweet: no merchants meet,<br /> +No man barters, no man sells<br /> + Where she dwells.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page40"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +40</span>Upon that fabric fair<br /> + “Here is she!”<br /> +Seems written everywhere<br /> + Unto me.<br /> +But to friends and nodding neighbours,<br /> +Fellow-wights in lot and labours,<br /> +Who descry the times as I,<br /> +No such lucid legend tells<br /> + Where she dwells.</p> +<p class="poetry">Should I lapse to what I was<br /> + Ere we met;<br /> +(Such can not be, but because<br /> + Some forget<br /> +Let me feign it)—none would notice<br /> +That where she I know by rote is<br /> +Spread a strange and withering change,<br /> +Like a drying of the wells<br /> + Where she dwells.</p> +<p class="poetry">To feel I might have kissed—<br /> + Loved as true—<br /> +Otherwhere, nor Mine have missed<br /> + My life through.<br /> +<a name="page41"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 41</span>Had I +never wandered near her,<br /> +Is a smart severe—severer<br /> +In the thought that she is nought,<br /> +Even as I, beyond the dells<br /> + Where she dwells.</p> +<p class="poetry">And Devotion droops her glance<br /> + To recall<br /> +What bond-servants of Chance<br /> + We are all.<br /> +I but found her in that, going<br /> +On my errant path unknowing,<br /> +I did not out-skirt the spot<br /> +That no spot on earth excels,<br /> + —Where she dwells!</p> +<p>1870.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page43"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 43</span> +<a href="images/p43b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Sketch of man in military dress" +title= +"Sketch of man in military dress" + src="images/p43s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2>THE SERGEANT’S SONG<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">(1803)</span></h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">When</span> Lawyers strive +to heal a breach,<br /> +And Parsons practise what they preach;<br /> +Then Little Boney he’ll pounce down,<br /> +And march his men on London town!<br /> + Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lorum,<br /> + Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lay!</p> +<p class="poetry">When Justices hold equal scales,<br /> +And Rogues are only found in jails;<br /> +<a name="page44"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 44</span>Then +Little Boney he’ll pounce down,<br /> +And march his men on London town!<br /> + Rollicum-rorum, &c.</p> +<p class="poetry">When Rich Men find their wealth a curse,<br /> +And fill therewith the Poor Man’s purse;<br /> +Then Little Boney he’ll pounce down,<br /> +And march his men on London town!<br /> + Rollicum-rorum, &c.</p> +<p class="poetry">When Husbands with their Wives agree,<br /> +And Maids won’t wed from modesty;<br /> +Then Little Boney he’ll pounce down,<br /> +And march his men on London town!<br /> + Rollicum-rorum, tol-tol-lorum,<br /> + Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lay!</p> +<p>1878.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Published in</i> “<i>The +Trumpet-Major</i>,” 1880.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page45"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 45</span> +<a href="images/p45b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Sketch of cannons overlooking a town" +title= +"Sketch of cannons overlooking a town" + src="images/p45s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2>VALENCIENNES<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">(1793)</span></h2> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">By Corp’l +Tullidge</span>: <i>see</i> “<i>The +Trumpet-Major</i>”<br /> +<span class="smcap">In Memory of</span> S. C. (<span +class="smcap">Pensioner</span>). <span +class="smcap">Died</span> 184–</p> +<p class="poetry"> <span class="smcap">We</span> +trenched, we trumpeted and drummed,<br /> +And from our mortars tons of iron hummed<br /> + Ath’art the ditch, the month we bombed<br /> + The Town o’ +Valencieën.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page46"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 46</span>’Twas in the June o’ +Ninety-dree<br /> +(The Duke o’ Yark our then Commander been)<br /> + The German Legion, Guards, and we<br /> + Laid siege to Valencieën.</p> +<p class="poetry"> This was the first time in +the war<br /> +That French and English spilled each other’s gore;<br /> + —Few dreamt how far would roll the roar<br /> + Begun at Valencieën!</p> +<p class="poetry"> ’Twas said that +we’d no business there<br /> +A-topperèn the French for disagreën;<br /> + However, that’s not my affair—<br /> + We were at Valencieën.</p> +<p class="poetry"> Such snocks and slats, since +war began<br /> +Never knew raw recruit or veteran:<br /> + Stone-deaf therence went many a man<br /> + Who served at Valencieën.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page47"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 47</span>Into the streets, ath’art the +sky,<br /> +A hundred thousand balls and bombs were fleën;<br /> + And harmless townsfolk fell to die<br /> + Each hour at Valencieën!</p> +<p class="poetry"> And, sweatèn wi’ +the bombardiers,<br /> +A shell was slent to shards anighst my ears:<br /> + —’Twas nigh the end of hopes and +fears<br /> + For me at Valencieën!</p> +<p class="poetry"> They bore my wownded frame to +camp,<br /> +And shut my gapèn skull, and washed en cleän,<br /> + And jined en wi’ a zilver clamp<br /> + Thik night at Valencieën.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “We’ve fetched en +back to quick from dead;<br /> +But never more on earth while rose is red<br /> + Will drum rouse Corpel!” Doctor said<br /> + O’ me at +Valencieën.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page48"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 48</span>’Twer true. No voice +o’ friend or foe<br /> +Can reach me now, or any livèn beën;<br /> + And little have I power to know<br /> + Since then at Valencieën!</p> +<p class="poetry"> I never hear the zummer +hums<br /> +O’ bees; and don’ know when the cuckoo comes;<br /> + But night and day I hear the bombs<br /> + We threw at Valencieën . . +.</p> +<p class="poetry"> As for the Duke o’ Yark +in war,<br /> +There be some volk whose judgment o’ en is mean;<br /> + But this I say—a was not far<br /> + From great at Valencieën.</p> +<p class="poetry"> O’ wild wet nights, +when all seems sad,<br /> +My wownds come back, as though new wownds I’d had;<br /> + But yet—at times I’m sort o’ +glad<br /> + I fout at Valencieën.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page49"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 49</span>Well: Heaven wi’ its jasper +halls<br /> +Is now the on’y Town I care to be in . . .<br /> + Good Lord, if Nick should bomb the walls<br /> + As we did Valencieën!</p> +<p>1878–1897.</p> +<h2><a name="page51"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 51</span>SAN +SEBASTIAN<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">(August 1813)</span></h2> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">With Thoughts +of Sergeant</span> M— (<span +class="smcap">Pensioner</span>), <span class="smcap">who +died</span> 185–.</p> +<p class="poetry">“<span class="smcap">Why</span>, +Sergeant, stray on the Ivel Way,<br /> +As though at home there were spectres rife?<br /> +From first to last ’twas a proud career!<br /> +And your sunny years with a gracious wife<br /> + Have brought you a daughter dear.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page52"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +52</span>“I watched her to-day; a more comely maid,<br /> +As she danced in her muslin bowed with blue,<br /> +Round a Hintock maypole never gayed.”<br /> +—“Aye, aye; I watched her this day, too,<br /> + As it happens,” the Sergeant said.</p> +<p class="poetry">“My daughter is now,” he again +began,<br /> +“Of just such an age as one I knew<br /> +When we of the Line and Forlorn-hope van,<br /> +On an August morning—a chosen few—<br /> + Stormed San Sebastian.</p> +<p class="poetry">“She’s a score less three; so about +was <i>she</i>—<br /> +The maiden I wronged in Peninsular days . . .<br /> +You may prate of your prowess in lusty times,<br /> +But as years gnaw inward you blink your bays,<br /> + And see too well your crimes!</p> +<p class="poetry">“We’d stormed it at night, by the +vlanker-light<br /> +Of burning towers, and the mortar’s boom:<br /> +We’d topped the breach; but had failed to stay,<br /> +For our files were misled by the baffling gloom;<br /> + And we said we’d storm by day.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p53b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Sketch of mountain" +title= +"Sketch of mountain" + src="images/p53s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page55"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +55</span>“So, out of the trenches, with features set,<br /> +On that hot, still morning, in measured pace,<br /> +Our column climbed; climbed higher yet,<br /> +Past the fauss’bray, scarp, up the curtain-face,<br /> + And along the parapet.</p> +<p class="poetry">“From the battened hornwork the +cannoneers<br /> +Hove crashing balls of iron fire;<br /> +On the shaking gap mount the volunteers<br /> +In files, and as they mount expire<br /> + Amid curses, groans, and cheers.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Five hours did we storm, five hours +re-form,<br /> +As Death cooled those hot blood pricked on;<br /> +Till our cause was helped by a woe within:<br /> +They swayed from the summit we’d leapt upon,<br /> + And madly we entered in.</p> +<p class="poetry">“On end for plunder, ’mid rain and +thunder<br /> +That burst with the lull of our cannonade,<br /> +We vamped the streets in the stifling air—<br /> +Our hunger unsoothed, our thirst unstayed—<br /> + And ransacked the buildings there.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page56"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +56</span>“Down the stony steps of the house-fronts white<br +/> +We rolled rich puncheons of Spanish grape,<br /> +Till at length, with the fire of the wine alight,<br /> +I saw at a doorway a fair fresh shape—<br /> + A woman, a sylph, or sprite.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Afeard she fled, and with heated head<br +/> +I pursued to the chamber she called her own;<br /> +—When might is right no qualms deter,<br /> +And having her helpless and alone<br /> + I wreaked my will on her.</p> +<p class="poetry">“She raised her beseeching eyes to me,<br +/> +And I heard the words of prayer she sent<br /> +In her own soft language . . . Seemingly<br /> +I copied those eyes for my punishment<br /> + In begetting the girl you see!</p> +<p class="poetry">“So, to-day I stand with a God-set +brand<br /> +Like Cain’s, when he wandered from kindred’s ken . . +.<br /> +<a name="page57"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 57</span>I served +through the war that made Europe free;<br /> +I wived me in peace-year. But, hid from men,<br /> + I bear that mark on me.</p> +<p class="poetry">“And I nightly stray on the Ivel Way<br +/> +As though at home there were spectres rife;<br /> +I delight me not in my proud career;<br /> +And ’tis coals of fire that a gracious wife<br /> + Should have brought me a daughter dear!”</p> +<h2><a name="page59"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 59</span>THE +STRANGER’S SONG</h2> +<p style="text-align: center">(<i>As sung by</i> <span +class="smcap">Mr</span>. <span class="smcap">Charles +Charrington</span> <i>in the play of</i> “<i>The Three +Wayfarers</i>”)</p> +<p +class="poetry"> O +<span class="smcap">my</span> trade it is the rarest one,<br /> +Simple shepherds all—<br /> + My trade is a sight to see;<br /> +For my customers I tie, and take ’em up on high,<br /> + And waft ’em to a far countree!</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page60"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +60</span>My tools are but common ones,<br /> + + +Simple shepherds all—<br /> + My tools are no sight to see:<br +/> +A little hempen string, and a post whereon to swing,<br /> + Are implements enough for me!</p> +<p class="poetry">To-morrow is my working day,<br /> + Simple shepherds +all—<br /> + To-morrow is a working day for +me:<br /> +For the farmer’s sheep is slain, and the lad who did it +ta’en,<br /> + And on his soul may God ha’ mer-cy!</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Printed in</i> “<i>The +Three Strangers</i>,” 1883.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page61"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 61</span> +<a href="images/p61b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Sketch of man in old street" +title= +"Sketch of man in old street" + src="images/p61s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2>THE BURGHERS<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">(17–)</span></h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> sun had wheeled +from Grey’s to Dammer’s Crest,<br /> +And still I mused on that Thing imminent:<br /> +At length I sought the High-street to the West.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page62"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +62</span>The level flare raked pane and pediment<br /> +And my wrecked face, and shaped my nearing friend<br /> +Like one of those the Furnace held unshent.</p> +<p class="poetry">“I’ve news concerning her,” +he said. “Attend.<br /> +They fly to-night at the late moon’s first gleam:<br /> +Watch with thy steel: two righteous thrusts will end</p> +<p class="poetry">Her shameless visions and his passioned +dream.<br /> +I’ll watch with thee, to testify thy wrong—<br /> +To aid, maybe.—Law consecrates the scheme.”</p> +<p class="poetry">I started, and we paced the flags along<br /> +Till I replied: “Since it has come to this<br /> +I’ll do it! But alone. I can be +strong.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Three hours past Curfew, when the Froom’s +mild hiss<br /> +Reigned sole, undulled by whirr of merchandize,<br /> +From Pummery-Tout to where the Gibbet is,</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page63"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +63</span>I crossed my pleasaunce hard by Glyd’path Rise,<br +/> +And stood beneath the wall. Eleven strokes went,<br /> +And to the door they came, contrariwise,</p> +<p class="poetry">And met in clasp so close I had but bent<br /> +My lifted blade upon them to have let<br /> +Their two souls loose upon the firmament.