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diff --git a/old/pmpst10.txt b/old/pmpst10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..203cb77 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/pmpst10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4795 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Poems of the Past and the Present, by Hardy +#19 in our series by Thomas Hardy + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.12.12.00*END* + + + + + +This etext was produced from the 1919 Macmillan and Co. edition by +David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +POEMS OF THE PAST AND THE PRESENT + +By Thomas Hardy + + + + +Contents: + +V.R. 1819-1901 +WAR POEMS - + EMBARCATION + DEPARTURE + THE COLONEL'S SOLILOQUY + THE GOING OF THE BATTERY + AT THE WAR OFFICE, LONDON + A CHRISTMAS GHOST-STORY + THE DEAD DRUMMER + A WIFE IN LONDON + THE SOULS OF THE SLAIN + SONG OF THE SOLDIERS' WIVES + THE SICK GOD +POEMS OF PILGRIMAGE - + GENOA AND THE MEDITERRANEAN + SHELLEY'S SKYLARK + IN THE OLD THEATRE, FIESOLE + ROME: ON THE PALATINE + ROME: BUILDING A NEW STREET IN THE ANCIENT QUARTER + ROME: THE VATICAN--SALA DELLE MUSE + ROME: AT THE PYRAMID OF CESTIUS + LAUSANNE: IN GIBBON'S OLD GARDEN + ZERMATT: TO THE MATTERHORN + THE BRIDGE OF LODI + ON AN INVITATION TO THE UNITED STATES + THE MOTHER MOURNS + "I SAID TO LOVE" + A COMMONPLACE DAY + AT A LUNAR ECLIPSE + THE LACKING SENSE + TO LIFE + DOOM AND SHE + THE PROBLEM + THE SUBALTERNS + THE SLEEP-WORKER + THE BULLFINCHES + GOD-FORGOTTEN + THE BEDRIDDEN PEASANT TO AN UNKNOWING GOD + BY THE EARTH'S CORPSE + MUTE OPINION + TO AN UNBORN PAUPER CHILD + TO FLOWERS FROM ITALY IN WINTER + ON A FINE MORNING + TO LIZBIE BROWNE + SONG OF HOPE + THE WELL-BELOVED + HER REPROACH + THE INCONSISTENT + A BROKEN APPOINTMENT + "BETWEEN US NOW" + "HOW GREAT MY GRIEF" + "I NEED NOT GO" + THE COQUETTE, AND AFTER + A SPOT + LONG PLIGHTED + THE WIDOW + AT A HASTY WEDDING + THE DREAM-FOLLOWER + HIS IMMORTALITY + THE TO-BE-FORGOTTEN + WIVES IN THE SERE + THE SUPERSEDED + AN AUGUST MIDNIGHT + THE CAGED THRUSH FREED AND HOME AGAIN + BIRDS AT WINTER NIGHTFALL + THE PUZZLED GAME-BIRDS + WINTER IN DURNOVER FIELD + THE LAST CHRYSANTHEMUM + THE DARKLING THRUSH + THE COMET AT YALBURY OR YELL'HAM + MAD JUDY + A WASTED ILLNESS + A MAN + THE DAME OF ATHELHALL + THE SEASONS OF HER YEAR + THE MILKMAID + THE LEVELLED CHURCHYARD + THE RUINED MAID + THE RESPECTABLE BURGHER ON "THE HIGHER CRITICISM" + ARCHITECTURAL MASKS + THE TENANT-FOR-LIFE + THE KING'S EXPERIMENT + THE TREE: AN OLD MAN'S STORY + HER LATE HUSBAND + THE SELF-UNSEEING + DE PROFUNDIS I. + DE PROFUNDIS II. + DE PROFUNDIS III. + THE CHURCH-BUILDER + THE LOST PYX: A MEDIAEVAL LEGEND + TESS'S LAMENT + THE SUPPLANTER: A TALE +IMITATIONS, ETC. - + SAPPHIC FRAGMENT + CATULLUS: XXXI + AFTER SCHILLER + SONG: FROM HEINE + FROM VICTOR HUGO + CARDINAL BEMBO'S EPITAPH ON RAPHAEL +RETROSPECT - + "I HAVE LIVED WITH SHADES" + MEMORY AND I + [GREEK TITLE] + + + +V.R. 1819-1901 +A REVERIE + + + +Moments the mightiest pass uncalendared, + And when the Absolute + In backward Time outgave the deedful word + Whereby all life is stirred: +"Let one be born and throned whose mould shall constitute +The norm of every royal-reckoned attribute," + No mortal knew or heard. + But in due days the purposed Life outshone - + Serene, sagacious, free; + --Her waxing seasons bloomed with deeds well done, + And the world's heart was won . . . +Yet may the deed of hers most bright in eyes to be +Lie hid from ours--as in the All-One's thought lay she - + Till ripening years have run. + +SUNDAY NIGHT, +27th January 1901. + + + +EMBARCATION +(Southampton Docks: October, 1899) + + + +Here, where Vespasian's legions struck the sands, +And Cerdic with his Saxons entered in, +And Henry's army leapt afloat to win +Convincing triumphs over neighbour lands, + +Vaster battalions press for further strands, +To argue in the self-same bloody mode +Which this late age of thought, and pact, and code, +Still fails to mend.