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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.12.12.00*END* + + + + + +This etext was produced from the 1919 Macmillan and Co. edition by +David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +WESSEX POEMS AND OTHER VERSES + +by Thomas Hardy + + + + +Contents + +Preface +The Temporary The All +Amabel +Hap +"In Vision I Roamed" +At a Bridal +Postponement +A Confession to a Friend in Trouble +Neutral Tones +She +Her Initials +Her Dilemma +Revulsion +She, To Him, I. + " " II. + " " III. + " " IV. +Ditty +The Sergeant's Song +Valenciennes +San Sebastian +The Stranger's Song +The Burghers +Leipzig +The Peasant's Confession +The Alarm +Her Death and After +The Dance at the Phoenix +The Casterbridge Captains +A Sign-Seeker +My Cicely +Her Immortality +The Ivy-Wife +A Meeting with Despair +Unknowing +Friends Beyond +To Outer Nature +Thoughts of Phena +Middle-Age Enthusiasms +In a Wood +To a Lady +To an Orphan Child +Nature's Questioning +The Impercipient +At An Inn +The Slow Nature +In a Eweleaze Near Weatherbury +ADDITIONS: + The Fire at Tranter Sweatley's + Heiress and Architect + The Two Men + Lines + "I Look into my Glass" + + + + +PREFACE + +Of 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. + +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. + +The pieces are in a large degree dramatic or personative in +conception; and this even where they are not obviously so. + +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. + +T. H. +September 1898. + + + + +THE TEMPORARY THE ALL + + + +Change and chancefulness in my flowering youthtime, +Set me sun by sun near to one unchosen; +Wrought us fellow-like, and despite divergence, + Friends interlinked us. + +"Cherish him can I while the true one forthcome - +Come the rich fulfiller of my prevision; +Life is roomy yet, and the odds unbounded." + So self-communed I. + +Thwart my wistful way did a damsel saunter, +Fair, the while unformed to be all-eclipsing; +"Maiden meet," held I, "till arise my forefelt + Wonder of women." + +Long a visioned hermitage deep desiring, +Tenements uncouth I was fain to house in; +"Let such lodging be for a breath-while," thought I, + "Soon a more seemly. + +"Then, high handiwork will I make my life-deed, +Truth and Light outshow; but the ripe time pending, +Intermissive aim at the thing sufficeth." + Thus I . . . But lo, me! + +Mistress, friend, place, aims to be bettered straightway, +Bettered not has Fate or my hand's achieving; +Sole the showance those of my onward earth-track - + Never transcended! + + + +AMABEL + + + +I marked her ruined hues, +Her custom-straitened views, +And asked, "Can there indwell + My Amabel?" + +I looked upon her gown, +Once rose, now earthen brown; +The change was like the knell + Of Amabel. + +Her step's mechanic ways +Had lost the life of May's; +Her laugh, once sweet in swell, + Spoilt Amabel. + +I mused: "Who sings the strain +I sang ere warmth did wane? +Who thinks its numbers spell + His Amabel?" - + +Knowing that, though Love cease, +Love's race shows undecrease; +All find in dorp or dell + An Amabel. + +- I felt that I could creep +To some housetop, and weep, +That Time the tyrant fell + Ruled Amabel! + +I said (the while I sighed +That love like ours had died), +"Fond things I'll no more tell + To Amabel, + +"But leave her to her fate, +And fling across the gate, +'Till the Last Trump, farewell, + O Amabel!'" + +1865. + + + +HAP + + + +If but some vengeful god would call to me +From up the sky, and laugh: "Thou suffering thing, +Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy, +That thy love's loss is my hate's profiting!" + +Then would I bear, and clench myself, and die, +Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited; +Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I +Had willed and meted me the tears I shed. + +But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain, +And why unblooms the best hope ever sown? +- Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain, +And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan . . . +These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown +Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain. + +1866. + + + +"IN VISION I ROAMED" +TO - + + + +In vision I roamed the flashing Firmament, +So fierce in blazon that the Night waxed wan, +As though with an awed sense of such ostent; +And as I thought my spirit ranged on and on + +In footless traverse through ghast heights of sky, +To the last chambers of the monstrous Dome, +Where stars the brightest here to darkness die: +Then, any spot on our own Earth seemed Home! + +And the sick grief that you were far away +Grew pleasant thankfulness that you were near? +Who might have been, set on some outstep sphere, +Less than a Want to me, as day by day +I lived unware, uncaring all that lay +Locked in that Universe taciturn and drear. + +1866. + + + +AT A BRIDAL +TO - + + + +When you paced forth, to wait maternity, +A dream of other offspring held my mind, +Compounded of us twain as Love designed; +Rare forms, that corporate now will never be! + +Should I, too, wed as slave to Mode's decree, +And each thus found apart, of false desire, +A stolid line, whom no high aims will fire +As had fired ours could ever have mingled we; + +And, grieved that lives so matched should mis-compose, +Each mourn the double waste; and question dare +To the Great Dame whence incarnation flows. +Why those high-purposed children never were: +What will she answer? That she does not care +If the race all such sovereign types unknows. + +1866. + + + +POSTPONEMENT + + + +Snow-bound in woodland, a mournful word, +Dropt now and then from the bill of a bird, +Reached me on wind-wafts; and thus I heard, + Wearily waiting:- + +"I planned her a nest in a leafless tree, +But the passers eyed and twitted me, +And said: 'How reckless a bird is he, + Cheerily mating!' + +"Fear-filled, I stayed me till summer-tide, +In lewth of leaves to throne her bride; +But alas! her love for me waned and died, + Wearily waiting. + +"Ah, had I been like some I see, +Born to an evergreen nesting-tree, +None had eyed and twitted me, + Cheerily mating!" + +1866. + + + +A CONFESSION TO A FRIEND IN TROUBLE + + + +Your troubles shrink not, though I feel them less +Here, far away, than when I tarried near; +I even smile old smiles--with listlessness - +Yet smiles they are, not ghastly mockeries mere. + +A thought too strange to house within my brain +Haunting its outer precincts I discern: +- That I will not show zeal again to learn +Your griefs, and sharing them, renew my pain . . . + +It goes, like murky bird or buccaneer +That shapes its lawless figure on the main, +And each new impulse tends to make outflee +The unseemly instinct that had lodgment here; +Yet, comrade old, can bitterer knowledge be +Than that, though banned, such instinct was in me! + +1866. + + + +NEUTRAL TONES + + + +We stood by a pond that winter day, +And the sun was white, as though chidden of God, +And a few leaves lay on the starving sod, + --They had fallen from an ash, and were gray. + +Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove +Over tedious riddles solved years ago; +And some words played between us to and fro - + On which lost the more by our love. + +The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing +Alive enough to have strength to die; +And a grin of bitterness swept thereby + Like an ominous bird a-wing . . . + +Since then, keen lessons that love deceives, +And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me +Your face, and the God-curst sun, and a tree, + And a pond edged with grayish leaves. + +1867. + + + +SHE +AT HIS FUNERAL + + + +They bear him to his resting-place - +In slow procession sweeping by; +I follow at a stranger's space; +His kindred they, his sweetheart I. +Unchanged my gown of garish dye, +Though sable-sad is their attire; +But they stand round with griefless eye, +Whilst my regret consumes like fire! + +187-. + + + +HER INITIALS + + + +Upon a poet's page I wrote +Of old two letters of her name; +Part seemed she of the effulgent thought +Whence that high singer's rapture came. +- When now I turn the leaf the same +Immortal light illumes the lay, +But from the letters of her name +The radiance has died away! + +1869. + + + +HER DILEMMA +(IN --- CHURCH) + + + +The two were silent in a sunless church, +Whose mildewed walls, uneven paving-stones, +And wasted carvings passed antique research; +And nothing broke the clock's dull monotones. + +Leaning against a wormy poppy-head, +So wan and worn that he could scarcely stand, +- For he was soon to die,--he softly said, +"Tell me you love me!"--holding hard her hand. + +She would have given a world to breathe "yes" truly, +So much his life seemed handing on her mind, +And hence she lied, her heart persuaded throughly +'Twas worth her soul to be a moment kind. + +But the sad need thereof, his nearing death, +So mocked humanity that she shamed to prize +A world conditioned thus, or care for breath +Where Nature such dilemmas could devise. + +1866. + + + +REVULSION + + + +Though I waste watches framing words to fetter +Some spirit to mine own in clasp and kiss, +Out of the night there looms a sense 'twere better +To fail obtaining whom one fails to miss. + +For winning love we win the risk of losing, +And losing love is as one's life were riven; +It cuts like contumely and keen ill-using +To cede what was superfluously given. + +Let me then feel no more the fateful thrilling +That devastates the love-worn wooer's frame, +The hot ado of fevered hopes, the chilling +That agonizes disappointed aim! +So may I live no junctive law fulfilling, +And my heart's table bear no woman's name. + +1866. + + + +SHE, TO HIM--I + + + +When you shall see me in the toils of Time, +My lauded beauties carried off from me, +My eyes no longer stars as in their prime, +My name forgot of Maiden Fair and Free; + +When in your being heart concedes to mind, +And judgment, though you scarce its process know, +Recalls the excellencies I once enshrined, +And you are irked that they have withered so: + +Remembering that with me lies not the blame, +That Sportsman Time but rears his brood to kill, +Knowing me in my soul the very same - +One who would die to spare you touch of ill! - +Will you not grant to old affection's claim +The hand of friendship down Life's sunless hill? + +1866. + + + +SHE, TO HIM--II + + + +Perhaps, long hence, when I have passed away, +Some other's feature, accent, thought like mine, +Will carry you back to what I used to say, +And bring some memory of your love's decline. + +Then you may pause awhile and think, "Poor jade!" +And yield a sigh to me--as ample due, +Not as the tittle of a debt unpaid +To one who could resign her all to you - + +And thus reflecting, you will never see +That your thin thought, in two small words conveyed, +Was no such fleeting phantom-thought to me, +But the Whole Life wherein my part was