</p> +<p class="poetry">But something held my arm. “A +moment yet<br /> +As pray-time ere you wantons die!” I said;<br /> +And then they saw me. Swift her gaze was set</p> +<p class="poetry">With eye and cry of love illimited<br /> +Upon her Heart-king. Never upon me<br /> +Had she thrown look of love so thorough-sped! . . .</p> +<p class="poetry">At once she flung her faint form shieldingly<br +/> +On his, against the vengeance of my vows;<br /> +The which o’erruling, her shape shielded he.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page64"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +64</span>Blanked by such love, I stood as in a drowse,<br /> +And the slow moon edged from the upland nigh,<br /> +My sad thoughts moving thuswise: “I may house</p> +<p class="poetry">And I may husband her, yet what am I<br /> +But licensed tyrant to this bonded pair?<br /> +Says Charity, Do as ye would be done by.” . . .</p> +<p class="poetry">Hurling my iron to the bushes there,<br /> +I bade them stay. And, as if brain and breast<br /> +Were passive, they walked with me to the stair.</p> +<p class="poetry">Inside the house none watched; and on we +prest<br /> +Before a mirror, in whose gleam I read<br /> +Her beauty, his,—and mine own mien unblest;</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page65"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +65</span>Till at her room I turned. “Madam,” I +said,<br /> +“Have you the wherewithal for this? Pray speak.<br /> +Love fills no cupboard. You’ll need daily +bread.”</p> +<p class="poetry">“We’ve nothing, sire,” said +she; “and nothing seek.<br /> +’Twere base in me to rob my lord unware;<br /> +Our hands will earn a pittance week by week.”</p> +<p class="poetry">And next I saw she’d piled her raiment +rare<br /> +Within the garde-robes, and her household purse,<br /> +Her jewels, and least lace of personal wear;</p> +<p class="poetry">And stood in homespun. Now grown wholly +hers,<br /> +I handed her the gold, her jewels all,<br /> +And him the choicest of her robes diverse.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page66"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +66</span>“I’ll take you to the doorway in the +wall,<br /> +And then adieu,” I to them. “Friends, +withdraw.”<br /> +They did so; and she went—beyond recall.</p> +<p class="poetry">And as I paused beneath the arch I saw<br /> +Their moonlit figures—slow, as in surprise—<br /> +Descend the slope, and vanish on the haw.</p> +<p class="poetry">“‘Fool,’ some will +say,” I thought. “But who is wise,<br /> +Save God alone, to weigh my reasons why?”<br /> +—“Hast thou struck home?” came with the +boughs’ night-sighs.</p> +<p class="poetry">It was my friend. “I have struck +well. They fly,<br /> +But carry wounds that none can cicatrize.”<br /> +—“Not mortal?” said he. +“Lingering—worse,” said I.</p> +<h2><a name="page67"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +67</span>LEIPZIG<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">(1813)</span></h2> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Scene</i>: <i>The +Master-tradesmen’s Parlour at the Old Ship Inn</i>, +<i>Casterbridge</i>. <i>Evening</i>.</p> +<p class="poetry">“<span class="smcap">Old</span> Norbert +with the flat blue cap—<br /> + A German said to be—<br /> +Why let your pipe die on your lap,<br /> + Your eyes blink absently?”—</p> +<p class="poetry">—“Ah! . . . Well, I had thought +till my cheek was wet<br /> + Of my mother—her voice and mien<br /> +When she used to sing and pirouette,<br /> + And touse the tambourine</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page68"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +68</span>“To the march that yon street-fiddler plies:<br /> + She told me ’twas the same<br /> +She’d heard from the trumpets, when the Allies<br /> + Her city overcame.</p> +<p class="poetry">“My father was one of the German +Hussars,<br /> + My mother of Leipzig; but he,<br /> +Long quartered here, fetched her at close of the wars,<br /> + And a Wessex lad reared me.</p> +<p class="poetry">“And as I grew up, again and again<br /> + She’d tell, after trilling that air,<br /> +Of her youth, and the battles on Leipzig plain<br /> + And of all that was suffered there! . . .</p> +<p class="poetry">“—’Twas a time of +alarms. Three Chiefs-at-arms<br /> + Combined them to crush One,<br /> +And by numbers’ might, for in equal fight<br /> + He stood the matched of none.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page69"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +69</span>“Carl Schwarzenberg was of the plot,<br /> + And Blücher, prompt and prow,<br /> +And Jean the Crown-Prince Bernadotte:<br /> + Buonaparte was the foe.</p> +<p class="poetry">“City and plain had felt his reign<br /> + From the North to the Middle Sea,<br /> +And he’d now sat down in the noble town<br /> + Of the King of Saxony.</p> +<p class="poetry">“October’s deep dew its wet +gossamer threw<br /> + Upon Leipzig’s lawns, leaf-strewn,<br /> +Where lately each fair avenue<br /> + Wrought shade for summer noon.</p> +<p class="poetry">“To westward two dull rivers crept<br /> + Through miles of marsh and slough,<br /> +Whereover a streak of whiteness swept—<br /> + The Bridge of Lindenau.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Hard by, in the City, the One, +care-tossed,<br /> + Gloomed over his shrunken power;<br /> +And without the walls the hemming host<br /> + Waxed denser every hour.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page70"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +70</span>“He had speech that night on the morrow’s +designs<br /> + With his chiefs by the bivouac fire,<br /> +While the belt of flames from the enemy’s lines<br /> + Flared nigher him yet and nigher.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Three sky-lights then from the girdling +trine<br /> + Told, ‘Ready!’ As they rose<br /> +Their flashes seemed his Judgment-Sign<br /> + For bleeding Europe’s woes.</p> +<p class="poetry">“’Twas seen how the French +watch-fires that night<br /> + Glowed still and steadily;<br /> +And the Three rejoiced, for they read in the sight<br /> + That the One disdained to flee . . .</p> +<p class="poetry">“—Five hundred guns began the +affray<br /> + On next day morn at nine;<br /> +Such mad and mangling cannon-play<br /> + Had never torn human line.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page71"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +71</span>“Around the town three battles beat,<br /> + Contracting like a gin;<br /> +As nearer marched the million feet<br /> + Of columns closing in.</p> +<p class="poetry">“The first battle nighed on the low +Southern side;<br /> + The second by the Western way;<br /> +The nearing of the third on the North was heard:<br /> + —The French held all at bay.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Against the first band did the Emperor +stand;<br /> + Against the second stood Ney;<br /> +Marmont against the third gave the order-word:<br /> + —Thus raged it throughout the day.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Fifty thousand sturdy souls on those +trampled plains and knolls,<br /> + Who met the dawn hopefully,<br /> +And were lotted their shares in a quarrel not theirs,<br /> + Dropt then in their agony.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page72"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +72</span>“‘O,’ the old folks said, ‘ye +Preachers stern!<br /> + O so-called Christian time!<br /> +When will men’s swords to ploughshares turn?<br /> + When come the promised prime?’ . . .</p> +<p class="poetry">“—The clash of horse and man which +that day began,<br /> + Closed not as evening wore;<br /> +And the morrow’s armies, rear and van,<br /> + Still mustered more and more.</p> +<p class="poetry">“From the City towers the Confederate +Powers<br /> + Were eyed in glittering lines,<br /> +And up from the vast a murmuring passed<br /> + As from a wood of pines.</p> +<p class="poetry">“‘’Tis well to cover a feeble +skill<br /> + By numbers!’ scoffèd He;<br /> +‘But give me a third of their strength, I’d fill<br +/> + Half Hell with their soldiery!’</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p74b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Sketch of town square, Leipzig?" +title= +"Sketch of town square, Leipzig?" + src="images/p74s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page75"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +75</span>“All that day raged the war they waged,<br /> + And again dumb night held reign,<br /> +Save that ever upspread from the dark deathbed<br /> + A miles-wide pant of pain.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Hard had striven brave Ney, the true +Bertrand,<br /> + Victor, and Augereau,<br /> +Bold Poniatowski, and Lauriston,<br /> + To stay their overthrow;</p> +<p class="poetry">“But, as in the dream of one sick to +death<br /> + There comes a narrowing room<br /> +That pens him, body and limbs and breath,<br /> + To wait a hideous doom,</p> +<p class="poetry">“So to Napoleon, in the hush<br /> + That held the town and towers<br /> +Through these dire nights, a creeping crush<br /> + Seemed inborne with the hours.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page76"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +76</span>“One road to the rearward, and but one,<br /> + Did fitful Chance allow;<br /> +’Twas where the Pleiss’ and Elster run—<br /> + The Bridge of Lindenau.</p> +<p class="poetry">“The nineteenth dawned. Down street +and Platz<br /> + The wasted French sank back,<br /> +Stretching long lines across the Flats<br /> + And on the bridge-way track;</p> +<p class="poetry">“When there surged on the sky an earthen +wave,<br /> + And stones, and men, as though<br /> +Some rebel churchyard crew updrave<br /> + Their sepulchres from below.</p> +<p class="poetry">“To Heaven is blown Bridge Lindenau;<br +/> + Wrecked regiments reel therefrom;<br /> +And rank and file in masses plough<br /> + The sullen Elster-Strom.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page77"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +77</span>“A gulf was Lindenau; and dead<br /> + Were fifties, hundreds, tens;<br /> +And every current rippled red<br /> + With Marshal’s blood and men’s.</p> +<p class="poetry">“The smart Macdonald swam therein,<br /> + And barely won the verge;<br /> +Bold Poniatowski plunged him in<br /> + Never to re-emerge.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Then stayed the strife. The +remnants wound<br /> + Their Rhineward way pell-mell;<br /> +And thus did Leipzig City sound<br /> + An Empire’s passing bell;</p> +<p class="poetry">“While in cavalcade, with band and +blade,<br /> + Came Marshals, Princes, Kings;<br /> +And the town was theirs . . . Ay, as simple maid,<br /> + My mother saw these things!</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page78"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +78</span>“And whenever those notes in the street begin,<br +/> + I recall her, and that far scene,<br /> +And her acting of how the Allies marched in,<br /> + And her touse of the tambourine!”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p78b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Sketch of person standing outside bay window, looking in" +title= +"Sketch of person standing outside bay window, looking in" + src="images/p78s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2><a name="page79"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 79</span>THE +PEASANT’S CONFESSION</h2> +<blockquote><p>“Si le maréchal Grouchy avait +été rejoint par l’officier que +Napoléon lui avait expédié la veille +à dix heures du soir, toute question eût +disparu. Mais cet officier n’était point +parvenu à sa destination, ainsi que le maréchal +n’a cessé de l’affirmer toute sa vie, et il +faut l’en croire, car autrement il n’aurait eu aucune +raison pour hésiter. Cet officier avait-il +été pris? avait-il passé à +l’ennemi? C’est ce qu’on a toujours +ignoré.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right">—<span +class="smcap">Thiers</span>: <i>Histoire de +l’Empire</i>. “Waterloo.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Good</span> Father! . . . +’Twas an eve in middle June,<br /> + And war was waged anew<br /> +By great Napoleon, who for years had strewn<br /> + Men’s bones all Europe through.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page80"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +80</span>Three nights ere this, with columned corps he’d +crossed<br /> + The Sambre at Charleroi,<br /> +To move on Brussels, where the English host<br /> + Dallied in Parc and Bois.</p> +<p class="poetry">The yestertide we’d heard the gloomy +gun<br /> + Growl through the long-sunned day<br /> +From Quatre-Bras and Ligny; till the dun<br /> + Twilight suppressed the fray;</p> +<p class="poetry">Albeit therein—as lated tongues +bespoke—<br /> + Brunswick’s high heart was drained,<br /> +And Prussia’s Line and Landwehr, though unbroke,<br /> + Stood cornered and constrained.</p> +<p class="poetry">And at next noon-time Grouchy slowly passed<br +/> + With thirty thousand men:<br /> +We hoped thenceforth no army, small or vast,<br /> + Would trouble us again.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +81</span>My hut lay deeply in a vale recessed,<br /> + And never a soul seemed nigh<br /> +When, reassured at length, we went to rest—<br /> + My children, wife, and I.</p> +<p class="poetry">But what was this that broke our humble +ease?<br /> + What noise, above the rain,<br /> +Above the dripping of the poplar trees<br /> + That smote along the pane?</p> +<p class="poetry">—A call of mastery, bidding me arise,<br +/> + Compelled me to the door,<br /> +At which a horseman stood in martial guise—<br /> + Splashed—sweating from every pore.</p> +<p class="poetry">Had I seen Grouchy? Yes? Which +track took he?<br /> + Could I lead thither on?—<br /> +Fulfilment would ensure gold pieces three,<br /> + Perchance more gifts anon.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page82"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +82</span>“I bear the Emperor’s mandate,” then +he said,<br /> + “Charging the Marshal straight<br /> +To strike between the double host ahead<br /> + Ere they co-operate,</p> +<p class="poetry">“Engaging Blücher till the Emperor +put<br /> + Lord Wellington to flight,<br /> +And next the Prussians. This to set afoot<br /> + Is my emprise to-night.”