--Now deckward tramp the bands, +Yellow as autumn leaves, alive as spring; +And as each host draws out upon the sea +Beyond which lies the tragical To-be, +None dubious of the cause, none murmuring, + +Wives, sisters, parents, wave white hands and smile, +As if they knew not that they weep the while. + + + +DEPARTURE +(Southampton Docks: October, 1899) + + + +While the far farewell music thins and fails, +And the broad bottoms rip the bearing brine - +All smalling slowly to the gray sea line - +And each significant red smoke-shaft pales, + +Keen sense of severance everywhere prevails, +Which shapes the late long tramp of mounting men +To seeming words that ask and ask again: +"How long, O striving Teutons, Slavs, and Gaels + +Must your wroth reasonings trade on lives like these, +That are as puppets in a playing hand? - +When shall the saner softer polities +Whereof we dream, have play in each proud land, +And patriotism, grown Godlike, scorn to stand +Bondslave to realms, but circle earth and seas?" + + + +THE COLONEL'S SOLILOQUY +(Southampton Docks: October, 1899) + + + +"The quay recedes. Hurrah! Ahead we go! . . . +It's true I've been accustomed now to home, +And joints get rusty, and one's limbs may grow + More fit to rest than roam. + +"But I can stand as yet fair stress and strain; +There's not a little steel beneath the rust; +My years mount somewhat, but here's to't again! + And if I fall, I must. + +"God knows that for myself I've scanty care; +Past scrimmages have proved as much to all; +In Eastern lands and South I've had my share + Both of the blade and ball. + +"And where those villains ripped me in the flitch +With their old iron in my early time, +I'm apt at change of wind to feel a twitch, + Or at a change of clime. + +"And what my mirror shows me in the morning +Has more of blotch and wrinkle than of bloom; +My eyes, too, heretofore all glasses scorning, + Have just a touch of rheum . . . + +"Now sounds 'The Girl I've left behind me,'--Ah, +The years, the ardours, wakened by that tune! +Time was when, with the crowd's farewell 'Hurrah!' + 'Twould lift me to the moon. + +"But now it's late to leave behind me one +Who if, poor soul, her man goes underground, +Will not recover as she might have done + In days when hopes abound. + +"She's waving from the wharfside, palely grieving, +As down we draw . . . Her tears make little show, +Yet now she suffers more than at my leaving + Some twenty years ago. + +"I pray those left at home will care for her! +I shall come back; I have before; though when +The Girl you leave behind you is a grandmother, + Things may not be as then." + + + +THE GOING OF THE BATTERY +WIVES' LAMENT +(November 2, 1899) + + + +I + +O it was sad enough, weak enough, mad enough - +Light in their loving as soldiers can be - +First to risk choosing them, leave alone losing them +Now, in far battle, beyond the South Sea! . . . + +II + +- Rain came down drenchingly; but we unblenchingly +Trudged on beside them through mirk and through mire, +They stepping steadily--only too readily! - +Scarce as if stepping brought parting-time nigher. + +III + +Great guns were gleaming there, living things seeming there, +Cloaked in their tar-cloths, upmouthed to the night; +Wheels wet and yellow from axle to felloe, +Throats blank of sound, but prophetic to sight. + +IV + +Gas-glimmers drearily, blearily, eerily +Lit our pale faces outstretched for one kiss, +While we stood prest to them, with a last quest to them +Not to court perils that honour could miss. + +V + +Sharp were those sighs of ours, blinded these eyes of ours, +When at last moved away under the arch +All we loved. Aid for them each woman prayed for them, +Treading back slowly the track of their march. + +VI + +Someone said: "Nevermore will they come: evermore +Are they now lost to us." O it was wrong! +Though may be hard their ways, some Hand will guard their ways, +Bear them through safely, in brief time or long. + +VII + +- Yet, voices haunting us, daunting us, taunting us, +Hint in the night-time when life beats are low +Other and graver things . . . Hold we to braver things, +Wait we, in trust, what Time's fulness shall show. + + + +AT THE WAR OFFICE, LONDON +(Affixing the Lists of Killed and Wounded: December, 1899) + + + +I + +Last year I called this world of gain-givings +The