played; +And you amid its fitful masquerade +A Thought--as I in yours but seem to be. + +1866. + + + +SHE, TO HIM--III + + + +I will be faithful to thee; aye, I will! +And Death shall choose me with a wondering eye +That he did not discern and domicile +One his by right ever since that last Good-bye! + +I have no care for friends, or kin, or prime +Of manhood who deal gently with me here; +Amid the happy people of my time +Who work their love's fulfilment, I appear + +Numb as a vane that cankers on its point, +True to the wind that kissed ere canker came; +Despised by souls of Now, who would disjoint +The mind from memory, and make Life all aim, + +My old dexterities of hue quite gone, +And nothing left for Love to look upon. + +1866. + + + +SHE, TO HIM--IV + + + +This love puts all humanity from me; +I can but maledict her, pray her dead, +For giving love and getting love of thee - +Feeding a heart that else mine own had fed! + +How much I love I know not, life not known, +Save as some unit I would add love by; +But this I know, my being is but thine own-- +Fused from its separateness by ecstasy. + +And thus I grasp thy amplitudes, of her +Ungrasped, though helped by nigh-regarding eyes; +Canst thou then hate me as an envier +Who see unrecked what I so dearly prize? +Believe me, Lost One, Love is lovelier +The more it shapes its moan in selfish-wise. + +1866. + + + +DITTY +(E. L G.) + + + +Beneath a knap where flown + Nestlings play, +Within walls of weathered stone, + Far away +From the files of formal houses, +By the bough the firstling browses, +Lives a Sweet: no merchants meet, +No man barters, no man sells + Where she dwells. + +Upon that fabric fair + "Here is she!" +Seems written everywhere + Unto me. +But to friends and nodding neighbours, +Fellow-wights in lot and labours, +Who descry the times as I, +No such lucid legend tells + Where she dwells. + +Should I lapse to what I was + Ere we met; +(Such can not be, but because + Some forget +Let me feign it)--none would notice +That where she I know by rote is +Spread a strange and withering change, +Like a drying of the wells + Where she dwells. + +To feel I might have kissed - + Loved as true - +Otherwhere, nor Mine have missed + My life through. +Had I never wandered near her, +Is a smart severe--severer +In the thought that she is nought, +Even as I, beyond the dells + Where she dwells. + +And Devotion droops her glance + To recall +What bond-servants of Chance + We are all. +I but found her in that, going +On my errant path unknowing, +I did not out-skirt the spot +That no spot on earth excels, + --Where she dwells! + +1870. + + + +THE SERGEANT'S SONG +(1803) + + + +When Lawyers strive to heal a breach, +And Parsons practise what they preach; +Then Little Boney he'll pounce down, +And march his men on London town! + Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lorum, + Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lay! + +When Justices hold equal scales, +And Rogues are only found in jails; +Then Little Boney he'll pounce down, +And march his men on London town! + Rollicum-rorum, &c. + +When Rich Men find their wealth a curse, +And fill therewith the Poor Man's purse; +Then Little Boney he'll pounce down, +And march his men on London town! + Rollicum-rorum, &c. + +When Husbands with their Wives agree, +And Maids won't wed from modesty; +Then Little Boney he'll pounce down, +And march his men on London town! + Rollicum-rorum, tol-tol-lorum, + Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lay! + +1878. + +Published in "The Trumpet-Major," 1880. + + + +VALENCIENNES +(1793) +BY CORP'L TULLIDGE: see "The Trumpet-Major" +IN MEMORY OF S. C. (PENSIONER). DIED 184- + + + + We trenched, we trumpeted and drummed, +And from our mortars tons of iron hummed + Ath'art the ditch, the month we bombed + The Town o' Valencieen. + + 'Twas in the June o' Ninety-dree +(The Duke o' Yark our then Commander been) + The German Legion, Guards, and we + Laid siege to Valencieen. + + This was the first time in the war +That French and English spilled each other's gore; + --Few dreamt how far would roll the roar + Begun at Valencieen! + + 'Twas said that we'd no business there +A-topperen the French for disagreen; + However, that's not my affair - + We were at Valencieen. + + Such snocks and slats, since war began +Never knew raw recruit or veteran: + Stone-deaf therence went many a man + Who served at Valencieen. + + Into the streets, ath'art the sky, +A hundred thousand balls and bombs were fleen; + And harmless townsfolk fell to die + Each hour at Valencieen! + + And, sweaten wi' the bombardiers, +A shell was slent to shards anighst my ears: + --'Twas nigh the end of hopes and fears + For me at Valencieen! + + They bore my wownded frame to camp, +And shut my gapen skull, and washed en clean, + And jined en wi' a zilver clamp + Thik night at Valencieen. + + "We've fetched en back to quick from dead; +But never more on earth while rose is red + Will drum rouse Corpel!" Doctor said + O' me at Valencieen. + + 'Twer true. No voice o' friend or foe +Can reach me now, or any liven been; + And little have I power to know + Since then at Valencieen! + + I never hear the zummer hums +O' bees; and don' know when the cuckoo comes; + But night and day I hear the bombs + We threw at Valencieen . . . + + As for the Duke o' Yark in war, +There be some volk whose judgment o' en is mean; + But this I say--a was not far + From great at Valencieen. + + O' wild wet nights, when all seems sad, +My wownds come back, as though new wownds I'd had; + But yet--at times I'm sort o' glad + I fout at Valencieen. + + Well: Heaven wi' its jasper halls +Is now the on'y Town I care to be in . . . + Good Lord, if Nick should bomb the walls + As we did Valencieen! + +1878-1897. + + + +SAN SEBASTIAN +(August 1813) +WITH THOUGHTS OF SERGEANT M- (PENSIONER), WHO DIED 185-. + + + +"Why, Sergeant, stray on the Ivel Way, +As though at home there were spectres rife? +From first to last 'twas a proud career! +And your sunny years with a gracious wife + Have brought you a daughter dear. + +"I watched her to-day; a more comely maid, +As she danced in her muslin bowed with blue, +Round a Hintock maypole never gayed." +- "Aye, aye; I watched her this day, too, + As it happens," the Sergeant said. + +"My daughter is now," he again began, +"Of just such an age as one I knew +When we of the Line and Forlorn-hope van, +On an August morning--a chosen few - + Stormed San Sebastian. + +"She's a score less three; so about was SHE - +The maiden I wronged in Peninsular days . . . +You may prate of your prowess in lusty times, +But as years gnaw inward you blink your bays, + And see too well your crimes! + +"We'd stormed it at night, by the vlanker-light +Of burning towers, and the mortar's boom: +We'd topped the breach; but had failed to stay, +For our files were misled by the baffling gloom; + And we said we'd storm by day. + +"So, out of the trenches, with features set, +On that hot, still morning, in measured pace, +Our column climbed; climbed higher yet, +Past the fauss'bray, scarp, up the curtain-face, + And along the parapet. + +"From the battened hornwork the cannoneers +Hove crashing balls of iron fire; +On the shaking gap mount the volunteers +In files, and as they mount expire + Amid curses, groans, and cheers. + +"Five hours did we storm, five hours re-form, +As Death cooled those hot blood pricked on; +Till our cause was helped by a woe within: +They swayed from the summit we'd leapt upon, + And madly we entered in. + +"On end for plunder, 'mid rain and thunder +That burst with the lull of our cannonade, +We vamped the streets in the stifling air - +Our hunger unsoothed, our thirst unstayed - + And ransacked the buildings there. + +"Down the stony steps of the house-fronts white +We rolled rich puncheons of Spanish grape, +Till at length, with the fire of the wine alight, +I saw at a doorway a fair fresh shape - + A woman, a sylph, or sprite. + +"Afeard she fled, and with heated head +I pursued to the chamber she called her own; +- When might is right no qualms deter, +And having her helpless and alone + I wreaked my will on her. + +"She raised her beseeching eyes to me, +And I heard the words of prayer she sent +In her own soft language . . . Seemingly +I copied those eyes for my punishment + In begetting the girl you see! + +"So, to-day I stand with a God-set brand +Like Cain's, when he wandered from kindred's ken . . . +I served through the war that made Europe free; +I wived me in peace-year. But, hid from men, + I bear that mark on me. + +"And I nightly stray on the Ivel Way +As though at home there were spectres rife; +I delight me not in my proud career; +And 'tis coals of fire that a gracious wife + Should have brought me a daughter dear!" + + + +THE STRANGER'S SONG +(As sung by MR. CHARLES CHARRINGTON in the play of "The Three +Wayfarers") + + + + O my trade it is the rarest one, +Simple shepherds all - + My trade is a sight to see; +For my customers I tie, and take 'em up on high, + And waft 'em to a far countree! + +My tools are but common ones, + Simple shepherds all - + My tools are no sight to see: +A little hempen string, and a post whereon to swing, + Are implements enough for me! + +To-morrow is my working day, + Simple shepherds all - + To-morrow is a working day for me: +For the farmer's sheep is slain, and the lad who did it ta'en, + And on his soul may God ha' mer-cy! + +Printed in "The Three Strangers," 1883. + + + +THE BURGHERS +(17-) + + + +The sun had wheeled from Grey's to Dammer's Crest, +And still I mused on that Thing imminent: +At length I sought the High-street to the West. + +The level flare raked pane and pediment +And my wrecked face, and shaped my nearing friend +Like one of those the Furnace held unshent. + +"I've news concerning her," he said. "Attend. +They fly to-night at the late moon's first gleam: +Watch with thy steel: two righteous thrusts will end + +Her shameless visions and his passioned dream. +I'll watch with thee, to testify thy wrong - +To aid, maybe.