</p> +<p class="poetry">I joined him in the mist; but, pausing, +sought<br /> + To estimate his say.<br /> +Grouchy had made for Wavre; and yet, on thought,<br /> + I did not lead that way.</p> +<p class="poetry">I mused: “If Grouchy thus instructed +be,<br /> + The clash comes sheer hereon;<br /> +My farm is stript. While, as for pieces three,<br /> + Money the French have none.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page83"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +83</span>“Grouchy unwarned, moreo’er, the English +win,<br /> + And mine is left to me—<br /> +They buy, not borrow.”—Hence did I begin<br /> + To lead him treacherously.</p> +<p class="poetry">By Joidoigne, near to east, as we ondrew,<br /> + Dawn pierced the humid air;<br /> +And eastward faced I with him, though I knew<br /> + Never marched Grouchy there.</p> +<p class="poetry">Near Ottignies we passed, across the Dyle<br /> + (Lim’lette left far aside),<br /> +And thence direct toward Pervez and Noville<br /> + Through green grain, till he cried:</p> +<p class="poetry">“I doubt thy conduct, man! no track is +here—<br /> + I doubt thy gagèd word!”<br /> +Thereat he scowled on me, and pranced me near,<br /> + And pricked me with his sword.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page84"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +84</span>“Nay, Captain, hold! We skirt, not trace the +course<br /> + Of Grouchy,” said I then:<br /> +“As we go, yonder went he, with his force<br /> + Of thirty thousand men.”</p> +<p class="poetry">—At length noon nighed; when west, from +Saint-John’s-Mound,<br /> + A hoarse artillery boomed,<br /> +And from Saint-Lambert’s upland, chapel-crowned,<br /> + The Prussian squadrons loomed.</p> +<p class="poetry">Then to the wayless wet gray ground he +leapt;<br /> + “My mission fails!” he cried;<br /> +“Too late for Grouchy now to intercept,<br /> + For, peasant, you have lied!”</p> +<p class="poetry">He turned to pistol me. I sprang, and +drew<br /> + The sabre from his flank,<br /> +And ’twixt his nape and shoulder, ere he knew,<br /> + I struck, and dead he sank.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p85b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Sketch of landscape" +title= +"Sketch of landscape" + src="images/p85s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page87"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +87</span>I hid him deep in nodding rye and oat—<br /> + His shroud green stalks and loam;<br /> +His requiem the corn-blade’s husky note—<br /> + And then I hastened home, . . .</p> +<p class="poetry">—Two armies writhe in coils of red and +blue,<br /> + And brass and iron clang<br /> +From Goumont, past the front of Waterloo,<br /> + To Pap’lotte and Smohain.</p> +<p class="poetry">The Guard Imperial wavered on the height;<br /> + The Emperor’s face grew glum;<br /> +“I sent,” he said, “to Grouchy yesternight,<br +/> + And yet he does not come!”</p> +<p class="poetry">’Twas then, Good Father, that the French +espied,<br /> + Streaking the summer land,<br /> +The men of Blücher. But the Emperor cried,<br /> + “Grouchy is now at hand!”</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page88"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +88</span>And meanwhile Vand’leur, Vivian, Maitland, +Kempt,<br /> + Met d’Erlon, Friant, Ney;<br /> +But Grouchy—mis-sent, blamed, yet blame-exempt—<br /> + Grouchy was far away.</p> +<p class="poetry">By even, slain or struck, Michel the strong,<br +/> + Bold Travers, Dnop, Delord,<br /> +Smart Guyot, Reil-le, l’Heriter, Friant,<br /> + Scattered that champaign o’er.</p> +<p class="poetry">Fallen likewise wronged Duhesme, and skilled +Lobau<br /> + Did that red sunset see;<br /> +Colbert, Legros, Blancard! . . . And of the foe<br /> + Picton and Ponsonby;</p> +<p class="poetry">With Gordon, Canning, Blackman, Ompteda,<br /> + L’Estrange, Delancey, Packe,<br /> +Grose, D’Oyly, Stables, Morice, Howard, Hay,<br /> + Von Schwerin, Watzdorf, Boek,</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page89"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +89</span>Smith, Phelips, Fuller, Lind, and Battersby,<br /> + And hosts of ranksmen round . . .<br /> +Memorials linger yet to speak to thee<br /> + Of those that bit the ground!</p> +<p class="poetry">The Guards’ last column yielded; dykes of +dead<br /> + Lay between vale and ridge,<br /> +As, thinned yet closing, faint yet fierce, they sped<br /> + In packs to Genappe Bridge.</p> +<p class="poetry">Safe was my stock; my capple cow unslain;<br /> + Intact each cock and hen;<br /> +But Grouchy far at Wavre all day had lain,<br /> + And thirty thousand men.</p> +<p class="poetry">O Saints, had I but lost my earing corn<br /> + And saved the cause once prized!<br /> +O Saints, why such false witness had I borne<br /> + When late I’d sympathized! . . .</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page90"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +90</span>So now, being old, my children eye askance<br /> + My slowly dwindling store,<br /> +And crave my mite; till, worn with tarriance,<br /> + I care for life no more.</p> +<p class="poetry">To Almighty God henceforth I stand +confessed,<br /> + And Virgin-Saint Marie;<br /> +O Michael, John, and Holy Ones in rest,<br /> + Entreat the Lord for me!</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page91"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 91</span> +<a href="images/p91b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Silhouette of solder standing on hill" +title= +"Silhouette of solder standing on hill" + src="images/p91s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2>THE ALARM<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">(1803)</span></h2> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>See</i> “<i>The +Trumpet-Major</i>”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">In Memory of +one of the Writer’s Family who was a</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">Volunteer during the War with +Napoleon</span></p> +<p class="poetry"> <span +class="smcap">In</span> a ferny byway<br /> + Near the great South-Wessex +Highway,<br /> + A homestead raised its breakfast-smoke aloft;<br /> +The dew-damps still lay steamless, for the sun had made no +sky-way,<br /> + And twilight cloaked the +croft.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a +name="page92"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 92</span>’Twas +hard to realize on<br /> + This snug side the mute horizon<br +/> + That beyond it hostile armaments might steer,<br /> +Save from seeing in the porchway a fair woman weep with eyes +on<br /> + A harnessed Volunteer.</p> +<p class="poetry"> In haste +he’d flown there<br /> + To his comely wife alone there,<br +/> + While marching south hard by, to still her fears,<br +/> +For she soon would be a mother, and few messengers were known +there<br /> + In these campaigning years.</p> +<p class="poetry"> ’Twas +time to be Good-bying,<br /> + Since the assembly-hour was +nighing<br /> + In royal George’s town at six that morn;<br /> +And betwixt its wharves and this retreat were ten good miles of +hieing<br /> + Ere ring of bugle-horn.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a +name="page93"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +93</span>“I’ve laid in food, Dear,<br /> + And broached the spiced and +brewed, Dear;<br /> + And if our July hope should antedate,<br /> +Let the char-wench mount and gallop by the halterpath and wood, +Dear,<br /> + And fetch assistance straight.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “As +for Buonaparte, forget him;<br /> + He’s not like to land! +But let him,<br /> + Those strike with aim who strike for wives and +sons!<br /> +And the war-boats built to float him; ’twere but wanted to +upset him<br /> + A slat from Nelson’s +guns!</p> +<p class="poetry"> “But, +to assure thee,<br /> + And of creeping fears to cure +thee,<br /> + If he <i>should</i> be rumoured anchoring in the +Road,<br /> +Drive with the nurse to Kingsbere; and let nothing thence allure +thee<br /> + Till we’ve him +safe-bestowed.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a +name="page94"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 94</span>“Now, +to turn to marching matters:—<br /> + I’ve my knapsack, firelock, +spatters,<br /> + Crossbelts, priming-horn, stock, bay’net, +blackball, clay, <br /> +Pouch, magazine, flints, flint-box that at every quick-step +clatters;<br /> + . . . My heart, Dear; that must stay!”</p> +<p class="poetry"> —With +breathings broken<br /> + Farewell was kissed unspoken,<br +/> + And they parted there as morning stroked the +panes;<br /> +And the Volunteer went on, and turned, and twirled his glove for +token,<br /> + And took the coastward lanes.</p> +<p class="poetry"> When above +He’th Hills he found him,<br /> + He saw, on gazing round him,<br /> + The Barrow-Beacon burning—burning low,<br /> +As if, perhaps, uplighted ever since he’d homeward bound +him;<br /> + And it meant: Expect the Foe!</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p95b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Sketch of person riding with wide landscape behind" +title= +"Sketch of person riding with wide landscape behind" + src="images/p95s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p class="poetry"> <a +name="page97"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 97</span>Leaving the +byway,<br /> + And following swift the +highway,<br /> + Car and chariot met he, faring fast inland;<br /> +“He’s anchored, Soldier!” shouted some: +“God save thee, marching thy way,<br /> + Th’lt front him on the strand!”</p> +<p class="poetry"> He slowed; +he stopped; he paltered<br /> + Awhile with self, and faltered,<br +/> + “Why courting misadventure shoreward roam?<br +/> +To Molly, surely! Seek the woods with her till times have +altered;<br /> + Charity favours home.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> “Else, +my denying<br /> + He would come she’ll read as +lying—<br /> + Think the Barrow-Beacon must have met my +eyes—<br /> +That my words were not unwareness, but deceit of her, while +trying<br /> + My life to jeopardize.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a +name="page98"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 98</span>“At +home is stocked provision,<br /> + And to-night, without +suspicion,<br /> + We might bear it with us to a covert near;<br /> +Such sin, to save a childing wife, would earn it Christ’s +remission,<br /> + Though none forgive it here!”</p> +<p class="poetry"> While thus +he, thinking,<br /> + A little bird, quick drinking<br +/> + Among the crowfoot tufts the river bore,<br /> +Was tangled in their stringy arms, and fluttered, well-nigh +sinking,<br /> + Near him, upon the moor.</p> +<p class="poetry"> He stepped +in, reached, and seized it,<br /> + And, preening, had released it<br +/> + But that a thought of Holy Writ occurred,<br /> +And Signs Divine ere battle, till it seemed him Heaven had +pleased it<br /> + As guide to send the bird.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a +name="page99"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 99</span>“O +Lord, direct me! . . .<br /> + Doth Duty now expect me<br /> + To march a-coast, or guard my weak ones near?<br /> +Give this bird a flight according, that I thence know to elect +me<br /> + The southward or the rear.”</p> +<p class="poetry"> He loosed +his clasp; when, rising,<br /> + The bird—as if +surmising—<br /> + Bore due to southward, crossing by the Froom,<br /> +And Durnover Great-Field and Fort, the soldier clear +advising—<br /> + Prompted he wist by Whom.</p> +<p class="poetry"> Then on he +panted<br /> + By grim Mai-Don, and slanted<br /> + Up the steep Ridge-way, hearkening betwixt +whiles;<br /> +Till, nearing coast and harbour, he beheld the shore-line +planted<br /> + With Foot and Horse for miles.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a +name="page100"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 100</span>Mistrusting +not the omen,<br /> + He gained the beach, where +Yeomen,<br /> + Militia, Fencibles, and Pikemen bold,<br /> +With Regulars in thousands, were enmassed to meet the Foemen,<br +/> + Whose fleet had not yet shoaled.</p> +<p class="poetry"> Captain and +Colonel,<br /> + Sere Generals, Ensigns vernal,<br +/> + Were there; of neighbour-natives, Michel, Smith,<br +/> +Meggs, Bingham, Gambier, Cunningham, roused by the hued +nocturnal<br /> + Swoop on their land and kith.</p> +<p class="poetry"> But +Buonaparte still tarried;<br /> + His project had miscarried;<br /> + At the last hour, equipped for victory,<br /> +The fleet had paused; his subtle combinations had been parried<br +/> + By British strategy.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a +name="page101"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 101</span>Homeward +returning<br /> + Anon, no beacons burning,<br /> + No alarms, the Volunteer, in modest bliss,<br /> +Te Deum sang with wife and friends: “We praise Thee, Lord, +discerning<br /> + That Thou hast helped in +this!”</p> +<h2><a name="page103"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 103</span>HER +DEATH AND AFTER</h2> +<p class="poetry">’<span class="smcap">Twas</span> a +death-bed summons, and forth I went<br /> +By the way of the Western Wall, so drear<br /> +On that winter night, and sought a gate—<br /> + The home, by Fate,<br /> + Of one I had long held dear.</p> +<p class="poetry">And there, as I paused by her tenement,<br /> +And the trees shed on me their rime and hoar,<br /> +I thought of the man who had left her lone—<br /> + Him who made her his own<br /> + When I loved her, long before.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page104"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +104</span>The rooms within had the piteous shine<br /> +That home-things wear when there’s aught amiss;<br /> +From the stairway floated the rise and fall<br /> + Of an infant’s call,<br /> + Whose birth had brought her to this.</p> +<p class="poetry">Her life was the price she would pay for that +whine—<br /> +For a child by the man she did not love.<br /> +“But let that rest for ever,” I said,<br /> + And bent my tread<br /> + To the chamber up above.</p> +<p class="poetry">She took my hand in her thin white own,<br /> +And smiled her thanks—though nigh too weak—<br /> +And made them a sign to leave us there<br /> + Then faltered, ere<br /> + She could bring herself to speak.