darkest thinkable, and questioned sadly +If my own land could heave its pulse less gladly, +So charged it seemed with circumstance whence springs + The tragedy of things. + +II + +Yet at that censured time no heart was rent +Or feature blanched of parent, wife, or daughter +By hourly blazoned sheets of listed slaughter; +Death waited Nature's wont; Peace smiled unshent + From Ind to Occident. + + + +A CHRISTMAS GHOST-STORY + + + + +South of the Line, inland from far Durban, +A mouldering soldier lies--your countryman. +Awry and doubled up are his gray bones, +And on the breeze his puzzled phantom moans +Nightly to clear Canopus: "I would know +By whom and when the All-Earth-gladdening Law +Of Peace, brought in by that Man Crucified, +Was ruled to be inept, and set aside? + +And what of logic or of truth appears +In tacking 'Anno Domini' to the years? +Near twenty-hundred livened thus have hied, +But tarries yet the Cause for which He died." + +Christmas-eve, 1899. + + + +THE DEAD DRUMMER + + + +I + +They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest + Uncoffined--just as found: +His landmark is a kopje-crest + That breaks the veldt around; +And foreign constellations west + Each night above his mound. + +II + +Young Hodge the Drummer never knew - + Fresh from his Wessex home - +The meaning of the broad Karoo, + The Bush, the dusty loam, +And why uprose to nightly view + Strange stars amid the gloam. + +III + +Yet portion of that unknown plain + Will Hodge for ever be; +His homely Northern breast and brain + Grow up a Southern tree. +And strange-eyed constellations reign + His stars eternally. + + + +A WIFE IN LONDON +(December, 1899) + + + +I--THE TRAGEDY + +She sits in the tawny vapour + That the City lanes have uprolled, + Behind whose webby fold on fold +Like a waning taper + The street-lamp glimmers cold. + +A messenger's knock cracks smartly, + Flashed news is in her hand + Of meaning it dazes to understand +Though shaped so shortly: + He--has fallen--in the far South Land . . . + +II--THE IRONY + +'Tis the morrow; the fog hangs thicker, + The postman nears and goes: + A letter is brought whose lines disclose +By the firelight flicker + His hand, whom the worm now knows: + +Fresh--firm--penned in highest feather - + Page-full of his hoped return, + And of home-planned jaunts by brake and burn +In the summer weather, + And of new love that they would learn. + + + +THE SOULS OF THE SLAIN + + + +I + + The thick lids of Night closed upon me + Alone at the Bill + Of the Isle by the Race {1} - + Many-caverned, bald, wrinkled of face - +And with darkness and silence the spirit was on me + To brood and be still. + +II + + No wind fanned the flats of the ocean, + Or promontory sides, + Or the ooze by the strand, + Or the bent-bearded slope of the land, +Whose base took its rest amid everlong motion + Of criss-crossing tides. + +III + + Soon from out of the Southward seemed nearing + A whirr, as of wings + Waved by mighty-vanned flies, + Or by night-moths of measureless size, +And in softness and smoothness well-nigh beyond hearing + Of corporal things. + +IV + + And they bore to the bluff, and alighted - + A dim-discerned train + Of sprites without mould, + Frameless souls none might touch or might hold - +On the ledge by the turreted lantern, farsighted + By men of the main. + +V + + And I heard them say "Home!" and I knew them + For souls of the felled + On the earth's nether bord + Under Capricorn, whither they'd warred, +And I neared in my awe, and gave heedfulness to them + With breathings inheld. + +VI + + Then, it seemed, there approached from the northward + A senior soul-flame + Of the like filmy hue: + And he met them and spake: "Is it you, +O my men?" Said they, "Aye! We bear homeward and hearthward + To list to our fame!" + +VII + + "I've flown there before you," he said then: + "Your households are well; + But--your kin linger less + On your glory arid war-mightiness +Than on dearer things."