--Law consecrates the scheme." + +I started, and we paced the flags along +Till I replied: "Since it has come to this +I'll do it! But alone. I can be strong." + +Three hours past Curfew, when the Froom's mild hiss +Reigned sole, undulled by whirr of merchandize, +From Pummery-Tout to where the Gibbet is, + +I crossed my pleasaunce hard by Glyd'path Rise, +And stood beneath the wall. Eleven strokes went, +And to the door they came, contrariwise, + +And met in clasp so close I had but bent +My lifted blade upon them to have let +Their two souls loose upon the firmament. + +But something held my arm. "A moment yet +As pray-time ere you wantons die!" I said; +And then they saw me. Swift her gaze was set + +With eye and cry of love illimited +Upon her Heart-king. Never upon me +Had she thrown look of love so thorough-sped! . . . + +At once she flung her faint form shieldingly +On his, against the vengeance of my vows; +The which o'erruling, her shape shielded he. + +Blanked by such love, I stood as in a drowse, +And the slow moon edged from the upland nigh, +My sad thoughts moving thuswise: "I may house + +And I may husband her, yet what am I +But licensed tyrant to this bonded pair? +Says Charity, Do as ye would be done by." . . . + +Hurling my iron to the bushes there, +I bade them stay. And, as if brain and breast +Were passive, they walked with me to the stair. + +Inside the house none watched; and on we prest +Before a mirror, in whose gleam I read +Her beauty, his,--and mine own mien unblest; + +Till at her room I turned. "Madam," I said, +"Have you the wherewithal for this? Pray speak. +Love fills no cupboard. You'll need daily bread." + +"We've nothing, sire," said she; "and nothing seek. +'Twere base in me to rob my lord unware; +Our hands will earn a pittance week by week." + +And next I saw she'd piled her raiment rare +Within the garde-robes, and her household purse, +Her jewels, and least lace of personal wear; + +And stood in homespun. Now grown wholly hers, +I handed her the gold, her jewels all, +And him the choicest of her robes diverse. + +"I'll take you to the doorway in the wall, +And then adieu," I to them. "Friends, withdraw." +They did so; and she went--beyond recall. + +And as I paused beneath the arch I saw +Their moonlit figures--slow, as in surprise - +Descend the slope, and vanish on the haw. + +"'Fool,' some will say," I thought. "But who is wise, +Save God alone, to weigh my reasons why?" +- "Hast thou struck home?" came with the boughs' night-sighs. + +It was my friend. "I have struck well. They fly, +But carry wounds that none can cicatrize." +- "Not mortal?" said he. "Lingering--worse," said I. + + + +LEIPZIG +(1813) +Scene: The Master-tradesmen's Parlour at the Old Ship Inn, +Casterbridge. Evening. + + + +"Old Norbert with the flat blue cap-- + A German said to be - +Why let your pipe die on your lap, + Your eyes blink absently?" - + +- "Ah! . . . Well, I had thought till my cheek was wet + Of my mother--her voice and mien +When she used to sing and pirouette, + And touse the tambourine + +"To the march that yon street-fiddler plies: + She told me 'twas the same +She'd heard from the trumpets, when the Allies + Her city overcame. + +"My father was one of the German Hussars, + My mother of Leipzig; but he, +Long quartered here, fetched her at close of the wars, + And a Wessex lad reared me. + +"And as I grew up, again and again + She'd tell, after trilling that air, +Of her youth, and the battles on Leipzig plain + And of all that was suffered there! . . . + +"--'Twas a time of alarms. Three Chiefs-at-arms + Combined them to crush One, +And by numbers' might, for in equal fight + He stood the matched of none. + +"Carl Schwarzenberg was of the plot, + And Blucher, prompt and prow, +And Jean the Crown-Prince Bernadotte: + Buonaparte was the foe. + +"City and plain had felt his reign + From the North to the Middle Sea, +And he'd now sat down in the noble town + Of the King of Saxony. + +"October's deep dew its wet gossamer threw + Upon Leipzig's lawns, leaf-strewn, +Where lately each fair avenue + Wrought shade for summer noon. + +"To westward two dull rivers crept + Through miles of marsh and slough, +Whereover a streak of whiteness swept - + The Bridge of Lindenau. + +"Hard by, in the City, the One, care-tossed, + Gloomed over his shrunken power; +And without the walls the hemming host + Waxed denser every hour. + +"He had speech that night on the morrow's designs + With his chiefs by the bivouac fire, +While the belt of flames from the enemy's lines + Flared nigher him yet and nigher. + +"Three sky-lights then from the girdling trine + Told, 'Ready!' As they rose +Their flashes seemed his Judgment-Sign + For bleeding Europe's woes. + +"'Twas seen how the French watch-fires that night + Glowed still and steadily; +And the Three rejoiced, for they read in the sight + That the One disdained to flee . . . + +"--Five hundred guns began the affray + On next day morn at nine; +Such mad and mangling cannon-play + Had never torn human line. + +"Around the town three battles beat, + Contracting like a gin; +As nearer marched the million feet + Of columns closing in. + +"The first battle nighed on the low Southern side; + The second by the Western way; +The nearing of the third on the North was heard: + --The French held all at bay. + +"Against the first band did the Emperor stand; + Against the second stood Ney; +Marmont against the third gave the order-word: + --Thus raged it throughout the day. + +"Fifty thousand sturdy souls on those trampled plains and knolls, + Who met the dawn hopefully, +And were lotted their shares in a quarrel not theirs, + Dropt then in their agony. + +"'O,' the old folks said, 'ye Preachers stern! + O so-called Christian time! +When will men's swords to ploughshares turn? + When come the promised prime?' . . . + +"--The clash of horse and man which that day began, + Closed not as evening wore; +And the morrow's armies, rear and van, + Still mustered more and more. + +"From the City towers the Confederate Powers + Were eyed in glittering lines, +And up from the vast a murmuring passed + As from a wood of pines. + +"''Tis well to cover a feeble skill + By numbers!' scoffed He; +'But give me a third of their strength, I'd fill + Half Hell with their soldiery!' + +"All that day raged the war they waged, + And again dumb night held reign, +Save that ever upspread from the dark deathbed + A miles-wide pant of pain. + +"Hard had striven brave Ney, the true Bertrand, + Victor, and Augereau, +Bold Poniatowski, and Lauriston, + To stay their overthrow; + +"But, as in the dream of one sick to death + There comes a narrowing room +That pens him, body and limbs and breath, + To wait a hideous doom, + +"So to Napoleon, in the hush + That held the town and towers +Through these dire nights, a creeping crush + Seemed inborne with the hours. + +"One road to the rearward, and but one, + Did fitful Chance allow; +'Twas where the Pleiss' and Elster run - + The Bridge of Lindenau. + +"The nineteenth dawned. Down street and Platz + The wasted French sank back, +Stretching long lines across the Flats + And on the bridge-way track; + +"When there surged on the sky an earthen wave, + And stones, and men, as though +Some rebel churchyard crew updrave + Their sepulchres from below. + +"To Heaven is blown Bridge Lindenau; + Wrecked regiments reel therefrom; +And rank and file in masses plough + The sullen Elster-Strom. + +"A gulf was Lindenau; and dead + Were fifties, hundreds, tens; +And every current rippled red + With Marshal's blood and men's. + +"The smart Macdonald swam therein, + And barely won the verge; +Bold Poniatowski plunged him in + Never to re-emerge. + +"Then stayed the strife. The remnants wound + Their Rhineward way pell-mell; +And thus did Leipzig City sound + An Empire's passing bell; + +"While in cavalcade, with band and blade, + Came Marshals, Princes, Kings; +And the town was theirs . . . Ay, as simple maid, + My mother saw these things! + +"And whenever those notes in the street begin, + I recall her, and that far scene, +And her acting of how the Allies marched in, + And her touse of the tambourine!" + + + +THE PEASANT'S CONFESSION + + + +"Si le marechal Grouchy avait ete rejoint par l'officier que Napoleon +lui avait expedie la veille a dix heures du soir, toute question eut +disparu. Mais cet officier n'etait point parvenu a sa destination, +ainsi que le marechal n'a cesse de l'affirmer toute sa vie, et il +faut l'en croire, car autrement il n'aurait eu aucune raison pour +hesiter. Cet officier avait-il ete pris? avait-il passe a l'ennemi? +C'est ce qu'on a toujours ignore." + +- THIERS: Histoire de l'Empire. "Waterloo." + +Good Father! . . . 'Twas an eve in middle June, + And war was waged anew +By great Napoleon, who for years had strewn + Men's bones all Europe through. + +Three nights ere this, with columned corps he'd crossed + The Sambre at Charleroi, +To move on Brussels, where the English host + Dallied in Parc and Bois. + +The yestertide we'd heard the gloomy gun + Growl through the long-sunned day +From Quatre-Bras and Ligny; till the dun + Twilight suppressed the fray; + +Albeit therein--as lated tongues bespoke - + Brunswick's high heart was drained, +And Prussia's Line and Landwehr, though unbroke, + Stood cornered and constrained. + +And at next noon-time Grouchy slowly passed + With thirty thousand men: +We hoped thenceforth no army, small or vast, + Would trouble us again. + +My hut lay deeply in a vale recessed, + And never a soul seemed nigh +When, reassured at length, we went to rest - + My children, wife, and I. + +But what was this that broke our humble ease? + What noise, above the rain, +Above the dripping of the poplar trees + That smote along the pane? + +- A call of mastery, bidding me arise, + Compelled me to the door, +At which a horseman stood in martial guise - + Splashed--sweating from every pore. + +Had I seen Grouchy? Yes? Which track took he? + Could I lead thither on? - +Fulfilment would ensure gold pieces three, + Perchance more gifts anon. + +"I bear the Emperor's mandate," then he said, + "Charging the Marshal straight +To strike between the double host ahead + Ere they co-operate, + +"Engaging Blucher till the Emperor put + Lord Wellington to flight, +And next the Prussians. This to set afoot + Is my emprise to-night." + +I joined him in the mist; but, pausing, sought + To estimate his say. +Grouchy had made for Wavre; and yet, on thought, + I did not lead that way. + +I mused: "If Grouchy thus instructed be, + The clash comes sheer hereon; +My farm is stript. While, as for pieces three, + Money the French have none. + +"Grouchy unwarned, moreo'er, the English win, + And mine is left to me - +They buy, not borrow."