</p> +<p class="poetry">“’Twas to see you before I +go—he’ll condone<br /> +Such a natural thing now my time’s not much—<br /> +<a name="page105"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 105</span>When +Death is so near it hustles hence<br /> + All passioned sense<br /> + Between woman and man as such!</p> +<p class="poetry">“My husband is absent. As +heretofore<br /> +The City detains him. But, in truth,<br /> +He has not been kind . . . I will speak no blame,<br /> + But—the child is lame;<br /> + O, I pray she may reach his ruth!</p> +<p class="poetry">“Forgive past days—I can say no +more—<br /> +Maybe if we’d wedded you’d now repine! . . .<br /> +But I treated you ill. I was punished. Farewell!<br +/> + —Truth shall I tell?<br /> + Would the child were yours and mine!</p> +<p class="poetry">“As a wife I was true. But, such my +unease<br /> +That, could I insert a deed back in Time,<br /> +I’d make her yours, to secure your care;<br /> + And the scandal bear,<br /> + And the penalty for the crime!”</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page106"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +106</span>—When I had left, and the swinging trees<br /> +Rang above me, as lauding her candid say,<br /> +Another was I. Her words were enough:<br /> + Came smooth, came rough,<br /> + I felt I could live my day.</p> +<p class="poetry">Next night she died; and her obsequies<br /> +In the Field of Tombs, by the Via renowned,<br /> +Had her husband’s heed. His tendance spent,<br /> + I often went<br /> + And pondered by her mound.</p> +<p class="poetry">All that year and the next year whiled,<br /> +And I still went thitherward in the gloam;<br /> +But the Town forgot her and her nook,<br /> + And her husband took<br /> + Another Love to his home.</p> +<p class="poetry">And the rumour flew that the lame lone child<br +/> +Whom she wished for its safety child of mine,<br /> +<a name="page109"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 109</span>Was +treated ill when offspring came<br /> + Of the new-made dame,<br /> + And marked a more vigorous line.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p107b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Sketch of cemetery" +title= +"Sketch of cemetery" + src="images/p107s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p class="poetry">A smarter grief within me wrought<br /> +Than even at loss of her so dear;<br /> +Dead the being whose soul my soul suffused,<br /> + Her child ill-used,<br /> + I helpless to interfere!</p> +<p class="poetry">One eve as I stood at my spot of thought<br /> +In the white-stoned Garth, brooding thus her wrong,<br /> +Her husband neared; and to shun his view<br /> + By her hallowed mew<br /> + I went from the tombs among</p> +<p class="poetry">To the Cirque of the Gladiators which +faced—<br /> +That haggard mark of Imperial Rome,<br /> +Whose Pagan echoes mock the chime<br /> + Of our Christian time:<br /> + It was void, and I inward clomb.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page110"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +110</span>Scarce night the sun’s gold touch displaced<br /> +From the vast Rotund and the neighbouring dead<br /> +When her husband followed; bowed; half-passed,<br /> + With lip upcast;<br /> + Then, halting, sullenly said:</p> +<p class="poetry">“It is noised that you visit my first +wife’s tomb.<br /> +Now, I gave her an honoured name to bear<br /> +While living, when dead. So I’ve claim to ask<br /> + By what right you task<br /> + My patience by vigiling there?</p> +<p class="poetry">“There’s decency even in death, I +assume;<br /> +Preserve it, sir, and keep away;<br /> +For the mother of my first-born you<br /> + Show mind undue!<br /> + —Sir, I’ve nothing more to +say.”</p> +<p class="poetry">A desperate stroke discerned I then—<br +/> +God pardon—or pardon not—the lie;<br /> +<a name="page111"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 111</span>She had +sighed that she wished (lest the child should pine<br /> + Of slights) ’twere mine,<br +/> + So I said: “But the father I.</p> +<p class="poetry">“That you thought it yours is the way of +men;<br /> +But I won her troth long ere your day:<br /> +You learnt how, in dying, she summoned me?<br /> + ’Twas in fealty.<br /> + —Sir, I’ve nothing more to say,</p> +<p class="poetry">“Save that, if you’ll hand me my +little maid,<br /> +I’ll take her, and rear her, and spare you toil.<br /> +Think it more than a friendly act none can;<br /> + I’m a lonely man,<br /> + While you’ve a large pot to boil.</p> +<p class="poetry">“If not, and you’ll put it to ball +or blade—<br /> +To-night, to-morrow night, anywhen—<br /> +I’ll meet you here . . . But think of it,<br /> + And in season fit<br /> + Let me hear from you again.”</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page112"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +112</span>—Well, I went away, hoping; but nought I heard<br +/> +Of my stroke for the child, till there greeted me<br /> +A little voice that one day came<br /> + To my window-frame<br /> + And babbled innocently:</p> +<p class="poetry">“My father who’s not my own, sends +word<br /> +I’m to stay here, sir, where I belong!”<br /> +Next a writing came: “Since the child was the fruit<br /> + Of your lawless suit,<br /> + Pray take her, to right a wrong.”</p> +<p class="poetry">And I did. And I gave the child my +love,<br /> +And the child loved me, and estranged us none.<br /> +But compunctions loomed; for I’d harmed the dead<br /> + By what I’d said<br /> + For the good of the living one.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page113"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +113</span>—Yet though, God wot, I am sinner enough,<br /> +And unworthy the woman who drew me so,<br /> +Perhaps this wrong for her darling’s good<br /> + She forgives, or would,<br /> + If only she could know!</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p113b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Sketch of tree-lined path" +title= +"Sketch of tree-lined path" + src="images/p113s.jpg" /> +</a></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page115"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 115</span> +<a href="images/p115b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Sketch of a decorative stave of music" +title= +"Sketch of a decorative stave of music" + src="images/p115s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2>THE DANCE AT THE PHŒNIX</h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">To</span> Jenny came a +gentle youth<br /> + From inland leazes lone,<br /> +His love was fresh as apple-blooth<br /> + By Parrett, Yeo, or Tone.<br /> +And duly he entreated her<br /> +To be his tender minister,<br /> + And call him aye her own.</p> +<p class="poetry">Fair Jenny’s life had hardly been<br /> + A life of modesty;<br /> +At Casterbridge experience keen<br /> + Of many loves had she<br /> +<a name="page116"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 116</span>From +scarcely sixteen years above;<br /> +Among them sundry troopers of<br /> + The King’s-Own Cavalry.</p> +<p class="poetry">But each with charger, sword, and gun,<br /> + Had bluffed the Biscay wave;<br /> +And Jenny prized her gentle one<br /> + For all the love he gave.<br /> +She vowed to be, if they were wed,<br /> +His honest wife in heart and head<br /> + From bride-ale hour to grave.</p> +<p class="poetry">Wedded they were. Her husband’s +trust<br /> + In Jenny knew no bound,<br /> +And Jenny kept her pure and just,<br /> + Till even malice found<br /> +No sin or sign of ill to be<br /> +In one who walked so decently<br /> + The duteous helpmate’s round.</p> +<p class="poetry">Two sons were born, and bloomed to men,<br /> + And roamed, and were as not:<br /> +Alone was Jenny left again<br /> + As ere her mind had sought<br /> +<a name="page117"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 117</span>A solace +in domestic joys,<br /> +And ere the vanished pair of boys<br /> + Were sent to sun her cot.</p> +<p class="poetry">She numbered near on sixty years,<br /> + And passed as elderly,<br /> +When, in the street, with flush of fears,<br /> + One day discovered she,<br /> +From shine of swords and thump of drum.<br /> +Her early loves from war had come,<br /> + The King’s-Own Cavalry.</p> +<p class="poetry">She turned aside, and bowed her head<br /> + Anigh Saint Peter’s door;<br /> +“Alas for chastened thoughts!” she said;<br /> + “I’m faded now, and hoar,<br /> +And yet those notes—they thrill me through,<br /> +And those gay forms move me anew<br /> + As in the years of yore!” . . .</p> +<p class="poetry">’Twas Christmas, and the Phœnix +Inn<br /> + Was lit with tapers tall,<br /> +For thirty of the trooper men<br /> + Had vowed to give a ball<br /> +<a name="page118"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 118</span>As +“Theirs” had done (’twas handed down)<br /> +When lying in the selfsame town<br /> + Ere Buonaparté’s fall.</p> +<p class="poetry">That night the throbbing “Soldier’s +Joy,”<br /> + The measured tread and sway<br /> +Of “Fancy-Lad” and “Maiden Coy,”<br /> + Reached Jenny as she lay<br /> +Beside her spouse; till springtide blood<br /> +Seemed scouring through her like a flood<br /> + That whisked the years away.</p> +<p class="poetry">She rose, and rayed, and decked her head<br /> + Where the bleached hairs ran thin;<br /> +Upon her cap two bows of red<br /> + She fixed with hasty pin;<br /> +Unheard descending to the street,<br /> +She trod the flags with tune-led feet,<br /> + And stood before the Inn.</p> +<p class="poetry">Save for the dancers’, not a sound<br /> + Disturbed the icy air;<br /> +No watchman on his midnight round<br /> + Or traveller was there;<br /> +<a name="page119"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 119</span>But over +All-Saints’, high and bright,<br /> +Pulsed to the music Sirius white,<br /> + The Wain by Bullstake Square.</p> +<p class="poetry">She knocked, but found her further stride<br /> + Checked by a sergeant tall:<br /> +“Gay Granny, whence come you?” he cried;<br /> + “This is a private ball.”<br /> +—“No one has more right here than me!<br /> +Ere you were born, man,” answered she,<br /> + “I knew the regiment all!”</p> +<p class="poetry">“Take not the lady’s visit +ill!”<br /> + Upspoke the steward free;<br /> +“We lack sufficient partners still,<br /> + So, prithee let her be!”<br /> +They seized and whirled her ’mid the maze,<br /> +And Jenny felt as in the days<br /> + Of her immodesty.</p> +<p class="poetry">Hour chased each hour, and night advanced;<br +/> + She sped as shod with wings;<br /> +Each time and every time she danced—<br /> + Reels, jigs, poussettes, and flings:<br /> +<a name="page120"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 120</span>They +cheered her as she soared and swooped,<br /> +(She’d learnt ere art in dancing drooped<br /> + From hops to slothful swings).</p> +<p class="poetry">The favourite Quick-step “Speed the +Plough”—<br /> + (Cross hands, cast off, and wheel)—<br /> +“The Triumph,” “Sylph,” “The +Row-dow-dow,”<br /> + Famed “Major Malley’s Reel,”<br /> +“The Duke of York’s,” “The Fairy +Dance,”<br /> +“The Bridge of Lodi” (brought from France),<br /> + She beat out, toe and heel.</p> +<p class="poetry">The “Fall of Paris” clanged its +close,<br /> + And Peter’s chime told four,<br /> +When Jenny, bosom-beating, rose<br /> + To seek her silent door.<br /> +They tiptoed in escorting her,<br /> +Lest stroke of heel or clink of spur<br /> + Should break her goodman’s snore.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page121"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +121</span>The fire that late had burnt fell slack<br /> + When lone at last stood she;<br /> +Her nine-and-fifty years came back;<br /> + She sank upon her knee <br /> +Beside the durn, and like a dart<br /> +A something arrowed through her heart<br /> + In shoots of agony.</p> +<p class="poetry">Their footsteps died as she leant there,<br /> + Lit by the morning star<br /> +Hanging above the moorland, where<br /> + The aged elm-rows are;<br /> +And, as o’ernight, from Pummery Ridge<br /> +To Maembury Ring and Standfast Bridge<br /> + No life stirred, near or far.</p> +<p class="poetry">Though inner mischief worked amain,<br /> + She reached her husband’s side;<br /> +Where, toil-weary, as he had lain<br /> + Beneath the patchwork pied<br /> +When yestereve she’d forthward crept,<br /> +And as unwitting, still he slept<br /> + Who did in her confide.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page122"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +122</span>A tear sprang as she turned and viewed<br /> + His features free from guile;<br /> +She kissed him long, as when, just wooed,<br /> + She chose his domicile.<br /> +She felt she could have given her life<br /> +To be the single-hearted wife<br /> + That she had been erstwhile.</p> +<p class="poetry">Time wore to six. Her husband rose<br /> + And struck the steel and stone;<br /> +He glanced at Jenny, whose repose<br /> + Seemed deeper than his own.<br /> +With dumb dismay, on closer sight,<br /> +He gathered sense that in the night,<br /> + Or morn, her soul had flown.</p> +<p class="poetry">When told that some too mighty strain<br /> + For one so many-yeared<br /> +Had burst her bosom’s master-vein,<br /> + His doubts remained unstirred.<br /> +His Jenny had not left his side<br /> +Betwixt the eve and morning-tide:<br /> + —The King’s said not a word.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page123"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +123</span>Well! times are not as times were then,<br /> + Nor fair ones half so free;<br /> +And truly they were martial men,<br /> + The King’s-Own Cavalry.<br /> +And when they went from Casterbridge<br /> +And vanished over Mellstock Ridge,<br /> + ’Twas saddest morn to see.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p123b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Two lines of military men on horses" +title= +"Two lines of military men on horses" + src="images/p123s.jpg" /> +</a></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page125"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 125</span> +<a href="images/p125b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Sketch of wooden panel" +title= +"Sketch of wooden panel" + src="images/p125s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2>THE CASTERBRIDGE CAPTAINS<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">(KHYBER PASS, 1842)</span></h2> +<p style="text-align: center">A <span class="smcap">Tradition +of</span> J. B. L—, T. G. B—, AND J. L—.