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<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>
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