--Hence did I begin + To lead him treacherously. + +By Joidoigne, near to east, as we ondrew, + Dawn pierced the humid air; +And eastward faced I with him, though I knew + Never marched Grouchy there. + +Near Ottignies we passed, across the Dyle + (Lim'lette left far aside), +And thence direct toward Pervez and Noville + Through green grain, till he cried: + +"I doubt thy conduct, man! no track is here - + I doubt thy gaged word!" +Thereat he scowled on me, and pranced me near, + And pricked me with his sword. + +"Nay, Captain, hold! We skirt, not trace the course + Of Grouchy," said I then: +"As we go, yonder went he, with his force + Of thirty thousand men." + +- At length noon nighed; when west, from Saint-John's-Mound, + A hoarse artillery boomed, +And from Saint-Lambert's upland, chapel-crowned, + The Prussian squadrons loomed. + +Then to the wayless wet gray ground he leapt; + "My mission fails!" he cried; +"Too late for Grouchy now to intercept, + For, peasant, you have lied!" + +He turned to pistol me. I sprang, and drew + The sabre from his flank, +And 'twixt his nape and shoulder, ere he knew, + I struck, and dead he sank. + +I hid him deep in nodding rye and oat - + His shroud green stalks and loam; +His requiem the corn-blade's husky note - + And then I hastened home, . . . + +- Two armies writhe in coils of red and blue, + And brass and iron clang +From Goumont, past the front of Waterloo, + To Pap'lotte and Smohain. + +The Guard Imperial wavered on the height; + The Emperor's face grew glum; +"I sent," he said, "to Grouchy yesternight, + And yet he does not come!" + +'Twas then, Good Father, that the French espied, + Streaking the summer land, +The men of Blucher. But the Emperor cried, + "Grouchy is now at hand!" + +And meanwhile Vand'leur, Vivian, Maitland, Kempt, + Met d'Erlon, Friant, Ney; +But Grouchy--mis-sent, blamed, yet blame-exempt - + Grouchy was far away. + +By even, slain or struck, Michel the strong, + Bold Travers, Dnop, Delord, +Smart Guyot, Reil-le, l'Heriter, Friant, + Scattered that champaign o'er. + +Fallen likewise wronged Duhesme, and skilled Lobau + Did that red sunset see; +Colbert, Legros, Blancard! . . . And of the foe + Picton and Ponsonby; + +With Gordon, Canning, Blackman, Ompteda, + L'Estrange, Delancey, Packe, +Grose, D'Oyly, Stables, Morice, Howard, Hay, + Von Schwerin, Watzdorf, Boek, + +Smith, Phelips, Fuller, Lind, and Battersby, + And hosts of ranksmen round . . . +Memorials linger yet to speak to thee + Of those that bit the ground! + +The Guards' last column yielded; dykes of dead + Lay between vale and ridge, +As, thinned yet closing, faint yet fierce, they sped + In packs to Genappe Bridge. + +Safe was my stock; my capple cow unslain; + Intact each cock and hen; +But Grouchy far at Wavre all day had lain, + And thirty thousand men. + +O Saints, had I but lost my earing corn + And saved the cause once prized! +O Saints, why such false witness had I borne + When late I'd sympathized! . . . + +So now, being old, my children eye askance + My slowly dwindling store, +And crave my mite; till, worn with tarriance, + I care for life no more. + +To Almighty God henceforth I stand confessed, + And Virgin-Saint Marie; +O Michael, John, and Holy Ones in rest, + Entreat the Lord for me! + + + +THE ALARM +(1803) +See "The Trumpet-Major" +IN MEMORY OF ONE OF THE WRITER'S FAMILY WHO WAS A VOLUNTEER DURING +THE WAR WITH NAPOLEON + + + + In a ferny byway + Near the great South-Wessex Highway, + A homestead raised its breakfast-smoke aloft; +The dew-damps still lay steamless, for the sun had made no sky-way, + And twilight cloaked the croft. + + 'Twas hard to realize on + This snug side the mute horizon + That beyond it hostile armaments might steer, +Save from seeing in the porchway a fair woman weep with eyes on + A harnessed Volunteer. + + In haste he'd flown there + To his comely wife alone there, + While marching south hard by, to still her fears, +For she soon would be a mother, and few messengers were known there + In these campaigning years. + + 'Twas time to be Good-bying, + Since the assembly-hour was nighing + In royal George's town at six that morn; +And betwixt its wharves and this retreat were ten good miles of +hieing + Ere ring of bugle-horn. + + "I've laid in food, Dear, + And broached the spiced and brewed, Dear; + And if our July hope should antedate, +Let the char-wench mount and gallop by the halterpath and wood, Dear, + And fetch assistance straight. + + "As for Buonaparte, forget him; + He's not like to land! But let him, + Those strike with aim who strike for wives and sons! +And the war-boats built to float him; 'twere but wanted to upset him + A slat from Nelson's guns! + + "But, to assure thee, + And of creeping fears to cure thee, + If he SHOULD be rumoured anchoring in the Road, +Drive with the nurse to Kingsbere; and let nothing thence allure thee + Till we've him safe-bestowed. + + "Now, to turn to marching matters:- + I've my knapsack, firelock, spatters, + Crossbelts, priming-horn, stock, bay'net, blackball, clay, +Pouch, magazine, flints, flint-box that at every quick-step clatters; + . . . My heart, Dear; that must stay!" + + --With breathings broken + Farewell was kissed unspoken, + And they parted there as morning stroked the panes; +And the Volunteer went on, and turned, and twirled his glove for +token, + And took the coastward lanes. + + When above He'th Hills he found him, + He saw, on gazing round him, + The Barrow-Beacon burning--burning low, +As if, perhaps, uplighted ever since he'd homeward bound him; + And it meant: Expect the Foe! + + Leaving the byway, + And following swift the highway, + Car and chariot met he, faring fast inland; +"He's anchored, Soldier!" shouted some: "God save thee, marching thy +way, + Th'lt front him on the strand!" + + He slowed; he stopped; he paltered + Awhile with self, and faltered, + "Why courting misadventure shoreward roam? +To Molly, surely! Seek the woods with her till times have altered; + Charity favours home. + + Else, my denying + He would come she'll read as lying - + Think the Barrow-Beacon must have met my eyes-- +That my words were not unwareness, but deceit of her, while trying + My life to jeopardize. + + "At home is stocked provision, + And to-night, without suspicion, + We might bear it with us to a covert near; +Such sin, to save a childing wife, would earn it Christ's remission, + Though none forgive it here!" + + While thus he, thinking, + A little bird, quick drinking + Among the crowfoot tufts the river bore, +Was tangled in their stringy arms, and fluttered, well-nigh sinking, + Near him, upon the moor. + + He stepped in, reached, and seized it, + And, preening, had released it + But that a thought of Holy Writ occurred, +And Signs Divine ere battle, till it seemed him Heaven had pleased it + As guide to send the bird. + + "O Lord, direct me! . . . + Doth Duty now expect me + To march a-coast, or guard my weak ones near? +Give this bird a flight according, that I thence know to elect me + The southward or the rear." + + He loosed his clasp; when, rising, + The bird--as if surmising - + Bore due to southward, crossing by the Froom, +And Durnover Great-Field and Fort, the soldier clear advising - + Prompted he wist by Whom. + + Then on he panted + By grim Mai-Don, and slanted + Up the steep Ridge-way, hearkening betwixt whiles; +Till, nearing coast and harbour, he beheld the shore-line planted + With Foot and Horse for miles. + + Mistrusting not the omen, + He gained the beach, where Yeomen, + Militia, Fencibles, and Pikemen bold, +With Regulars in thousands, were enmassed to meet the Foemen, + Whose fleet had not yet shoaled. + + Captain and Colonel, + Sere Generals, Ensigns vernal, + Were there; of neighbour-natives, Michel, Smith, +Meggs, Bingham, Gambier, Cunningham, roused by the hued nocturnal + Swoop on their land and kith. + + But Buonaparte still tarried; + His project had miscarried; + At the last hour, equipped for victory, +The fleet had paused; his subtle combinations had been parried + By British strategy. + + Homeward returning + Anon, no beacons burning, + No alarms, the Volunteer, in modest bliss, +Te Deum sang with wife and friends: "We praise Thee, Lord, +discerning + That Thou hast helped in this!" + + + +HER DEATH AND AFTER + + + +'Twas a death-bed summons, and forth I went +By the way of the Western Wall, so drear +On that winter night, and sought a gate - + The home, by Fate, + Of one I had long held dear. + +And there, as I paused by her tenement, +And the trees shed on me their rime and hoar, +I thought of the man who had left her lone - + Him who made her his own + When I loved her, long before. + +The rooms within had the piteous shine +That home-things wear when there's aught amiss; +From the stairway floated the rise and fall + Of an infant's call, + Whose birth had brought her to this. + +Her life was the price she would pay for that whine - +For a child by the man she did not love. +"But let that rest for ever," I said, + And bent my tread + To the chamber up above. + +She took my hand in her thin white own, +And smiled her thanks--though nigh too weak - +And made them a sign to leave us there + Then faltered, ere + She could bring herself to speak. + +"'Twas to see you before I go--he'll condone +Such a natural thing now my time's not much-- +When Death is so near it hustles hence + All passioned sense + Between woman and man as such! + +"My husband is absent. As heretofore +The City detains him. But, in truth, +He has not been kind . . . I will speak no blame, + But--the child is lame; + O, I pray she may reach his ruth! + +"Forgive past days--I can say no more - +Maybe if we'd wedded you'd now repine! . . . +But I treated you ill. I was punished. Farewell! + --Truth shall I tell? + Would the child were yours and mine! + +"As a wife I was true. But, such my unease +That, could I insert a deed back in Time, +I'd make her yours, to secure your care; + And the scandal bear, + And the penalty for the crime!" + +- When I had left, and the swinging trees +Rang above me, as lauding her candid say, +Another was I. Her words were enough: + Came smooth, came rough, + I felt I could live my day. + +Next night she died; and her obsequies +In the Field of Tombs, by the Via renowned, +Had her husband's heed. His tendance spent, + I often went + And pondered by her mound. + +All that year and the next year whiled, +And I still went thitherward in the gloam; +But the Town forgot her and her nook, + And her husband took + Another Love to his home. + +And the rumour flew that the lame lone child +Whom she wished for its safety child of mine, +Was treated ill when offspring came + Of the new-made dame, + And marked a more vigorous line. + +A smarter grief within me wrought +Than even at loss of her so dear; +Dead the being whose soul my soul suffused, + Her child ill-used, + I helpless to interfere! + +One eve as I stood at my spot of thought +In the white-stoned Garth, brooding thus her wrong, +Her husband neared; and to shun his view + By her hallowed mew + I went from the tombs among + +To the Cirque of the Gladiators which faced - +That haggard mark of Imperial Rome, +Whose Pagan echoes mock the chime + Of our Christian time: + It was void, and I inward clomb. + +Scarce night the sun's gold touch displaced +From the vast Rotund and the neighbouring dead +When her husband followed; bowed; half-passed, + With lip upcast; + Then, halting, sullenly said: + +"It is noised that you visit my first wife's tomb. +Now, I gave her an honoured name to bear +While living, when dead. So I've claim to ask + By what right you task + My patience by vigiling there? + +"There's decency even in death, I assume; +Preserve it, sir, and keep away; +For the mother of my first-born you + Show mind undue! + --Sir, I've nothing more to say." + +A desperate stroke discerned I then - +God pardon--or pardon not--the lie; +She had sighed that she wished (lest the child should pine + Of slights) 'twere mine, + So I said: "But the father I. + +"That you thought it yours is the way of men; +But I won her troth long ere your day: +You learnt how, in dying, she summoned me? + 'Twas in fealty. + --Sir, I've