</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Three</span> captains went +to Indian wars,<br /> + And only one returned:<br /> +Their mate of yore, he singly wore<br /> + The laurels all had earned.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page126"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +126</span>At home he sought the ancient aisle<br /> + Wherein, untrumped of fame,<br /> +The three had sat in pupilage,<br /> + And each had carved his name.</p> +<p class="poetry">The names, rough-hewn, of equal size,<br /> + Stood on the panel still;<br /> +Unequal since.—“’Twas theirs to aim,<br /> + Mine was it to fulfil!”</p> +<p class="poetry">—“Who saves his life shall lose it, +friends!”<br /> + Outspake the preacher then,<br /> +Unweeting he his listener, who<br /> + Looked at the names again.</p> +<p class="poetry">That he had come and they’d been +stayed,<br /> + ’Twas but the chance of war:<br /> +Another chance, and they’d sat here,<br /> + And he had lain afar.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page127"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +127</span>Yet saw he something in the lives<br /> + Of those who’d ceased to live<br /> +That sphered them with a majesty<br /> + Which living failed to give.</p> +<p class="poetry">Transcendent triumph in return<br /> + No longer lit his brain;<br /> +Transcendence rayed the distant urn<br /> + Where slept the fallen twain.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page129"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 129</span> +<a href="images/p129b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Sketch of comet" +title= +"Sketch of comet" + src="images/p129s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2>A SIGN-SEEKER</h2> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">mark</span> the months in +liveries dank and dry,<br /> + The noontides many-shaped and hued;<br /> + I see the nightfall shades subtrude,<br /> +And hear the monotonous hours clang negligently by.</p> +<p class="poetry">I view the evening bonfires of the sun<br /> + On hills where morning rains have hissed;<br /> + The eyeless countenance of the mist<br /> +Pallidly rising when the summer droughts are done.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page130"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +130</span>I have seen the lightning-blade, the leaping star,<br +/> + The cauldrons of the sea in storm,<br /> + Have felt the earthquake’s lifting arm,<br /> +And trodden where abysmal fires and snow-cones are.</p> +<p class="poetry">I learn to prophesy the hid eclipse,<br /> + The coming of eccentric orbs;<br /> + To mete the dust the sky absorbs,<br /> +To weigh the sun, and fix the hour each planet dips.</p> +<p class="poetry">I witness fellow earth-men surge and strive;<br +/> + Assemblies meet, and throb, and part;<br /> + Death’s soothing finger, sorrow’s +smart;<br /> +—All the vast various moils that mean a world alive.</p> +<p class="poetry">But that I fain would wot of shuns my +sense—<br /> + Those sights of which old prophets tell,<br /> + Those signs the general word so well,<br /> +Vouchsafed to their unheed, denied my long suspense.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page131"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +131</span>In graveyard green, behind his monument<br /> + To glimpse a phantom parent, friend,<br /> + Wearing his smile, and “Not the end!”<br +/> +Outbreathing softly: that were blest enlightenment;</p> +<p class="poetry">Or, if a dead Love’s lips, whom dreams +reveal<br /> + When midnight imps of King Decay<br /> + Delve sly to solve me back to clay,<br /> +Should leave some print to prove her spirit-kisses real;</p> +<p class="poetry">Or, when Earth’s Frail lie bleeding of +her Strong,<br /> + If some Recorder, as in Writ,<br /> + Near to the weary scene should flit<br /> +And drop one plume as pledge that Heaven inscrolls the wrong.</p> +<p class="poetry">—There are who, rapt to heights of +trancéd trust,<br /> + These tokens claim to feel and see,<br /> + Read radiant hints of times to be—<br /> +Of heart to heart returning after dust to dust.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page132"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +132</span>Such scope is granted not to lives like mine . . .<br +/> + I have lain in dead men’s beds, have walked<br +/> + The tombs of those with whom I’d talked,<br /> +Called many a gone and goodly one to shape a sign,</p> +<p class="poetry">And panted for response. But none +replies;<br /> + No warnings loom, nor whisperings<br /> + To open out my limitings,<br /> +And Nescience mutely muses: When a man falls he lies.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page133"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 133</span> +<a href="images/p133b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Sketch of person on horseback in wide landscape" +title= +"Sketch of person on horseback in wide landscape" + src="images/p133s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2>MY CICELY<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">(17–)</span></h2> +<p class="poetry">“<span +class="smcap">Alive</span>?”—And I leapt in my +wonder,<br /> + Was faint of my joyance,<br /> +And grasses and grove shone in garments<br /> + Of glory to me.</p> +<p class="poetry">“She lives, in a plenteous well-being,<br +/> + To-day as aforehand;<br /> +The dead bore the name—though a rare one—<br /> + The name that bore she.”</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page134"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +134</span>She lived . . . I, afar in the city<br /> + Of frenzy-led factions,<br /> +Had squandered green years and maturer<br /> + In bowing the knee</p> +<p class="poetry">To Baals illusive and specious,<br /> + Till chance had there voiced me<br /> +That one I loved vainly in nonage<br /> + Had ceased her to be.</p> +<p class="poetry">The passion the planets had scowled on,<br /> + And change had let dwindle,<br /> +Her death-rumour smartly relifted<br /> + To full apogee.</p> +<p class="poetry">I mounted a steed in the dawning<br /> + With acheful remembrance,<br /> +And made for the ancient West Highway<br /> + To far Exonb’ry.</p> +<p class="poetry">Passing heaths, and the House of Long +Sieging,<br /> + I neared the thin steeple<br /> +<a name="page135"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 135</span>That +tops the fair fane of Poore’s olden<br /> + Episcopal see;</p> +<p class="poetry">And, changing anew my onbearer,<br /> + I traversed the downland<br /> +Whereon the bleak hill-graves of Chieftains<br /> + Bulge barren of tree;</p> +<p class="poetry">And still sadly onward I followed<br /> + That Highway the Icen,<br /> +Which trails its pale riband down Wessex<br /> + O’er lynchet and lea.</p> +<p class="poetry">Along through the Stour-bordered Forum,<br /> + Where Legions had wayfared,<br /> +And where the slow river upglasses<br /> + Its green canopy,</p> +<p class="poetry">And by Weatherbury Castle, and thencefrom<br /> + Through Casterbridge held I<br /> +Still on, to entomb her my vision<br /> + Saw stretched pallidly.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page136"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +136</span>No highwayman’s trot blew the night-wind<br /> + To me so life-weary,<br /> +But only the creak of the gibbets<br /> + Or waggoners’ jee.</p> +<p class="poetry">Triple-ramparted Maidon gloomed grayly<br /> + Above me from southward,<br /> +And north the hill-fortress of Eggar,<br /> + And square Pummerie.</p> +<p class="poetry">The Nine-Pillared Cromlech, the +Bride-streams,<br /> + The Axe, and the Otter<br /> +I passed, to the gate of the city<br /> + Where Exe scents the sea;</p> +<p class="poetry">Till, spent, in the graveacre pausing,<br /> + I learnt ’twas not my Love<br /> +To whom Mother Church had just murmured<br /> + A last lullaby.</p> +<p class="poetry">—“Then, where dwells the +Canon’s kinswoman,<br /> + My friend of aforetime?”—<br /> +<a name="page137"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +137</span>(’Twas hard to repress my heart-heavings<br /> + And new ecstasy.)</p> +<p class="poetry">“She +wedded.”—“Ah!”—“Wedded +beneath her—<br /> + She keeps the stage-hostel<br /> +Ten miles hence, beside the great Highway—<br /> + The famed Lions-Three.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Her spouse was her lackey—no +option<br /> + ’Twixt wedlock and worse things;<br /> +A lapse over-sad for a lady<br /> + Of her pedigree!”</p> +<p class="poetry">I shuddered, said nothing, and wandered<br /> + To shades of green laurel:<br /> +Too ghastly had grown those first tidings<br /> + So brightsome of blee!</p> +<p class="poetry">For, on my ride hither, I’d halted<br /> + Awhile at the Lions,<br /> +And her—her whose name had once opened<br /> + My heart as a key—</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page138"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +138</span>I’d looked on, unknowing, and witnessed<br /> + Her jests with the tapsters,<br /> +Her liquor-fired face, her thick accents<br /> + In naming her fee.</p> +<p class="poetry">“O God, why this seeming +derision!”<br /> + I cried in my anguish:<br /> +“O once Loved, O fair Unforgotten—<br /> + That Thing—meant it thee!</p> +<p class="poetry">“Inurned and at peace, lost but +sainted,<br /> + Were grief I could compass;<br /> +Depraved—’tis for Christ’s poor dependent<br /> + A cruel decree!”</p> +<p class="poetry">I backed on the Highway; but passed not<br /> + The hostel. Within there<br /> +Too mocking to Love’s re-expression<br /> + Was Time’s repartee!</p> +<p class="poetry">Uptracking where Legions had wayfared,<br /> + By cromlechs unstoried,<br /> +And lynchets, and sepultured Chieftains,<br /> + In self-colloquy,</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page139"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +139</span>A feeling stirred in me and strengthened<br /> + That <i>she</i> was not my Love,<br /> +But she of the garth, who lay rapt in<br /> + Her long reverie.</p> +<p class="poetry">And thence till to-day I persuade me<br /> + That this was the true one;<br /> +That Death stole intact her young dearness<br /> + And innocency.</p> +<p class="poetry">Frail-witted, illuded they call me;<br /> + I may be. ’Tis better<br /> +To dream than to own the debasement<br /> + Of sweet Cicely.</p> +<p class="poetry">Moreover I rate it unseemly<br /> + To hold that kind Heaven<br /> +Could work such device—to her ruin<br /> + And my misery.</p> +<p class="poetry">So, lest I disturb my choice vision,<br /> + I shun the West Highway,<br /> +Even now, when the knaps ring with rhythms<br /> + From blackbird and bee;</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page140"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +140</span>And feel that with slumber half-conscious<br /> + She rests in the church-hay,<br /> +Her spirit unsoiled as in youth-time<br /> + When lovers were we.</p> +<p style="text-align: center" class="poetry"> +<a href="images/p140b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Sketch of top of church tower" +title= +"Sketch of top of church tower" + src="images/p140s.jpg" /> +</a></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center" class="poetry"> +<a href="images/p142b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Sketch of fields with trees" +title= +"Sketch of fields with trees" + src="images/p142s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2><a name="page143"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 143</span>HER +IMMORTALITY</h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Upon</span> a noon I +pilgrimed through<br /> + A pasture, mile by mile,<br /> +Unto the place where I last saw<br /> + My dead Love’s living smile.</p> +<p class="poetry">And sorrowing I lay me down<br /> + Upon the heated sod:<br /> +It seemed as if my body pressed<br /> + The very ground she trod.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page144"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +144</span>I lay, and thought; and in a trance<br /> + She came and stood me by—<br /> +The same, even to the marvellous ray<br /> + That used to light her eye.</p> +<p class="poetry">“You draw me, and I come to you,<br /> + My faithful one,” she said,<br /> +In voice that had the moving tone<br /> + It bore ere breath had fled.</p> +<p class="poetry">She said: “’Tis seven years since I +died:<br /> + Few now remember me;<br /> +My husband clasps another bride;<br /> + My children’s love has she.</p> +<p class="poetry">“My brethren, sisters, and my friends<br +/> + Care not to meet my sprite:<br /> +Who prized me most I did not know<br /> + Till I passed down from sight.”</p> +<p class="poetry">I said: “My days are lonely here;<br /> + I need thy smile alway:<br /> +I’ll use this night my ball or blade,<br /> + And join thee ere the day.”</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page145"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +145</span>A tremor stirred her tender lips,<br /> + Which parted to dissuade:<br /> +“That cannot be, O friend,” she cried;<br /> + “Think, I am but a Shade!</p> +<p class="poetry">“A Shade but in its mindful ones<br /> + Has immortality;<br /> +By living, me you keep alive,<br /> + By dying you slay me.</p> +<p class="poetry">“In you resides my single power<br /> + Of sweet continuance here;<br /> +On your fidelity I count<br /> + Through many a coming year.”</p> +<p class="poetry">—I started through me at her plight,<br +/> + So suddenly confessed:<br /> +Dismissing late distaste for life,<br /> + I craved its bleak unrest.</p> +<p class="poetry">“I will not die, my One of all!—<br +/> + To lengthen out thy days<br /> +I’ll guard me from minutest harms<br /> + That may invest my ways!”</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page146"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +146</span>She smiled and went. Since then she comes<br /> + Oft when her birth-moon climbs,<br /> +Or at the seasons’ ingresses<br /> + Or anniversary times;</p> +<p class="poetry">But grows my grief. When I surcease,<br +/> + Through whom alone lives she,<br /> +Ceases my Love, her words, her ways,<br /> + Never again to be!