--"Dearer?" cried these from the dead then, + "Of what do they tell?" + +VIII + + "Some mothers muse sadly, and murmur + Your doings as boys - + Recall the quaint ways + Of your babyhood's innocent days. +Some pray that, ere dying, your faith had grown firmer, + And higher your joys. + +IX + + "A father broods: 'Would I had set him + To some humble trade, + And so slacked his high fire, + And his passionate martial desire; +Had told him no stories to woo him and whet him + To this due crusade!" + +X + + "And, General, how hold out our sweethearts, + Sworn loyal as doves?" + --"Many mourn; many think + It is not unattractive to prink +Them in sables for heroes. Some fickle and fleet hearts + Have found them new loves." + +XI + + "And our wives?" quoth another resignedly, + "Dwell they on our deeds?" + --"Deeds of home; that live yet + Fresh as new--deeds of fondness or fret; +Ancient words that were kindly expressed or unkindly, + These, these have their heeds." + +XII + + --"Alas! then it seems that our glory + Weighs less in their thought + Than our old homely acts, + And the long-ago commonplace facts +Of our lives--held by us as scarce part of our story, + And rated as nought!" + +XIII + + Then bitterly some: "Was it wise now + To raise the tomb-door + For such knowledge? Away!" + But the rest: "Fame we prized till to-day; +Yet that hearts keep us green for old kindness we prize now + A thousand times more!" + +XIV + + Thus speaking, the trooped apparitions + Began to disband + And resolve them in two: + Those whose record was lovely and true +Bore to northward for home: those of bitter traditions + Again left the land, + +XV + + And, towering to seaward in legions, + They paused at a spot + Overbending the Race - + That engulphing, ghast, sinister place - +Whither headlong they plunged, to the fathomless regions + Of myriads forgot. + +XVI + + And the spirits of those who were homing + Passed on, rushingly, + Like the Pentecost Wind; + And the whirr of their wayfaring thinned +And surceased on the sky, and but left in the gloaming + Sea-mutterings and me. + +December 1899. + + + +SONG OF THE SOLDIERS' WIVES + + + +I + +At last! In sight of home again, + Of home again; +No more to range and roam again + As at that bygone time? +No more to go away from us + And stay from us? - +Dawn, hold not long the day from us, + But quicken it to prime! + +II + +Now all the town shall ring to them, + Shall ring to them, +And we who love them cling to them + And clasp them joyfully; +And cry, "O much we'll do for you + Anew for you, +Dear Loves!--aye, draw and hew for you, + Come back from oversea." + +III + +Some told us we should meet no more, + Should meet no more; +Should wait, and wish, but greet no more + Your faces round our fires; +That, in a while, uncharily + And drearily +Men gave their lives--even wearily, + Like those whom living tires. + +IV + +And now you are nearing home again, + Dears, home again; +No more, may be, to roam again + As at that bygone time, +Which took you far away from us + To stay from us; +Dawn, hold not long the day from us, + But quicken it to prime! + + + +THE SICK GOD + + + +I + + In days when men had joy of war, +A God of Battles sped each mortal jar; + The peoples pledged him heart and hand, + From Israel's land to isles afar. + +II + + His crimson form, with clang and chime, +Flashed on each murk and murderous meeting-time, + And kings invoked, for rape and raid, + His fearsome aid in rune and rhyme. + +III + + On bruise and blood-hole, scar and seam, +On blade and bolt, he flung his fulgid beam: + His haloes rayed the very gore, + And corpses wore his glory-gleam. + +IV + + Often an early King or Queen, +And storied hero onward, knew his sheen; + 'Twas glimpsed by Wolfe, by Ney anon, + And Nelson on his blue demesne. + +V + + But new light spread. That god's gold nimb +And blazon have waned dimmer and more dim; + Even his flushed form begins to fade, + Till but a shade is left of him. + +VI + + That modern meditation broke +His spell, that penmen's pleadings dealt a stroke, + Say some; and some that crimes too dire + Did much to mire his crimson cloak. + +VII + + Yea, seeds of crescive sympathy +Were sown by those more excellent than he, + Long known, though long contemned till then - + The gods of men in amity. + +VIII + + Souls have grown seers, and thought out-brings +The mournful