nothing more to say, + +"Save that, if you'll hand me my little maid, +I'll take her, and rear her, and spare you toil. +Think it more than a friendly act none can; + I'm a lonely man, + While you've a large pot to boil. + +"If not, and you'll put it to ball or blade - +To-night, to-morrow night, anywhen - +I'll meet you here . . . But think of it, + And in season fit + Let me hear from you again." + +- Well, I went away, hoping; but nought I heard +Of my stroke for the child, till there greeted me +A little voice that one day came + To my window-frame + And babbled innocently: + +"My father who's not my own, sends word +I'm to stay here, sir, where I belong!" +Next a writing came: "Since the child was the fruit + Of your lawless suit, + Pray take her, to right a wrong." + +And I did. And I gave the child my love, +And the child loved me, and estranged us none. +But compunctions loomed; for I'd harmed the dead + By what I'd said + For the good of the living one. + +- Yet though, God wot, I am sinner enough, +And unworthy the woman who drew me so, +Perhaps this wrong for her darling's good + She forgives, or would, + If only she could know! + + + +THE DANCE AT THE PHOENIX + + + +To Jenny came a gentle youth + From inland leazes lone, +His love was fresh as apple-blooth + By Parrett, Yeo, or Tone. +And duly he entreated her +To be his tender minister, + And call him aye her own. + +Fair Jenny's life had hardly been + A life of modesty; +At Casterbridge experience keen + Of many loves had she +From scarcely sixteen years above; +Among them sundry troopers of + The King's-Own Cavalry. + +But each with charger, sword, and gun, + Had bluffed the Biscay wave; +And Jenny prized her gentle one + For all the love he gave. +She vowed to be, if they were wed, +His honest wife in heart and head + From bride-ale hour to grave. + +Wedded they were. Her husband's trust + In Jenny knew no bound, +And Jenny kept her pure and just, + Till even malice found +No sin or sign of ill to be +In one who walked so decently + The duteous helpmate's round. + +Two sons were born, and bloomed to men, + And roamed, and were as not: +Alone was Jenny left again + As ere her mind had sought +A solace in domestic joys, +And ere the vanished pair of boys + Were sent to sun her cot. + +She numbered near on sixty years, + And passed as elderly, +When, in the street, with flush of fears, + One day discovered she, +From shine of swords and thump of drum. +Her early loves from war had come, + The King's-Own Cavalry. + +She turned aside, and bowed her head + Anigh Saint Peter's door; +"Alas for chastened thoughts!" she said; + "I'm faded now, and hoar, +And yet those notes--they thrill me through, +And those gay forms move me anew + As in the years of yore!" . . . + +'Twas Christmas, and the Phoenix Inn + Was lit with tapers tall, +For thirty of the trooper men + Had vowed to give a ball +As "Theirs" had done ('twas handed down) +When lying in the selfsame town + Ere Buonaparte's fall. + +That night the throbbing "Soldier's Joy," + The measured tread and sway +Of "Fancy-Lad" and "Maiden Coy," + Reached Jenny as she lay +Beside her spouse; till springtide blood +Seemed scouring through her like a flood + That whisked the years away. + +She rose, and rayed, and decked her head + Where the bleached hairs ran thin; +Upon her cap two bows of red + She fixed with hasty pin; +Unheard descending to the street, +She trod the flags with tune-led feet, + And stood before the Inn. + +Save for the dancers', not a sound + Disturbed the icy air; +No watchman on his midnight round + Or traveller was there; +But over All-Saints', high and bright, +Pulsed to the music Sirius white, + The Wain by Bullstake Square. + +She knocked, but found her further stride + Checked by a sergeant tall: +"Gay Granny, whence come you?" he cried; + "This is a private ball." +- "No one has more right here than me! +Ere you were born, man," answered she, + "I knew the regiment all!" + +"Take not the lady's visit ill!" + Upspoke the steward free; +"We lack sufficient partners still, + So, prithee let her be!" +They seized and whirled her 'mid the maze, +And Jenny felt as in the days + Of her immodesty. + +Hour chased each hour, and night advanced; + She sped as shod with wings; +Each time and every time she danced - + Reels, jigs, poussettes, and flings: +They cheered her as she soared and swooped, +(She'd learnt ere art in dancing drooped + From hops to slothful swings). + +The favourite Quick-step "Speed the Plough" - + (Cross hands, cast off, and wheel)-- +"The Triumph," "Sylph," "The Row-dow-dow," + Famed "Major Malley's Reel," +"The Duke of York's," "The Fairy Dance," +"The Bridge of Lodi" (brought from France), + She beat out, toe and heel. + +The "Fall of Paris" clanged its close, + And Peter's chime told four, +When Jenny, bosom-beating, rose + To seek her silent door. +They tiptoed in escorting her, +Lest stroke of heel or clink of spur + Should break her goodman's snore. + +The fire that late had burnt fell slack + When lone at last stood she; +Her nine-and-fifty years came back; + She sank upon her knee +Beside the durn, and like a dart +A something arrowed through her heart + In shoots of agony. + +Their footsteps died as she leant there, + Lit by the morning star +Hanging above the moorland, where + The aged elm-rows are; +And, as o'ernight, from Pummery Ridge +To Maembury Ring and Standfast Bridge + No life stirred, near or far. + +Though inner mischief worked amain, + She reached her husband's side; +Where, toil-weary, as he had lain + Beneath the patchwork pied +When yestereve she'd forthward crept, +And as unwitting, still he slept + Who did in her confide. + +A tear sprang as she turned and viewed + His features free from guile; +She kissed him long, as when, just wooed, + She chose his domicile. +She felt she could have given her life +To be the single-hearted wife + That she had been erstwhile. + +Time wore to six. Her husband rose + And struck the steel and stone; +He glanced at Jenny, whose repose + Seemed deeper than his own. +With dumb dismay, on closer sight, +He gathered sense that in the night, + Or morn, her soul had flown. + +When told that some too mighty strain + For one so many-yeared +Had burst her bosom's master-vein, + His doubts remained unstirred. +His Jenny had not left his side +Betwixt the eve and morning-tide: + --The King's said not a word. + +Well! times are not as times were then, + Nor fair ones half so free; +And truly they were martial men, + The King's-Own Cavalry. +And when they went from Casterbridge +And vanished over Mellstock Ridge, + 'Twas saddest morn to see. + + + +THE CASTERBRIDGE CAPTAINS +(KHYBER PASS, 1842) +A TRADITION OF J. B. L-, T. G. B-, AND J. L-. + + + +Three captains went to Indian wars, + And only one returned: +Their mate of yore, he singly wore + The laurels all had earned. + +At home he sought the ancient aisle + Wherein, untrumped of fame, +The three had sat in pupilage, + And each had carved his name. + +The names, rough-hewn, of equal size, + Stood on the panel still; +Unequal since.--"'Twas theirs to aim, + Mine was it to fulfil!" + +- "Who saves his life shall lose it, friends!" + Outspake the preacher then, +Unweeting he his listener, who + Looked at the names again. + +That he had come and they'd been stayed, + 'Twas but the chance of war: +Another chance, and they'd sat here, + And he had lain afar. + +Yet saw he something in the lives + Of those who'd ceased to live +That sphered them with a majesty + Which living failed to give. + +Transcendent triumph in return + No longer lit his brain; +Transcendence rayed the distant urn + Where slept the fallen twain. + + + +A SIGN-SEEKER + + + +I mark the months in liveries dank and dry, + The noontides many-shaped and hued; + I see the nightfall shades subtrude, +And hear the monotonous hours clang negligently by. + +I view the evening bonfires of the sun + On hills where morning rains have hissed; + The eyeless countenance of the mist +Pallidly rising when the summer droughts are done. + +I have seen the lightning-blade, the leaping star, + The cauldrons of the sea in storm, + Have felt the earthquake's lifting arm, +And trodden where abysmal fires and snow-cones are. + +I learn to prophesy the hid eclipse, + The coming of eccentric orbs; + To mete the dust the sky absorbs, +To weigh the sun, and fix the hour each planet dips. + +I witness fellow earth-men surge and strive; + Assemblies meet, and throb, and part; + Death's soothing finger, sorrow's smart; +- All the vast various moils that mean a world alive. + +But that I fain would wot of shuns my sense - + Those sights of which old prophets tell, + Those signs the general word so well, +Vouchsafed to their unheed, denied my long suspense. + +In graveyard green, behind his monument + To glimpse a phantom parent, friend, + Wearing his smile, and "Not the end!" +Outbreathing softly: that were blest enlightenment; + +Or, if a dead Love's lips, whom dreams reveal + When midnight imps of King Decay + Delve sly to solve me back to clay, +Should leave some print to prove her spirit-kisses real; + +Or, when Earth's Frail lie bleeding of her Strong, + If some Recorder, as in Writ, + Near to the weary scene should flit +And drop one plume as pledge that Heaven inscrolls the wrong. + +- There are who, rapt to heights of tranced trust, + These tokens claim to feel and see, + Read radiant hints of times to be - +Of heart to heart returning after dust to dust. + +Such scope is granted not to lives like mine . . . + I have lain in dead men's beds, have walked + The tombs of those with whom I'd talked, +Called many a gone and goodly one to shape a sign, + +And panted for response. But none replies; + No warnings loom, nor whisperings + To open out my limitings, +And Nescience mutely muses: When a man falls he lies. + + + +MY CICELY +(17-) + + + +"Alive?"--And I leapt in my wonder, + Was faint of my joyance, +And grasses and grove shone in garments + Of glory to me. + +"She lives, in a plenteous well-being, + To-day as aforehand; +The dead bore the name--though a rare one - + The name that bore she." + +She lived . . . I, afar in the city + Of frenzy-led factions, +Had squandered green years and maturer + In bowing the knee + +To Baals illusive and specious, + Till chance had there voiced me +That one I loved vainly in nonage + Had ceased her to be. + +The passion the planets had scowled on, + And change had let dwindle, +Her death-rumour smartly relifted + To full apogee. + +I mounted a steed in the dawning + With acheful remembrance, +And made for the ancient West Highway + To far Exonb'ry. + +Passing heaths, and the House of Long Sieging, + I neared the thin steeple +That tops the fair fane of Poore's olden + Episcopal see; + +And, changing anew my onbearer, + I traversed the downland +Whereon the bleak hill-graves of Chieftains + Bulge barren of tree; + +And still sadly onward I followed + That Highway the Icen, +Which trails its pale riband down Wessex + O'er lynchet and lea. + +Along through the Stour-bordered Forum, + Where Legions had wayfared, +And where the slow river upglasses + Its green canopy, + +And by Weatherbury Castle, and thencefrom + Through Casterbridge held I +Still on, to entomb her my vision + Saw stretched pallidly. + +No highwayman's trot blew the night-wind + To me so life-weary, +But only the creak of the gibbets + Or waggoners' jee. + +Triple-ramparted Maidon gloomed grayly + Above me from southward, +And north the hill-fortress of Eggar, + And square Pummerie. + +The Nine-Pillared Cromlech, the Bride-streams, + The Axe, and the Otter +I passed, to the gate of the city + Where Exe scents the sea; + +Till, spent, in the graveacre pausing, + I learnt 'twas not my Love +To whom Mother Church had just murmured + A last lullaby. + +- "Then, where dwells the Canon's kinswoman, + My friend of aforetime?"