</p> +<h2><a name="page147"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 147</span>THE +IVY-WIFE</h2> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">longed</span> to love a +full-boughed beech<br /> + And be as high as he:<br /> +I stretched an arm within his reach,<br /> + And signalled unity.<br /> +But with his drip he forced a breach,<br /> + And tried to poison me.</p> +<p class="poetry">I gave the grasp of partnership<br /> + To one of other race— <br /> +<a name="page148"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 148</span>A plane: +he barked him strip by strip<br /> + From upper bough to base;<br /> +And me therewith; for gone my grip,<br /> + My arms could not enlace.</p> +<p class="poetry">In new affection next I strove<br /> + To coll an ash I saw,<br /> +And he in trust received my love;<br /> + Till with my soft green claw<br /> +I cramped and bound him as I wove . . .<br /> + Such was my love: ha-ha!</p> +<p class="poetry">By this I gained his strength and height<br /> + Without his rivalry.<br /> +But in my triumph I lost sight<br /> + Of afterhaps. Soon he,<br /> +Being bark-bound, flagged, snapped, fell outright,<br /> + And in his fall felled me!</p> +<h2><a name="page149"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 149</span>A +MEETING WITH DESPAIR</h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">As</span> evening shaped I +found me on a moor<br /> + Which sight could scarce sustain:<br /> +The black lean land, of featureless contour,<br /> + Was like a tract in pain.</p> +<p class="poetry">“This scene, like my own life,” I +said, “is one<br /> + Where many glooms abide;<br /> +Toned by its fortune to a deadly dun—<br /> + Lightless on every side.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page150"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +150</span>I glanced aloft and halted, pleasure-caught<br /> + To see the contrast there:<br /> +The ray-lit clouds gleamed glory; and I thought,<br /> + “There’s solace everywhere!”</p> +<p class="poetry">Then bitter self-reproaches as I stood<br /> + I dealt me silently<br /> +As one perverse—misrepresenting Good<br /> + In graceless mutiny.</p> +<p class="poetry">Against the horizon’s +dim-discernèd wheel<br /> + A form rose, strange of mould:<br /> +That he was hideous, hopeless, I could feel<br /> + Rather than could behold.</p> +<p class="poetry">“’Tis a dead spot, where even the +light lies spent<br /> + To darkness!” croaked the Thing.<br /> +“Not if you look aloft!” said I, intent<br /> + On my new reasoning.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page151"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +151</span>“Yea—but await awhile!” he +cried. “Ho-ho!—<br /> + Look now aloft and see!”<br /> +I looked. There, too, sat night: Heaven’s radiant +show<br /> + Had gone. Then chuckled he.</p> +<h2><a name="page153"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +153</span>UNKNOWING</h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">When</span>, soul in soul +reflected,<br /> +We breathed an æthered air,<br /> + When we neglected<br /> + All things elsewhere,<br /> +And left the friendly friendless<br /> +To keep our love aglow,<br /> + We deemed it endless . . .<br /> + —We did not know!</p> +<p class="poetry">When, by mad passion goaded,<br /> +We planned to hie away,<br /> + <a name="page154"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +154</span>But, unforeboded,<br /> + The storm-shafts gray<br /> +So heavily down-pattered<br /> +That none could forthward go,<br /> + Our lives seemed shattered . . .<br /> + —We did not know!</p> +<p class="poetry">When I found you, helpless lying,<br /> +And you waived my deep misprise,<br /> + And swore me, dying,<br /> + In phantom-guise<br /> +To wing to me when grieving,<br /> +And touch away my woe,<br /> + We kissed, believing . . .<br /> + —We did not know!</p> +<p class="poetry">But though, your powers outreckoning,<br /> +You hold you dead and dumb,<br /> + Or scorn my beckoning,<br /> + And will not come;<br /> +And I say, “’Twere mood ungainly<br /> +To store her memory so:”<br /> + I say it vainly—<br /> + I feel and know!</p> +<h2><a name="page155"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +155</span>FRIENDS BEYOND</h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">William Dewy</span>, +Tranter Reuben, Farmer Ledlow late at plough,<br /> + Robert’s kin, and John’s, and +Ned’s,<br /> +And the Squire, and Lady Susan, lie in Mellstock churchyard +now!</p> +<p class="poetry">“Gone,” I call them, gone for good, +that group of local hearts and heads;<br /> + Yet at mothy curfew-tide,<br /> +And at midnight when the noon-heat breathes it back from walls +and leads,</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page156"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +156</span>They’ve a way of whispering to +me—fellow-wight who yet abide—<br /> + In the muted, measured note<br /> +Of a ripple under archways, or a lone cave’s +stillicide:</p> +<p class="poetry">“We have triumphed: this achievement +turns the bane to antidote,<br /> + Unsuccesses to success,<br /> +—Many thought-worn eves and morrows to a morrow free of +thought.</p> +<p class="poetry">“No more need we corn and clothing, feel +of old terrestrial stress;<br /> + Chill detraction stirs no sigh;<br /> +Fear of death has even bygone us: death gave all that we +possess.”</p> +<p class="poetry"><i>W. D.</i>—“Ye mid burn the wold +bass-viol that I set such vallie by.”<br /> + <i>Squire</i>.—“You may hold the manse +in fee,<br /> +You may wed my spouse, my children’s memory of me may +decry.”</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page157"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +157</span><i>Lady</i>.—“You may have my rich +brocades, my laces; take each household key;<br /> + Ransack coffer, desk, bureau;<br /> +Quiz the few poor treasures hid there, con the letters kept by +me.”</p> +<p class="poetry"><i>Far.</i>—“Ye mid zell my +favourite heifer, ye mid let the charlock grow,<br /> + Foul the grinterns, give up thrift.”<br /> +<i>Wife</i>.—“If ye break my best blue china, +children, I shan’t care or ho.”</p> +<p class="poetry"><i>All</i>. —“We’ve no wish +to hear the tidings, how the people’s fortunes shift;<br /> + What your daily doings are;<br /> +Who are wedded, born, divided; if your lives beat slow or +swift.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Curious not the least are we if our +intents you make or mar,<br /> + If you quire to our old tune,<br /> +If the City stage still passes, if the weirs still roar +afar.”</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page158"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +158</span>—Thus, with very gods’ composure, freed +those crosses late and soon<br /> + Which, in life, the Trine allow<br /> +(Why, none witteth), and ignoring all that haps beneath the +moon,</p> +<p class="poetry">William Dewy, Tranter Reuben, Farmer Ledlow +late at plough,<br /> + Robert’s kin, and John’s, and +Ned’s,<br /> +And the Squire, and Lady Susan, murmur mildly to me now.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page159"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 159</span> +<a href="images/p159b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Sketch of vase with dead flowers" +title= +"Sketch of vase with dead flowers" + src="images/p159s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2>TO OUTER NATURE</h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Show</span> thee as I +thought thee<br /> +When I early sought thee,<br /> + Omen-scouting,<br /> + All undoubting<br /> +Love alone had wrought thee—</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page160"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +160</span>Wrought thee for my pleasure,<br /> +Planned thee as a measure<br /> + For expounding<br /> + And resounding<br /> +Glad things that men treasure.</p> +<p class="poetry">O for but a moment<br /> +Of that old endowment—<br /> + Light to gaily<br /> + See thy daily<br /> +Irisèd embowment!</p> +<p class="poetry">But such re-adorning<br /> +Time forbids with scorning—<br /> + Makes me see things<br /> + Cease to be things<br /> +They were in my morning.</p> +<p class="poetry">Fad’st thou, glow-forsaken,<br /> +Darkness-overtaken!<br /> + Thy first sweetness,<br /> + Radiance, meetness,<br /> +None shall re-awaken.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page161"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +161</span>Why not sempiternal<br /> +Thou and I? Our vernal<br /> + Brightness keeping,<br /> + Time outleaping;<br /> +Passed the hodiernal!</p> +<h2><a name="page163"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +163</span>THOUGHTS OF PHENA<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">AT NEWS OF HER DEATH</span></h2> +<p class="poetry"> <span +class="smcap">Not</span> a line of her writing have I,<br /> + Not a thread of +her hair,<br /> +No mark of her late time as dame in her dwelling, whereby<br /> + I may picture her there;<br /> + And in vain do I urge my unsight<br /> + To conceive my lost prize<br /> +At her close, whom I knew when her dreams were upbrimming with +light,<br /> + And with laughter her eyes.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a +name="page164"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 164</span>What scenes +spread around her last days,<br /> + Sad, shining, or +dim?<br /> +Did her gifts and compassions enray and enarch her sweet ways<br +/> + With an aureate nimb?<br /> + Or did life-light decline from her years,<br /> + And mischances control<br /> +Her full day-star; unease, or regret, or forebodings, or fears<br +/> + Disennoble her soul?</p> +<p class="poetry"> Thus I do +but the phantom retain<br /> + Of the maiden of +yore<br /> +As my relic; yet haply the best of her—fined in my brain<br +/> + It maybe the more<br /> + That no line of her writing have I,<br /> + Nor a thread of her hair,<br /> +No mark of her late time as dame in her dwelling, whereby<br /> + I may picture her there.</p> +<p><i>March</i> 1890.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p165b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Sketch of woman cover in sheet lying on couch" +title= +"Sketch of woman cover in sheet lying on couch" + src="images/p165s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2><a name="page167"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +167</span>MIDDLE-AGE ENTHUSIASMS<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">To M. H.</span></h2> +<p class="poetry"> <span class="smcap">We</span> +passed where flag and flower<br /> + Signalled a jocund throng;<br /> + We said: “Go to, the hour<br /> + Is apt!”—and joined the song;<br /> +And, kindling, laughed at life and care,<br /> +Although we knew no laugh lay there.</p> +<p class="poetry"> We walked where shy birds +stood<br /> + Watching us, wonder-dumb;<br /> + <a name="page168"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +168</span>Their friendship met our mood;<br /> + We cried: “We’ll often come:<br /> +We’ll come morn, noon, eve, everywhen!”<br /> +—We doubted we should come again.</p> +<p class="poetry"> We joyed to see strange +sheens<br /> + Leap from quaint leaves in shade;<br /> + A secret light of greens<br /> + They’d for their pleasure made.<br /> +We said: “We’ll set such sorts as these!”<br /> +—We knew with night the wish would cease.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “So sweet the +place,” we said,<br /> + “Its tacit tales so dear, <br /> + Our thoughts, when breath has sped,<br /> + Will meet and mingle here!” . . .<br /> +“Words!” mused we. “Passed the mortal +door,<br /> +Our thoughts will reach this nook no more.”</p> +<h2><a name="page169"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 169</span>IN A +WOOD<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">See “THE +WOODLANDERS”</span></h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Pale</span> beech and +pine-tree blue,<br /> + Set in one clay,<br /> +Bough to bough cannot you<br /> + Bide out your day?<br /> +When the rains skim and skip,<br /> +Why mar sweet comradeship,<br /> +Blighting with poison-drip<br /> + Neighbourly spray?</p> +<p class="poetry">Heart-halt and spirit-lame,<br /> + City-opprest,<br /> +<a name="page170"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 170</span>Unto +this wood I came<br /> + As to a nest;<br /> +Dreaming that sylvan peace<br /> +Offered the harrowed ease—<br /> +Nature a soft release<br /> + From men’s unrest.</p> +<p class="poetry">But, having entered in,<br /> + Great growths and small<br /> +Show them to men akin—<br /> + Combatants all!<br /> +Sycamore shoulders oak,<br /> +Bines the slim sapling yoke,<br /> +Ivy-spun halters choke<br /> + Elms stout and tall.</p> +<p class="poetry">Touches from ash, O wych,<br /> + Sting you like scorn!<br /> +You, too, brave hollies, twitch<br /> + Sidelong from thorn.<br /> +Even the rank poplars bear<br /> +Illy a rival’s air,<br /> +Cankering in black despair<br /> + If overborne.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page171"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +171</span>Since, then, no grace I find<br /> + Taught me of trees,<br /> +Turn I back to my kind,<br /> + Worthy as these.<br /> +There at least smiles abound,<br /> +There discourse trills around,<br /> +There, now and then, are found<br /> + Life-loyalties.</p> +<p>1887: 1896.</p> +<h2><a name="page173"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 173</span>TO A +LADY<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">OFFENDED BY A BOOK OF THE +WRITER’S</span></h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Now</span> that my page +upcloses, doomed, maybe,<br /> +Never to press thy cosy cushions more,<br /> +Or wake thy ready Yeas as heretofore,<br /> +Or stir thy gentle vows of faith in me:</p> +<p class="poetry">Knowing thy natural receptivity,<br /> +I figure that, as flambeaux banish eve,<br /> +My sombre image, warped by insidious heave<br /> +Of those less forthright, must lose place in thee.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page174"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +174</span>So be it. I have borne such. Let thy +dreams<br /> +Of me and mine diminish day by day,<br /> +And yield their space to shine of smugger things;<br /> +Till I shape to thee but in fitful gleams,<br /> +And then in far and feeble visitings,<br /> +And then surcease. Truth will be truth alway.