many-sidedness of things + With foes as friends, enfeebling ires + And fury-fires by gaingivings! + +IX + + He scarce impassions champions now; +They do and dare, but tensely--pale of brow; + And would they fain uplift the arm + Of that faint form they know not how. + +X + + Yet wars arise, though zest grows cold; +Wherefore, at whiles, as 'twere in ancient mould + He looms, bepatched with paint and lath; + But never hath he seemed the old! + +XI + + Let men rejoice, let men deplore. +The lurid Deity of heretofore + Succumbs to one of saner nod; + The Battle-god is god no more. + + + +GENOA AND THE MEDITERRANEAN +(March, 1887) + + + + O epic-famed, god-haunted Central Sea, + Heave careless of the deep wrong done to thee +When from Torino's track I saw thy face first flash on me. + + And multimarbled Genova the Proud, + Gleam all unconscious how, wide-lipped, up-browed, +I first beheld thee clad--not as the Beauty but the Dowd. + + Out from a deep-delved way my vision lit + On housebacks pink, green, ochreous--where a slit +Shoreward 'twixt row and row revealed the classic blue through it. + + And thereacross waved fishwives' high-hung smocks, + Chrome kerchiefs, scarlet hose, darned underfrocks; +Since when too oft my dreams of thee, O Queen, that frippery mocks: + + Whereat I grieve, Superba! . . . Afterhours + Within Palazzo Doria's orange bowers +Went far to mend these marrings of thy soul-subliming powers. + + But, Queen, such squalid undress none should see, + Those dream-endangering eyewounds no more be +Where lovers first behold thy form in pilgrimage to thee. + + + +SHELLEY'S SKYLARK +(The neighbourhood of Leghorn: March, 1887) + + + +Somewhere afield here something lies +In Earth's oblivious eyeless trust +That moved a poet to prophecies - +A pinch of unseen, unguarded dust + +The dust of the lark that Shelley heard, +And made immortal through times to be; - +Though it only lived like another bird, +And knew not its immortality. + +Lived its meek life; then, one day, fell - +A little ball of feather and bone; +And how it perished, when piped farewell, +And where it wastes, are alike unknown. + +Maybe it rests in the loam I view, +Maybe it throbs in a myrtle's green, +Maybe it sleeps in the coming hue +Of a grape on the slopes of yon inland scene. + +Go find it, faeries, go and find +That tiny pinch of priceless dust, +And bring a casket silver-lined, +And framed of gold that gems encrust; + +And we will lay it safe therein, +And consecrate it to endless time; +For it inspired a bard to win +Ecstatic heights in thought and rhyme. + + + +IN THE OLD THEATRE, FIESOLE +(April, 1887) + + +I traced the Circus whose gray stones incline +Where Rome and dim Etruria interjoin, +Till came a child who showed an ancient coin +That bore the image of a Constantine. + +She lightly passed; nor did she once opine +How, better than all books, she had raised for me +In swift perspective Europe's history +Through the vast years of Caesar's sceptred line. + +For in my distant plot of English loam +'Twas but to delve, and straightway there to find +Coins of like impress. As with one half blind +Whom common simples cure, her act flashed home +In that mute moment to my opened mind +The power, the pride, the reach of perished Rome. + + + +ROME: ON THE PALATINE +(April, 1887) + + + +We walked where Victor Jove was shrined awhile, +And passed to Livia's rich red mural show, +Whence, thridding cave and Criptoportico, +We gained Caligula's dissolving pile. + +And each ranked ruin tended to beguile +The outer sense, and shape itself as though +It wore its marble hues, its pristine glow +Of scenic frieze and pompous peristyle. + +When lo, swift hands, on strings nigh over-head, +Began to melodize a waltz by Strauss: +It stirred me as I stood, in Caesar's house, +Raised the old routs Imperial lyres had led, + +And blended pulsing life with lives long done, +Till Time seemed fiction, Past and Present one. + + + +ROME +BUILDING A NEW STREET IN THE ANCIENT QUARTER +(April, 1887) + + + +These numbered cliffs and gnarls of masonry +Outskeleton Time's central city, Rome; +Whereof each arch, entablature, and dome +Lies bare in all its gaunt anatomy. + +And