-- +('Twas hard to repress my heart-heavings + And new ecstasy.) + +"She wedded."--"Ah!"--"Wedded beneath her - + She keeps the stage-hostel +Ten miles hence, beside the great Highway - + The famed Lions-Three. + +"Her spouse was her lackey--no option + 'Twixt wedlock and worse things; +A lapse over-sad for a lady + Of her pedigree!" + +I shuddered, said nothing, and wandered + To shades of green laurel: +Too ghastly had grown those first tidings + So brightsome of blee! + +For, on my ride hither, I'd halted + Awhile at the Lions, +And her--her whose name had once opened + My heart as a key-- + +I'd looked on, unknowing, and witnessed + Her jests with the tapsters, +Her liquor-fired face, her thick accents + In naming her fee. + +"O God, why this seeming derision!" + I cried in my anguish: +"O once Loved, O fair Unforgotten - + That Thing--meant it thee! + +"Inurned and at peace, lost but sainted, + Were grief I could compass; +Depraved--'tis for Christ's poor dependent + A cruel decree!" + +I backed on the Highway; but passed not + The hostel. Within there +Too mocking to Love's re-expression + Was Time's repartee! + +Uptracking where Legions had wayfared, + By cromlechs unstoried, +And lynchets, and sepultured Chieftains, + In self-colloquy, + +A feeling stirred in me and strengthened + That SHE was not my Love, +But she of the garth, who lay rapt in + Her long reverie. + +And thence till to-day I persuade me + That this was the true one; +That Death stole intact her young dearness + And innocency. + +Frail-witted, illuded they call me; + I may be. 'Tis better +To dream than to own the debasement + Of sweet Cicely. + +Moreover I rate it unseemly + To hold that kind Heaven +Could work such device--to her ruin + And my misery. + +So, lest I disturb my choice vision, + I shun the West Highway, +Even now, when the knaps ring with rhythms + From blackbird and bee; + +And feel that with slumber half-conscious + She rests in the church-hay, +Her spirit unsoiled as in youth-time + When lovers were we. + + + +HER IMMORTALITY + + + +Upon a noon I pilgrimed through + A pasture, mile by mile, +Unto the place where I last saw + My dead Love's living smile. + +And sorrowing I lay me down + Upon the heated sod: +It seemed as if my body pressed + The very ground she trod. + +I lay, and thought; and in a trance + She came and stood me by-- +The same, even to the marvellous ray + That used to light her eye. + +"You draw me, and I come to you, + My faithful one," she said, +In voice that had the moving tone + It bore ere breath had fled. + +She said: "'Tis seven years since I died: + Few now remember me; +My husband clasps another bride; + My children's love has she. + +"My brethren, sisters, and my friends + Care not to meet my sprite: +Who prized me most I did not know + Till I passed down from sight." + +I said: "My days are lonely here; + I need thy smile alway: +I'll use this night my ball or blade, + And join thee ere the day." + +A tremor stirred her tender lips, + Which parted to dissuade: +"That cannot be, O friend," she cried; + "Think, I am but a Shade! + +"A Shade but in its mindful ones + Has immortality; +By living, me you keep alive, + By dying you slay me. + +"In you resides my single power + Of sweet continuance here; +On your fidelity I count + Through many a coming year." + +- I started through me at her plight, + So suddenly confessed: +Dismissing late distaste for life, + I craved its bleak unrest. + +"I will not die, my One of all! - + To lengthen out thy days +I'll guard me from minutest harms + That may invest my ways!" + +She smiled and went. Since then she comes + Oft when her birth-moon climbs, +Or at the seasons' ingresses + Or anniversary times; + +But grows my grief. When I surcease, + Through whom alone lives she, +Ceases my Love, her words, her ways, + Never again to be! + + + +THE IVY-WIFE + + + +I longed to love a full-boughed beech + And be as high as he: +I stretched an arm within his reach, + And signalled unity. +But with his drip he forced a breach, + And tried to poison me. + +I gave the grasp of partnership + To one of other race-- +A plane: he barked him strip by strip + From upper bough to base; +And me therewith; for gone my grip, + My arms could not enlace. + +In new affection next I strove + To coll an ash I saw, +And he in trust received my love; + Till with my soft green claw +I cramped and bound him as I wove . . . + Such was my love: ha-ha! + +By this I gained his strength and height + Without his rivalry. +But in my triumph I lost sight + Of afterhaps. Soon he, +Being bark-bound, flagged, snapped, fell outright, + And in his fall felled me! + + + +A MEETING WITH DESPAIR + + + +As evening shaped I found me on a moor + Which sight could scarce sustain: +The black lean land, of featureless contour, + Was like a tract in pain. + +"This scene, like my own life," I said, "is one + Where many glooms abide; +Toned by its fortune to a deadly dun - + Lightless on every side. + +I glanced aloft and halted, pleasure-caught + To see the contrast there: +The ray-lit clouds gleamed glory; and I thought, + "There's solace everywhere!" + +Then bitter self-reproaches as I stood + I dealt me silently +As one perverse--misrepresenting Good + In graceless mutiny. + +Against the horizon's dim-discerned wheel + A form rose, strange of mould: +That he was hideous, hopeless, I could feel + Rather than could behold. + +"'Tis a dead spot, where even the light lies spent + To darkness!" croaked the Thing. +"Not if you look aloft!" said I, intent + On my new reasoning. + + "Yea--but await awhile!" he cried. "Ho-ho! - + Look now aloft and see!" +I looked. There, too, sat night: Heaven's radiant show + Had gone. Then chuckled he. + + + +UNKNOWING + + + +When, soul in soul reflected, +We breathed an aethered air, + When we neglected + All things elsewhere, +And left the friendly friendless +To keep our love aglow, + We deemed it endless . . . + --We did not know! + +When, by mad passion goaded, +We planned to hie away, + But, unforeboded, + The storm-shafts gray +So heavily down-pattered +That none could forthward go, + Our lives seemed shattered . . . + --We did not know! + +When I found you, helpless lying, +And you waived my deep misprise, + And swore me, dying, + In phantom-guise +To wing to me when grieving, +And touch away my woe, + We kissed, believing . . . + --We did not know! + +But though, your powers outreckoning, +You hold you dead and dumb, + Or scorn my beckoning, + And will not come; +And I say, "'Twere mood ungainly +To store her memory so:" + I say it vainly - + I feel and know! + + + +FRIENDS BEYOND + + + +William Dewy, Tranter Reuben, Farmer Ledlow late at plough, + Robert's kin, and John's, and Ned's, +And the Squire, and Lady Susan, lie in Mellstock churchyard now! + +"Gone," I call them, gone for good, that group of local hearts and +heads; + Yet at mothy curfew-tide, +And at midnight when the noon-heat breathes it back from walls and +leads, + +They've a way of whispering to me--fellow-wight who yet abide - + In the muted, measured note +Of a ripple under archways, or a lone cave's stillicide: + +"We have triumphed: this achievement turns the bane to antidote, + Unsuccesses to success, +- Many thought-worn eves and morrows to a morrow free of thought. + +"No more need we corn and clothing, feel of old terrestrial stress; + Chill detraction stirs no sigh; +Fear of death has even bygone us: death gave all that we possess." + +W. D.--"Ye mid burn the wold bass-viol that I set such vallie by." + Squire.--"You may hold the manse in fee, +You may wed my spouse, my children's memory of me may decry." + +Lady.--"You may have my rich brocades, my laces; take each household +key; + Ransack coffer, desk, bureau; +Quiz the few poor treasures hid there, con the letters kept by me." + +Far.--"Ye mid zell my favourite heifer, ye mid let the charlock grow, + Foul the grinterns, give up thrift." +Wife.--"If ye break my best blue china, children, I shan't care or +ho." + +All. --"We've no wish to hear the tidings, how the people's fortunes +shift; + What your daily doings are; +Who are wedded, born, divided; if your lives beat slow or swift. + +"Curious not the least are we if our intents you make or mar, + If you quire to our old tune, +If the City stage still passes, if the weirs still roar afar." + +- Thus, with very gods' composure, freed those crosses late and soon + Which, in life, the Trine allow +(Why, none witteth), and ignoring all that haps beneath the moon, + +William Dewy, Tranter Reuben, Farmer Ledlow late at plough, + Robert's kin, and John's, and Ned's, +And the Squire, and Lady Susan, murmur mildly to me now. + + + +TO OUTER NATURE + + + +Show thee as I thought thee +When I early sought thee, + Omen-scouting, + All undoubting +Love alone had wrought thee - + +Wrought thee for my pleasure, +Planned thee as a measure + For expounding + And resounding +Glad things that men treasure. + +O for but a moment +Of that old endowment - + Light to gaily + See thy daily +Irised embowment! + +But such re-adorning +Time forbids with scorning - + Makes me see things + Cease to be things +They were in my morning. + +Fad'st thou, glow-forsaken, +Darkness-overtaken! + Thy first sweetness, + Radiance, meetness, +None shall re-awaken. + +Why not sempiternal +Thou and I? Our vernal + Brightness keeping, + Time outleaping; +Passed the hodiernal! + + + +THOUGHTS OF PHENA +AT NEWS OF HER DEATH + + + + Not a line of her writing have I, + Not a thread of her hair, +No mark of her late time as dame in her dwelling, whereby + I may picture her there; + And in vain do I urge my unsight + To conceive my lost prize +At her close, whom I knew when her dreams were upbrimming with light, + And with laughter her eyes. + + What scenes spread around her last days, + Sad, shining, or dim? +Did her gifts and compassions enray and enarch her sweet ways + With an aureate nimb? + Or did life-light decline from her years, + And mischances control +Her full day-star; unease, or regret, or forebodings, or fears + Disennoble her soul? + + Thus I do but the phantom retain + Of the maiden of yore +As my relic; yet haply the best of her--fined in my brain + It maybe the more + That no line of her writing have I, + Nor a thread of her hair, +No mark of her late time as dame in her dwelling, whereby + I may picture her there. + +March 1890. + + + +MIDDLE-AGE ENTHUSIASMS +To M. H. + + + + We passed where flag and flower + Signalled a jocund throng; + We said: "Go to, the hour + Is apt!"