</p> +<h2><a name="page175"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 175</span>TO +AN ORPHAN CHILD<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">A WHIMSEY</span></h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Ah</span>, child, thou art +but half thy darling mother’s;<br /> + Hers couldst thou wholly be,<br /> +My light in thee would outglow all in others;<br /> + She would relive to me.<br /> +But niggard Nature’s trick of birth<br /> + Bars, lest she overjoy,<br /> +Renewal of the loved on earth<br /> + Save with alloy.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page176"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +176</span>The Dame has no regard, alas, my maiden,<br /> + For love and loss like mine—<br /> +No sympathy with mind-sight memory-laden;<br /> + Only with fickle eyne.<br /> +To her mechanic artistry<br /> + My dreams are all unknown,<br /> +And why I wish that thou couldst be<br /> + But One’s alone!</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page177"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 177</span> +<a href="images/p177b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Sketch of broken key?" +title= +"Sketch of broken key?" + src="images/p177s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2>NATURE’S QUESTIONING</h2> +<p class="poetry"> <span +class="smcap">When</span> I look forth at dawning, pool,<br /> + Field, flock, and lonely tree,<br +/> + All seem to gaze at me<br /> +Like chastened children sitting silent in a school;</p> +<p class="poetry"> Their faces dulled, +constrained, and worn,<br /> + As though the master’s +ways<br /> + Through the long teaching days<br +/> +Their first terrestrial zest had chilled and overborne.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page178"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 178</span>And on them stirs, in lippings +mere<br /> + (As if once clear in call,<br /> + But now scarce breathed at +all)—<br /> +“We wonder, ever wonder, why we find us here!</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Has some Vast +Imbecility,<br /> + Mighty to build and blend,<br /> + But impotent to tend,<br /> +Framed us in jest, and left us now to hazardry?</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Or come we of an +Automaton<br /> + Unconscious of our pains? . . .<br +/> + Or are we live remains<br /> +Of Godhead dying downwards, brain and eye now gone?</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Or is it that some +high Plan betides,<br /> + As yet not understood,<br /> + Of Evil stormed by Good,<br /> +We the Forlorn Hope over which Achievement strides?”</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page179"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 179</span>Thus things around. No +answerer I . . .<br /> + Meanwhile the winds, and rains,<br +/> + And Earth’s old glooms and +pains<br /> +Are still the same, and gladdest Life Death neighbours nigh.</p> +<h2><a name="page181"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 181</span>THE +IMPERCIPIENT<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">(AT A CATHEDRAL SERVICE)</span></h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">That</span> from this +bright believing band<br /> + An outcast I should be,<br /> +That faiths by which my comrades stand<br /> + Seem fantasies to me,<br /> +And mirage-mists their Shining Land,<br /> + Is a drear destiny.</p> +<p class="poetry">Why thus my soul should be consigned<br /> + To infelicity,<br /> +<a name="page182"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 182</span>Why +always I must feel as blind<br /> + To sights my brethren see,<br /> +Why joys they’ve found I cannot find,<br /> + Abides a mystery.</p> +<p class="poetry">Since heart of mine knows not that ease<br /> + Which they know; since it be<br /> +That He who breathes All’s Well to these<br /> + Breathes no All’s-Well to me,<br /> +My lack might move their sympathies<br /> + And Christian charity!</p> +<p class="poetry">I am like a gazer who should mark<br /> + An inland company<br /> +Standing upfingered, with, “Hark! hark!<br /> + The glorious distant sea!”<br /> +And feel, “Alas, ’tis but yon dark<br /> + And wind-swept pine to me!”</p> +<p class="poetry">Yet I would bear my shortcomings<br /> + With meet tranquillity,<br /> +But for the charge that blessed things<br /> + I’d liefer have unbe.<br /> +<a name="page185"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 185</span>O, doth +a bird deprived of wings<br /> + Go earth-bound wilfully!</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p class="poetry">Enough. As yet disquiet clings<br /> + About us. Rest shall we.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p183b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Sketch of inside of church" +title= +"Sketch of inside of church" + src="images/p183s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2><a name="page187"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 187</span>AT +AN INN</h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">When</span> we as strangers +sought<br /> + Their catering care,<br /> +Veiled smiles bespoke their thought<br /> + Of what we were.<br /> +They warmed as they opined<br /> + Us more than friends—<br /> +That we had all resigned<br /> + For love’s dear ends.</p> +<p class="poetry">And that swift sympathy<br /> + With living love<br /> +<a name="page188"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 188</span>Which +quicks the world—maybe<br /> + The spheres above,<br /> +Made them our ministers,<br /> + Moved them to say,<br /> +“Ah, God, that bliss like theirs<br /> + Would flush our day!”</p> +<p class="poetry">And we were left alone<br /> + As Love’s own pair;<br /> +Yet never the love-light shone<br /> + Between us there!<br /> +But that which chilled the breath<br /> + Of afternoon,<br /> +And palsied unto death<br /> + The pane-fly’s tune.</p> +<p class="poetry">The kiss their zeal foretold,<br /> + And now deemed come,<br /> +Came not: within his hold<br /> + Love lingered-numb.<br /> +Why cast he on our port<br /> + A bloom not ours?<br /> +Why shaped us for his sport<br /> + In after-hours?</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page189"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +189</span>As we seemed we were not<br /> + That day afar,<br /> +And now we seem not what<br /> + We aching are.<br /> +O severing sea and land,<br /> + O laws of men,<br /> +Ere death, once let us stand<br /> + As we stood then!</p> +<h2><a name="page191"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 191</span>THE +SLOW NATURE<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">(AN INCIDENT OF FROOM VALLEY)</span></h2> +<p class="poetry">“<span class="smcap">Thy</span> +husband—poor, poor Heart!—is dead—<br /> + Dead, out by Moreford Rise;<br /> +A bull escaped the barton-shed,<br /> + Gored him, and there he lies!”</p> +<p class="poetry">—“Ha, ha—go away! +’Tis a tale, methink,<br /> + Thou joker Kit!” laughed she.<br /> +“I’ve known thee many a year, Kit Twink,<br /> + And ever hast thou fooled me!”</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page192"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +192</span>—“But, Mistress Damon—I can swear<br +/> + Thy goodman John is dead!<br /> +And soon th’lt hear their feet who bear<br /> + His body to his bed.”</p> +<p class="poetry">So unwontedly sad was the merry man’s +face—<br /> + That face which had long deceived—<br /> +That she gazed and gazed; and then could trace<br /> + The truth there; and she believed.</p> +<p class="poetry">She laid a hand on the dresser-ledge,<br /> + And scanned far Egdon-side;<br /> +And stood; and you heard the wind-swept sedge<br /> + And the rippling Froom; till she cried:</p> +<p class="poetry">“O my chamber’s untidied, unmade my +bed<br /> + Though the day has begun to wear!<br /> +‘What a slovenly hussif!’ it will be said,<br /> + When they all go up my stair!”</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page193"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +193</span>She disappeared; and the joker stood<br /> + Depressed by his neighbour’s doom,<br /> +And amazed that a wife struck to widowhood<br /> + Thought first of her unkempt room.</p> +<p class="poetry">But a fortnight thence she could take no +food,<br /> + And she pined in a slow decay;<br /> +While Kit soon lost his mournful mood<br /> + And laughed in his ancient way.</p> +<p>1894.</p> +<h2><a name="page195"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 195</span>IN A +EWELEAZE NEAR WEATHERBURY</h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> years have +gathered grayly<br /> + Since I danced upon this leaze<br /> +With one who kindled gaily<br /> + Love’s fitful ecstasies!<br /> +But despite the term as teacher,<br /> + I remain what I was then<br /> +In each essential feature<br /> + Of the fantasies of men.</p> +<p class="poetry">Yet I note the little chisel<br /> + Of never-napping Time,<br /> +<a name="page196"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 196</span>Defacing +ghast and grizzel<br /> + The blazon of my prime.<br /> +When at night he thinks me sleeping,<br /> + I feel him boring sly<br /> +Within my bones, and heaping<br /> + Quaintest pains for by-and-by.</p> +<p class="poetry">Still, I’d go the world with Beauty,<br +/> + I would laugh with her and sing,<br /> +I would shun divinest duty<br /> + To resume her worshipping.<br /> +But she’d scorn my brave endeavour,<br /> + She would not balm the breeze<br /> +By murmuring “Thine for ever!”<br /> + As she did upon this leaze.</p> +<p>1890.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p197b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Sketch of pair of glasses on sketch of landscape" +title= +"Sketch of pair of glasses on sketch of landscape" + src="images/p197s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2><a name="page199"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +199</span>ADDITIONS</h2> +<h3><a name="page201"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 201</span>THE +FIRE AT TRANTER SWEATLEY’S</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">They</span> had long met +o’ Zundays—her true love and she—<br /> + And at junketings, maypoles, and flings;<br /> +But she bode wi’ a thirtover uncle, and he<br /> +Swore by noon and by night that her goodman should be<br /> +Naibour Sweatley—a gaffer oft weak at the knee<br /> +From taking o’ sommat more cheerful than tea—<br /> + Who tranted, and moved people’s things.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page202"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +202</span>She cried, “O pray pity me!” Nought +would he hear;<br /> + Then with wild rainy eyes she obeyed.<br /> +She chid when her Love was for clinking off wi’ her.<br /> +The pa’son was told, as the season drew near<br /> +To throw over pu’pit the names of the peäir<br /> + As fitting one flesh to be made.</p> +<p class="poetry">The wedding-day dawned and the morning drew +on;<br /> + The couple stood bridegroom and bride;<br /> +The evening was passed, and when midnight had gone<br /> +The folks horned out, “God save the King,” and +anon<br /> + The two home-along gloomily hied.</p> +<p class="poetry">The lover Tim Tankens mourned heart-sick and +drear<br /> + To be thus of his darling deprived:<br /> +He roamed in the dark ath’art field, mound, and mere,<br /> +<a name="page203"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 203</span>And, +a’most without knowing it, found himself near<br /> +The house of the tranter, and now of his Dear,<br /> + Where the lantern-light showed ’em +arrived.</p> +<p class="poetry">The bride sought her cham’er so calm and +so pale<br /> + That a Northern had thought her resigned;<br /> +But to eyes that had seen her in tide-times of weal,<br /> +Like the white cloud o’ smoke, the red battle-field’s +vail,<br /> + That look spak’ of havoc behind.</p> +<p class="poetry">The bridegroom yet laitered a beaker to +drain,<br /> + Then reeled to the linhay for more,<br /> +When the candle-snoff kindled some chaff from his grain—<br +/> +Flames spread, and red vlankers, wi’ might and wi’ +main,<br /> + And round beams, thatch, and chimley-tun roar.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page204"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +204</span>Young Tim away yond, rafted up by the light,<br /> + Through brimble and underwood tears,<br /> +Till he comes to the orchet, when crooping thereright<br /> +In the lewth of a codlin-tree, bivering wi’ fright,<br /> +Wi’ on’y her night-rail to screen her from sight,<br +/> + His lonesome young Barbree appears.</p> +<p class="poetry">Her cwold little figure half-naked he views<br +/> + Played about by the frolicsome breeze,<br /> +Her light-tripping totties, her ten little tooes,<br /> +All bare and besprinkled wi’ Fall’s chilly dews,<br +/> +While her great gallied eyes, through her hair hanging loose,<br +/> + Sheened as stars through a tardle o’ +trees.</p> +<p class="poetry">She eyed en; and, as when a weir-hatch is +drawn,<br /> + Her tears, penned by terror afore,<br /> +<a name="page205"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 205</span>With a +rushing of sobs in a shower were strawn,<br /> +Till her power to pour ’em seemed wasted and gone<br /> + From the heft o’ misfortune she bore.</p> +<p class="poetry">“O Tim, my <i>own</i> Tim I must call +’ee—I will!<br /> + All the world ha’ turned round on me so!<br /> +Can you help her who loved ’ee, though acting so ill?<br /> +Can you pity her misery—feel for her still?<br /> +When worse than her body so quivering and chill<br /> + Is her heart in its winter o’ woe!</p> +<p class="poetry">“I think I mid almost ha’ borne +it,” she said,<br /> + “Had my griefs one by one come to hand;<br /> +But O, to be slave to thik husbird for bread,<br /> +And then, upon top o’ that, driven to wed,<br /> +And then, upon top o’ that, burnt out o’ bed,<br /> + Is more than my nater can stand!”</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page206"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +206</span>Tim’s soul like a lion ’ithin en +outsprung—<br /> +(Tim had a great soul when his feelings were wrung)—<br /> + “Feel for ’ee, dear Barbree?” he +cried;<br /> +And his warm working-jacket about her he flung,<br /> +Made a back, horsed her up, till behind him she clung<br /> +Like a chiel on a gipsy, her figure uphung<br /> + By the sleeves that around her he tied.