--and joined the song; +And, kindling, laughed at life and care, +Although we knew no laugh lay there. + + We walked where shy birds stood + Watching us, wonder-dumb; + Their friendship met our mood; + We cried: "We'll often come: +We'll come morn, noon, eve, everywhen!" +- We doubted we should come again. + + We joyed to see strange sheens + Leap from quaint leaves in shade; + A secret light of greens + They'd for their pleasure made. +We said: "We'll set such sorts as these!" +- We knew with night the wish would cease. + + "So sweet the place," we said, + "Its tacit tales so dear, + Our thoughts, when breath has sped, + Will meet and mingle here!" . . . +"Words!" mused we. "Passed the mortal door, +Our thoughts will reach this nook no more." + + + +IN A WOOD +See "THE WOODLANDERS" + + + +Pale beech and pine-tree blue, + Set in one clay, +Bough to bough cannot you + Bide out your day? +When the rains skim and skip, +Why mar sweet comradeship, +Blighting with poison-drip + Neighbourly spray? + +Heart-halt and spirit-lame, + City-opprest, +Unto this wood I came + As to a nest; +Dreaming that sylvan peace +Offered the harrowed ease-- +Nature a soft release + From men's unrest. + +But, having entered in, + Great growths and small +Show them to men akin - + Combatants all! +Sycamore shoulders oak, +Bines the slim sapling yoke, +Ivy-spun halters choke + Elms stout and tall. + +Touches from ash, O wych, + Sting you like scorn! +You, too, brave hollies, twitch + Sidelong from thorn. +Even the rank poplars bear +Illy a rival's air, +Cankering in black despair + If overborne. + +Since, then, no grace I find + Taught me of trees, +Turn I back to my kind, + Worthy as these. +There at least smiles abound, +There discourse trills around, +There, now and then, are found + Life-loyalties. + +1887: 1896. + + + +TO A LADY +OFFENDED BY A BOOK OF THE WRITER'S + + + +Now that my page upcloses, doomed, maybe, +Never to press thy cosy cushions more, +Or wake thy ready Yeas as heretofore, +Or stir thy gentle vows of faith in me: + +Knowing thy natural receptivity, +I figure that, as flambeaux banish eve, +My sombre image, warped by insidious heave +Of those less forthright, must lose place in thee. + +So be it. I have borne such. Let thy dreams +Of me and mine diminish day by day, +And yield their space to shine of smugger things; +Till I shape to thee but in fitful gleams, +And then in far and feeble visitings, +And then surcease. Truth will be truth alway. + + + +TO AN ORPHAN CHILD +A WHIMSEY + + + +Ah, child, thou art but half thy darling mother's; + Hers couldst thou wholly be, +My light in thee would outglow all in others; + She would relive to me. +But niggard Nature's trick of birth + Bars, lest she overjoy, +Renewal of the loved on earth + Save with alloy. + +The Dame has no regard, alas, my maiden, + For love and loss like mine - +No sympathy with mind-sight memory-laden; + Only with fickle eyne. +To her mechanic artistry + My dreams are all unknown, +And why I wish that thou couldst be + But One's alone! + + + +NATURE'S QUESTIONING + + + + When I look forth at dawning, pool, + Field, flock, and lonely tree, + All seem to gaze at me +Like chastened children sitting silent in a school; + + Their faces dulled, constrained, and worn, + As though the master's ways + Through the long teaching days +Their first terrestrial zest had chilled and overborne. + + And on them stirs, in lippings mere + (As if once clear in call, + But now scarce breathed at all) - +"We wonder, ever wonder, why we find us here! + + "Has some Vast Imbecility, + Mighty to build and blend, + But impotent to tend, +Framed us in jest, and left us now to hazardry? + + "Or come we of an Automaton + Unconscious of our pains? . . . + Or are we live remains +Of Godhead dying downwards, brain and eye now gone? + + "Or is it that some high Plan betides, + As yet not understood, + Of Evil stormed by Good, +We the Forlorn Hope over which Achievement strides?" + + Thus things around. No answerer I . . . + Meanwhile the winds, and rains, + And Earth's old glooms and pains +Are still the same, and gladdest Life Death neighbours nigh. + + + +THE IMPERCIPIENT +(AT A CATHEDRAL SERVICE) + + + +That from this bright believing band + An outcast I should be, +That faiths by which my comrades stand + Seem fantasies to me, +And mirage-mists their Shining Land, + Is a drear destiny. + +Why thus my soul should be consigned + To infelicity, +Why always I must feel as blind + To sights my brethren see, +Why joys they've found I cannot find, + Abides a mystery. + +Since heart of mine knows not that ease + Which they know; since it be +That He who breathes All's Well to these + Breathes no All's-Well to me, +My lack might move their sympathies + And Christian charity! + +I am like a gazer who should mark + An inland company +Standing upfingered, with, "Hark! hark! + The glorious distant sea!" +And feel, "Alas, 'tis but yon dark + And wind-swept pine to me!" + +Yet I would bear my shortcomings + With meet tranquillity, +But for the charge that blessed things + I'd liefer have unbe. +O, doth a bird deprived of wings + Go earth-bound wilfully! + +* * * + +Enough. As yet disquiet clings + About us. Rest shall we. + + + +AT AN INN + + + +When we as strangers sought + Their catering care, +Veiled smiles bespoke their thought + Of what we were. +They warmed as they opined + Us more than friends - +That we had all resigned + For love's dear ends. + +And that swift sympathy + With living love +Which quicks the world--maybe + The spheres above, +Made them our ministers, + Moved them to say, +"Ah, God, that bliss like theirs + Would flush our day!" + +And we were left alone + As Love's own pair; +Yet never the love-light shone + Between us there! +But that which chilled the breath + Of afternoon, +And palsied unto death + The pane-fly's tune. + +The kiss their zeal foretold, + And now deemed come, +Came not: within his hold + Love lingered-numb. +Why cast he on our port + A bloom not ours? +Why shaped us for his sport + In after-hours? + +As we seemed we were not + That day afar, +And now we seem not what + We aching are. +O severing sea and land, + O laws of men, +Ere death, once let us stand + As we stood then! + + + +THE SLOW NATURE +(AN INCIDENT OF FROOM VALLEY) + + + +"Thy husband--poor, poor Heart!--is dead-- + Dead, out by Moreford Rise; +A bull escaped the barton-shed, + Gored him, and there he lies!" + +- "Ha, ha--go away! 'Tis a tale, methink, + Thou joker Kit!" laughed she. +"I've known thee many a year, Kit Twink, + And ever hast thou fooled me!" + +- "But, Mistress Damon--I can swear + Thy goodman John is dead! +And soon th'lt hear their feet who bear + His body to his bed." + +So unwontedly sad was the merry man's face - + That face which had long deceived - +That she gazed and gazed; and then could trace + The truth there; and she believed. + +She laid a hand on the dresser-ledge, + And scanned far Egdon-side; +And stood; and you heard the wind-swept sedge + And the rippling Froom; till she cried: + +"O my chamber's untidied, unmade my bed + Though the day has begun to wear! +'What a slovenly hussif!' it will be said, + When they all go up my stair!" + +She disappeared; and the joker stood + Depressed by his neighbour's doom, +And amazed that a wife struck to widowhood + Thought first of her unkempt room. + +But a fortnight thence she could take no food, + And she pined in a slow decay; +While Kit soon lost his mournful mood + And laughed in his ancient way. + +1894. + + + +IN A EWELEAZE NEAR WEATHERBURY + + + +The years have gathered grayly + Since I danced upon this leaze +With one who kindled gaily + Love's fitful ecstasies! +But despite the term as teacher, + I remain what I was then +In each essential feature + Of the fantasies of men. + +Yet I note the little chisel + Of never-napping Time, +Defacing ghast and grizzel + The blazon of my prime. +When at night he thinks me sleeping, + I feel him boring sly +Within my bones, and heaping + Quaintest pains for by-and-by. + +Still, I'd go the world with Beauty, + I would laugh with her and sing, +I would shun divinest duty + To resume her worshipping. +But she'd scorn my brave endeavour, + She would not balm the breeze +By murmuring "Thine for ever!" + As she did upon this leaze. + +1890. + + + +THE FIRE AT TRANTER SWEATLEY'S + + + +They had long met o' Zundays--her true love and she - + And at junketings, maypoles, and flings; +But she bode wi' a thirtover uncle, and he +Swore by noon and by night that her goodman should be +Naibour Sweatley--a gaffer oft weak at the knee +From taking o' sommat more cheerful than tea - + Who tranted, and moved people's things. + +She cried, "O pray pity me!" Nought would he hear; + Then with wild rainy eyes she obeyed. +She chid when her Love was for clinking off wi' her. +The pa'son was told, as the season drew near +To throw over pu'pit the names of the peair + As fitting one flesh to be made. + +The wedding-day dawned and the morning drew on; + The couple stood bridegroom and bride; +The evening was passed, and when midnight had gone +The folks horned out, "God save the King," and anon + The two home-along gloomily hied. + +The lover Tim Tankens mourned heart-sick and drear + To be thus of his darling deprived: +He roamed in the dark ath'art field, mound, and mere, +And, a'most without knowing it, found himself near +The house of the tranter, and now of his Dear, + Where the lantern-light showed 'em arrived. + +The bride sought her cham'er so calm and so pale + That a Northern had thought her resigned; +But to eyes that had seen her in tide-times of weal, +Like the white cloud o' smoke, the red battle-field's vail, + That look spak' of havoc behind. + +The bridegroom yet laitered a beaker to drain, + Then reeled to the linhay for more, +When the candle-snoff kindled some chaff from his grain - +Flames spread, and red vlankers, wi' might and wi' main, + And round beams, thatch, and chimley-tun roar. + +Young Tim away yond, rafted up by the light, + Through brimble and underwood tears, +Till he comes to the orchet, when crooping thereright +In the lewth of a codlin-tree, bivering wi' fright, +Wi' on'y her night-rail to screen her from sight, + His lonesome young Barbree appears. + +Her cwold little figure half-naked he views + Played about by the frolicsome breeze, +Her light-tripping totties, her ten little tooes, +All bare and besprinkled wi' Fall's chilly dews, +While her great gallied eyes, through her hair hanging loose, + Sheened as stars through a tardle o' trees. + +She eyed en; and, as when a weir-hatch is drawn, + Her tears, penned by terror afore, +With a rushing of sobs in a shower were strawn, +Till her power to pour 'em seemed wasted and gone + From the heft o' misfortune she bore. + +"O Tim, my OWN Tim I must call 'ee--I will! + All the world ha' turned round on me so! +Can you help her who loved 'ee, though acting so ill? +Can you pity her misery--feel for her still? +When worse than her body so quivering and chill + Is her heart in its winter o' woe! + +"I think I mid almost ha' borne it," she said, + "Had my griefs one by one come to hand; +But O, to be slave to thik husbird for bread, +And then, upon top o' that, driven to wed, +And then, upon top o' that, burnt out o' bed, + Is more than my nater can stand!" + +Tim's soul like a lion 'ithin en outsprung - +(Tim had a great soul when his feelings were wrung)-- + "Feel for 'ee, dear Barbree?" he cried; +And his warm working-jacket about her he flung, +Made a back, horsed her up, till behind him she clung +Like a chiel on a gipsy, her figure uphung + By the sleeves that around her he tied. + +Over piggeries, and mixens, and apples, and hay, + They lumpered straight into the night; +And finding bylong where a halter-path lay, +At dawn reached Tim's house, on'y seen on their way +By a naibour or two who were up wi' the day; + But they gathered no clue to the sight. + +Then tender Tim Tankens he searched here and there + For some garment to clothe her fair skin; +But though he had breeches and waistcoats to spare, +He had nothing quite seemly for Barbree to wear, +Who, half shrammed to death, stood and cried on a chair + At the caddle she found herself in. + +There was one thing to do, and that one thing he did, + He lent her some clouts of his own, +And she took 'em perforce; and while in 'em she slid, +Tim turned to the winder, as modesty bid, +Thinking, "O that the picter my duty keeps hid + To the sight o' my eyes mid be shown!" + +In the tallet he stowed her; there huddied she lay, + Shortening sleeves, legs, and tails to her limbs; +But most o' the time in a mortal bad way, +Well knowing that there'd be the divel to pay +If 'twere found that, instead o' the elements' prey, + She was living in lodgings at Tim's. + +"Where's the tranter?" said men and boys; "where can er be?" + "Where's the tranter?" said Barbree alone. +"Where on e'th is the tranter?" said everybod-y: +They sifted the dust of his perished roof-tree, + And all they could find was a bone. + +Then the uncle cried, "Lord, pray have mercy on me!" + And in terror began to repent. +But before 'twas complete, and till sure she was free, +Barbree drew up her loft-ladder, tight turned her key - +Tim bringing up breakfast and dinner and tea - + Till the news of her hiding got vent. + +Then followed the custom-kept rout, shout, and flare +Of a skimmington-ride through the naibourhood, ere + Folk had proof o' wold Sweatley's decay. +Whereupon decent people all stood in a stare, +Saying Tim and his lodger should risk it, and pair: +So he took her to church. An' some laughing lads there +Cried to Tim, "After Sweatley!" She said, "I declare + I stand as a maiden to-day!" + +Written 1866; printed 1875. + + + +HEIRESS AND ARCHITECT +FOR A. W. B. + + + +She sought the Studios, beckoning to her side +An arch-designer, for she planned to build. +He was of wise contrivance, deeply skilled +In every intervolve of high and wide - + Well fit to be her guide. + + "Whatever it be," + Responded he, +With cold, clear voice, and cold, clear view, +"In true accord with prudent fashionings +For such vicissitudes as living brings, +And thwarting not the law of stable things, + That will I do." + +"Shape me," she said, "high halls with tracery +And open ogive-work, that scent and hue +Of buds, and travelling bees, may come in through, +The note of birds, and singings of the sea, + For these are much to me." + + "An idle whim!" + Broke forth from him +Whom nought could warm to gallantries: +"Cede all these buds and birds, the zephyr's call, +And scents, and hues, and things that falter all, +And choose as best the close and surly wall, + For winters freeze." + +"Then frame," she cried, "wide fronts of crystal glass, +That I may show my laughter and my light - +Light like the sun's by day, the stars' by night - +Till rival heart-queens, envying, wail, 'Alas, + Her glory!' as they pass." + + "O maid misled!" + He sternly said, +Whose facile foresight pierced her dire; +"Where shall abide the soul when, sick of glee, +It shrinks, and hides, and prays no eye may see? +Those house them best who house for secrecy, + For you will tire." + +"A little chamber, then, with swan and dove +Ranged thickly, and engrailed with rare device +Of reds and purples, for a Paradise +Wherein my Love may greet me, I my Love, + When he shall know thereof?" + + "This, too, is ill," + He answered still, +The man who swayed her like a shade. +"An hour will come when sight of such sweet nook +Would bring a bitterness too sharp to brook, +When brighter eyes have won away his look; + For you will fade." + +Then said she faintly: "O, contrive some way - +Some narrow winding turret, quite mine own, +To reach a loft where I may grieve alone! +It is a slight thing; hence do not, I pray, + This last dear fancy slay!" + + "Such winding ways + Fit not your days," +Said he, the man of measuring eye; +"I must even fashion as my rule declares, +To wit: Give space (since life ends unawares) +To hale a coffined corpse adown the stairs; + For you will die." + +1867. + + + +THE TWO MEN + + + +There were two youths of equal age, +Wit, station, strength, and parentage; +They studied at the selfsame schools, +And shaped their thoughts by common rules. + +One pondered on the life of man, +His hopes, his ending, and began +To rate the Market's sordid war +As something scarce worth living for. + +"I'll brace to higher aims," said he, +"I'll further Truth and Purity; +Thereby to mend the mortal lot +And sweeten sorrow. Thrive I not, + +"Winning their hearts, my kind will give +Enough that I may lowly live, +And house my Love in some dim dell, +For pleasing them and theirs so well." + +Idly attired, with features wan, +In secret swift he laboured on: +Such press of power had brought much gold +Applied to things of meaner mould. + +Sometimes he wished his aims had been +To gather gains like other men; +Then thanked his God he'd traced his track +Too far for wish to drag him back. + +He looked from his loft one day +To where his slighted garden lay; +Nettles and hemlock hid each lawn, +And every flower was starved and gone. + +He fainted in his heart, whereon +He rose, and sought his plighted one, +Resolved to loose her bond withal, +Lest she should perish in his fall. + +He met her with a careless air, +As though he'd ceased to find her fair, +And said: "True love is dust to me; +I cannot kiss: I tire of thee!" + +(That she might scorn him was he fain, +To put her sooner out of pain; +For incensed love breathes quick and dies, +When famished love a-lingering lies.) + +Once done, his soul was so betossed, +It found no more the force it lost: +Hope was his only drink and food, +And hope extinct, decay ensued. + +And, living long so closely penned, +He had not kept a single friend; +He dwindled thin as phantoms be, +And drooped to death in poverty . . . + +Meantime his schoolmate had gone out +To join the fortune-finding rout; +He liked the winnings of the mart, +But wearied of the working part. + +He turned to seek a privy lair, +Neglecting note of garb and hair, +And day by day reclined and thought +How he might live by doing nought. + +"I plan a valued scheme," he said +To some. "But lend me of your bread, +And when the vast result looms nigh, +In profit you shall stand as I." + +Yet they took counsel to restrain +Their kindness till they saw the gain; +And, since his substance now had run, +He rose to do what might be done. + +He went unto his Love by night, +And said: "My Love, I faint in fight: +Deserving as thou dost a crown, +My cares shall never drag thee down." + +(He had descried a maid whose line +Would hand her on much corn and wine, +And held her far in worth above +One who could only pray and love.) + +But this Fair read him; whence he failed +To do the deed so blithely hailed; +He saw his projects wholly marred, +And gloom and want oppressed him hard; + +Till, living to so mean an end, +Whereby he'd lost his every friend, +He perished in a pauper sty, +His mate the dying pauper nigh. + +And moralists, reflecting, said, +As "dust to dust" in burial read +Was echoed from each coffin-lid, +"These men were like in all they did." + +1866. + + + +LINES + + + +Spoken by Miss ADA REHAN at the Lyceum Theatre, July 23, 1890, at a +performance on behalf of Lady Jeune's Holiday Fund for City Children. + +Before we part to alien thoughts and aims, +Permit the one brief word the occasion claims: +- When mumming and grave projects are allied, +Perhaps an Epilogue is justified. + +Our under-purpose has, in truth, to-day +Commanded most our musings; least the play: +A purpose futile but for your good-will +Swiftly responsive to the cry of ill: +A purpose all too limited!--to aid +Frail human flowerets, sicklied by the shade, +In winning some short spell of upland breeze, +Or strengthening sunlight on the level leas. + +Who has not marked, where the full cheek should be, +Incipient lines of lank flaccidity, +Lymphatic pallor where the pink should glow, +And where the throb of transport, pulses low? - +Most tragical of shapes from Pole to Line, +O wondering child, unwitting Time's design, +Why should Art add to Nature's quandary, +And worsen ill by thus immuring thee? +- That races do despite unto their own, +That Might supernal do indeed condone +Wrongs individual for the general ease, +Instance the proof in victims such as these. + +Launched into thoroughfares too thronged before, +Mothered by those whose protest is "No more!" +Vitalized without option: who shall say +That did Life hang on choosing--Yea or Nay - +They had not scorned it with such penalty, +And nothingness implored of Destiny? + +And yet behind the horizon smile serene +The down, the cornland, and the stretching green - +Space--the child's heaven: scenes which at least ensure +Some palliative for ill they cannot cure. + +Dear friends--now moved by this poor show of ours +To make your own long joy in buds and bowers +For one brief while the joy of infant eyes, +Changing their urban murk to paradise - +You have our thanks!--may your reward include +More than our thanks, far more: their gratitude. + + + +"I LOOK INTO MY GLASS" + + + +I look into my glass, +And view my wasting skin, +And say, "Would God it came to pass +My heart had shrunk as thin!" + +For then, I, undistrest +By hearts grown cold to me, +Could lonely wait my endless rest +With equanimity. + +But Time, to make me grieve; +Part steals, lets part abide; +And shakes this fragile frame at eve +With throbbings of noontide. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext Wessex Poems and Other Verses, by Hardy + |