</p> +<p class="poetry">Over piggeries, and mixens, and apples, and +hay,<br /> + They lumpered straight into the night;<br /> +And finding bylong where a halter-path lay,<br /> +At dawn reached Tim’s house, on’y seen on their +way<br /> +By a naibour or two who were up wi’ the day;<br /> + But they gathered no clue to the sight.</p> +<p class="poetry">Then tender Tim Tankens he searched here and +there<br /> + For some garment to clothe her fair skin;<br /> +<a name="page207"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 207</span>But +though he had breeches and waistcoats to spare,<br /> +He had nothing quite seemly for Barbree to wear,<br /> +Who, half shrammed to death, stood and cried on a chair<br /> + At the caddle she found herself in.</p> +<p class="poetry">There was one thing to do, and that one thing +he did,<br /> + He lent her some clouts of his own,<br /> +And she took ’em perforce; and while in ’em she +slid,<br /> +Tim turned to the winder, as modesty bid,<br /> +Thinking, “O that the picter my duty keeps hid<br /> + To the sight o’ my eyes mid be +shown!”</p> +<p class="poetry">In the tallet he stowed her; there huddied she +lay,<br /> + Shortening sleeves, legs, and tails to her limbs;<br +/> +But most o’ the time in a mortal bad way,<br /> +<a name="page208"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 208</span>Well +knowing that there’d be the divel to pay<br /> +If ’twere found that, instead o’ the elements’ +prey,<br /> + She was living in lodgings at Tim’s.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Where’s the tranter?” said +men and boys; “where can er be?”<br /> + “Where’s the tranter?” said +Barbree alone.<br /> +“Where on e’th is the tranter?” said +everybod-y:<br /> +They sifted the dust of his perished roof-tree,<br /> + And all they could find was a bone.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page209"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +209</span>Then the uncle cried, “Lord, pray have mercy on +me!”<br /> + And in terror began to repent.<br /> +But before ’twas complete, and till sure she was free,<br +/> +Barbree drew up her loft-ladder, tight turned her key—<br +/> +Tim bringing up breakfast and dinner and tea—<br /> + Till the news of her hiding got vent.</p> +<p class="poetry">Then followed the custom-kept rout, shout, and +flare<br /> +Of a skimmington-ride through the naibourhood, ere<br /> + Folk had proof o’ wold Sweatley’s +decay.<br /> +Whereupon decent people all stood in a stare,<br /> +Saying Tim and his lodger should risk it, and pair:<br /> +So he took her to church. An’ some laughing lads +there<br /> +Cried to Tim, “After Sweatley!” She said, +“I declare<br /> + I stand as a maiden to-day!”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Written</i> 1866; <i>printed</i> +1875.</p> +<h3><a name="page211"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +211</span>HEIRESS AND ARCHITECT<br /> +<span class="smcap">For</span> A. W. B.</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">She</span> sought the +Studios, beckoning to her side<br /> +An arch-designer, for she planned to build.<br /> +He was of wise contrivance, deeply skilled<br /> +In every intervolve of high and wide—<br /> + Well fit to be her guide.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> “Whatever +it be,”<br /> + Responded he,<br /> +With cold, clear voice, and cold, clear view,<br /> +<a name="page212"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +212</span>“In true accord with prudent fashionings<br /> +For such vicissitudes as living brings,<br /> +And thwarting not the law of stable things,<br /> + That will I do.”</p> +<p class="poetry">“Shape me,” she said, “high +halls with tracery<br /> +And open ogive-work, that scent and hue<br /> +Of buds, and travelling bees, may come in through,<br /> +The note of birds, and singings of the sea,<br /> + For these are much to me.”</p> +<p class="poetry"> “An idle +whim!”<br /> + Broke forth from him<br /> +Whom nought could warm to gallantries:<br /> +“Cede all these buds and birds, the zephyr’s call,<br +/> +And scents, and hues, and things that falter all,<br /> +And choose as best the close and surly wall,<br /> + For winters freeze.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p213b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Sketch of people carrying a large object up stairs" +title= +"Sketch of people carrying a large object up stairs" + src="images/p213s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page215"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +215</span>“Then frame,” she cried, “wide fronts +of crystal glass,<br /> +That I may show my laughter and my light—<br /> +Light like the sun’s by day, the stars’ by +night—<br /> +Till rival heart-queens, envying, wail, ‘Alas,<br /> + Her glory!’ as they pass.”</p> +<p class="poetry"> “O maid +misled!”<br /> + He sternly said,<br /> +Whose facile foresight pierced her dire;<br /> +“Where shall abide the soul when, sick of glee,<br /> +It shrinks, and hides, and prays no eye may see?<br /> +Those house them best who house for secrecy,<br /> + For you will tire.”</p> +<p class="poetry">“A little chamber, then, with swan and +dove<br /> +Ranged thickly, and engrailed with rare device<br /> +Of reds and purples, for a Paradise<br /> +Wherein my Love may greet me, I my Love,<br /> + When he shall know thereof?”</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page216"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 216</span>“This, too, is ill,”<br +/> + He answered still,<br /> +The man who swayed her like a shade.<br /> +“An hour will come when sight of such sweet nook<br /> +Would bring a bitterness too sharp to brook,<br /> +When brighter eyes have won away his look;<br /> + For you will fade.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Then said she faintly: “O, contrive some +way—<br /> +Some narrow winding turret, quite mine own,<br /> +To reach a loft where I may grieve alone!<br /> +It is a slight thing; hence do not, I pray,<br /> + This last dear fancy slay!”</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Such winding ways<br +/> + Fit not your days,”<br /> +Said he, the man of measuring eye;<br /> +“I must even fashion as my rule declares,<br /> +To wit: Give space (since life ends unawares)<br /> +To hale a coffined corpse adown the stairs;<br /> + For you will die.”</p> +<p>1867.</p> +<h3><a name="page217"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 217</span>THE +TWO MEN</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">There</span> were two +youths of equal age,<br /> +Wit, station, strength, and parentage;<br /> +They studied at the selfsame schools,<br /> +And shaped their thoughts by common rules.</p> +<p class="poetry">One pondered on the life of man,<br /> +His hopes, his ending, and began<br /> +To rate the Market’s sordid war<br /> +As something scarce worth living for.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page218"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +218</span>“I’ll brace to higher aims,” said +he,<br /> +“I’ll further Truth and Purity;<br /> +Thereby to mend the mortal lot<br /> +And sweeten sorrow. Thrive I not,</p> +<p class="poetry">“Winning their hearts, my kind will +give<br /> +Enough that I may lowly live,<br /> +And house my Love in some dim dell,<br /> +For pleasing them and theirs so well.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Idly attired, with features wan,<br /> +In secret swift he laboured on:<br /> +Such press of power had brought much gold<br /> +Applied to things of meaner mould.</p> +<p class="poetry">Sometimes he wished his aims had been<br /> +To gather gains like other men;<br /> +Then thanked his God he’d traced his track<br /> +Too far for wish to drag him back.</p> +<p class="poetry">He lookèd from his loft one day<br /> +To where his slighted garden lay;<br /> +Nettles and hemlock hid each lawn,<br /> +And every flower was starved and gone.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page219"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +219</span>He fainted in his heart, whereon<br /> +He rose, and sought his plighted one,<br /> +Resolved to loose her bond withal,<br /> +Lest she should perish in his fall.</p> +<p class="poetry">He met her with a careless air,<br /> +As though he’d ceased to find her fair,<br /> +And said: “True love is dust to me;<br /> +I cannot kiss: I tire of thee!”</p> +<p class="poetry">(That she might scorn him was he fain,<br /> +To put her sooner out of pain;<br /> +For incensed love breathes quick and dies,<br /> +When famished love a-lingering lies.)</p> +<p class="poetry">Once done, his soul was so betossed,<br /> +It found no more the force it lost:<br /> +Hope was his only drink and food,<br /> +And hope extinct, decay ensued.</p> +<p class="poetry">And, living long so closely penned,<br /> +He had not kept a single friend;<br /> +He dwindled thin as phantoms be,<br /> +And drooped to death in poverty . . .</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page220"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +220</span>Meantime his schoolmate had gone out<br /> +To join the fortune-finding rout;<br /> +He liked the winnings of the mart,<br /> +But wearied of the working part.</p> +<p class="poetry">He turned to seek a privy lair,<br /> +Neglecting note of garb and hair,<br /> +And day by day reclined and thought<br /> +How he might live by doing nought.</p> +<p class="poetry">“I plan a valued scheme,” he +said<br /> +To some. “But lend me of your bread,<br /> +And when the vast result looms nigh,<br /> +In profit you shall stand as I.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Yet they took counsel to restrain<br /> +Their kindness till they saw the gain;<br /> +And, since his substance now had run,<br /> +He rose to do what might be done.</p> +<p class="poetry">He went unto his Love by night,<br /> +And said: “My Love, I faint in fight:<br /> +Deserving as thou dost a crown,<br /> +My cares shall never drag thee down.”</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page221"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +221</span>(He had descried a maid whose line<br /> +Would hand her on much corn and wine,<br /> +And held her far in worth above<br /> +One who could only pray and love.)</p> +<p class="poetry">But this Fair read him; whence he failed<br /> +To do the deed so blithely hailed;<br /> +He saw his projects wholly marred,<br /> +And gloom and want oppressed him hard;</p> +<p class="poetry">Till, living to so mean an end,<br /> +Whereby he’d lost his every friend,<br /> +He perished in a pauper sty,<br /> +His mate the dying pauper nigh.</p> +<p class="poetry">And moralists, reflecting, said,<br /> +As “dust to dust” in burial read<br /> +Was echoed from each coffin-lid,<br /> +“These men were like in all they did.”</p> +<p>1866.</p> +<h3><a name="page223"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +223</span>LINES</h3> +<p><i>Spoken by Miss</i> <span class="smcap">Ada Rehan</span> +<i>at the Lyceum Theatre</i>, <i>July</i> 23, 1890, <i>at a +performance on behalf of Lady Jeune’s Holiday Fund for City +Children</i>.</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Before</span> we part to +alien thoughts and aims,<br /> +Permit the one brief word the occasion claims:<br /> +—When mumming and grave projects are allied,<br /> +Perhaps an Epilogue is justified.</p> +<p class="poetry">Our under-purpose has, in truth, to-day<br /> +Commanded most our musings; least the play:<br /> +A purpose futile but for your good-will<br /> +Swiftly responsive to the cry of ill:<br /> +<a name="page224"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 224</span>A +purpose all too limited!—to aid<br /> +Frail human flowerets, sicklied by the shade,<br /> +In winning some short spell of upland breeze,<br /> +Or strengthening sunlight on the level leas.</p> +<p class="poetry">Who has not marked, where the full cheek should +be,<br /> +Incipient lines of lank flaccidity,<br /> +Lymphatic pallor where the pink should glow,<br /> +And where the throb of transport, pulses low?—<br /> +Most tragical of shapes from Pole to Line,<br /> +O wondering child, unwitting Time’s design,<br /> +Why should Art add to Nature’s quandary,<br /> +And worsen ill by thus immuring thee?<br /> +—That races do despite unto their own,<br /> +That Might supernal do indeed condone<br /> +Wrongs individual for the general ease,<br /> +Instance the proof in victims such as these.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page225"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +225</span>Launched into thoroughfares too thronged before,<br /> +Mothered by those whose protest is “No more!”<br /> +Vitalized without option: who shall say<br /> +That did Life hang on choosing—Yea or Nay—<br /> +They had not scorned it with such penalty,<br /> +And nothingness implored of Destiny?</p> +<p class="poetry">And yet behind the horizon smile serene<br /> +The down, the cornland, and the stretching green—<br /> +Space—the child’s heaven: scenes which at least +ensure<br /> +Some palliative for ill they cannot cure.</p> +<p class="poetry">Dear friends—now moved by this poor show +of ours<br /> +To make your own long joy in buds and bowers<br /> +<a name="page226"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 226</span>For one +brief while the joy of infant eyes,<br /> +Changing their urban murk to paradise—<br /> +You have our thanks!—may your reward include<br /> +More than our thanks, far more: their gratitude.</p> +<h3><a name="page227"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +227</span>“I LOOK INTO MY GLASS”</h3> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">look</span> into my +glass,<br /> +And view my wasting skin,<br /> +And say, “Would God it came to pass<br /> +My heart had shrunk as thin!”</p> +<p class="poetry">For then, I, undistrest<br /> +By hearts grown cold to me,<br /> +Could lonely wait my endless rest<br /> +With equanimity.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page228"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +228</span>But Time, to make me grieve;<br /> +Part steals, lets part abide;<br /> +And shakes this fragile frame at eve<br /> +With throbbings of noontide.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WESSEX POEMS AND OTHER VERSES***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 3167-h.htm or 3167-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/1/6/3167 + + +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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