cracking frieze and rotten metope +Express, as though they were an open tome +Top-lined with caustic monitory gnome; +"Dunces, Learn here to spell Humanity!" + +And yet within these ruins' very shade +The singing workmen shape and set and join +Their frail new mansion's stuccoed cove and quoin +With no apparent sense that years abrade, +Though each rent wall their feeble works invade +Once shamed all such in power of pier and groin. + + + +ROME +THE VATICAN--SALA DELLE MUSE +(1887) + + + +I sat in the Muses' Hall at the mid of the day, +And it seemed to grow still, and the people to pass away, +And the chiselled shapes to combine in a haze of sun, +Till beside a Carrara column there gleamed forth One. + +She was nor this nor that of those beings divine, +But each and the whole--an essence of all the Nine; +With tentative foot she neared to my halting-place, +A pensive smile on her sweet, small, marvellous face. + +"Regarded so long, we render thee sad?" said she. +"Not you," sighed I, "but my own inconstancy! +I worship each and each; in the morning one, +And then, alas! another at sink of sun. + +"To-day my soul clasps Form; but where is my troth +Of yesternight with Tune: can one cleave to both?" +- "Be not perturbed," said she. "Though apart in fame, +As I and my sisters are one, those, too, are the same. + +- "But my loves go further--to Story, and Dance, and Hymn, +The lover of all in a sun-sweep is fool to whim - +Is swayed like a river-weed as the ripples run!" +- "Nay, wight, thou sway'st not. These are but phases of one; + +"And that one is I; and I am projected from thee, +One that out of thy brain and heart thou causest to be - +Extern to thee nothing. Grieve not, nor thyself becall, +Woo where thou wilt; and rejoice thou canst love at all! + + + +ROME +AT THE PYRAMID OF CESTIUS +NEAR THE GRAVES OF SHELLEY AND KEATS +(1887) + + + + Who, then, was Cestius, + And what is he to me? - +Amid thick thoughts and memories multitudinous + One thought alone brings he. + + I can recall no word + Of anything he did; +For me he is a man who died and was interred + To leave a pyramid + + Whose purpose was exprest + Not with its first design, +Nor till, far down in Time, beside it found their rest + Two countrymen of mine. + + Cestius in life, maybe, + Slew, breathed out threatening; +I know not. This I know: in death all silently + He does a kindlier thing, + + In beckoning pilgrim feet + With marble finger high +To where, by shadowy wall and history-haunted street, + Those matchless singers lie . . . + + --Say, then, he lived and died + That stones which bear his name +Should mark, through Time, where two immortal Shades abide; + It is an ample fame. + + + +LAUSANNE +IN GIBBON'S OLD GARDEN: 11-12 P.M. +June 27, 1897 +(The 110th anniversary of the completion of the "Decline and Fall" at +the same hour and place) + + + + A spirit seems to pass, + Formal in pose, but grave and grand withal: + He contemplates a volume stout and tall, +And far lamps fleck him through the thin acacias. + + Anon the book is closed, + With "It is finished!" And at the alley's end + He turns, and soon on me his glances bend; +And, as from earth, comes speech--small, muted, yet composed. + + "How fares the Truth now?--Ill? + --Do pens but slily further her advance? + May one not speed her but in phrase askance? +Do scribes aver the Comic to be Reverend still? + + "Still rule those minds on earth + At whom sage Milton's wormwood words were hurled: + 'Truth like a bastard comes into the world +Never without ill-fame to him who gives her birth'?" + + + +ZERMATT +TO THE MATTERHORN +(June-July, 1897) + + + +Thirty-two years since, up against the sun, +Seven shapes, thin atomies to lower sight, +Labouringly leapt and gained thy gabled height, +And four lives paid for what the seven had won. + +They were the first by whom the deed was done, +And when I look at thee, my mind takes flight +To that day's tragic feat of manly might, +As though, till then, of history thou hadst none. + +Yet ages ere men topped thee, late and soon +Thou watch'dst each night the planets lift and lower; +Thou gleam'dst to Joshua's pausing sun and moon, +And brav'dst the tokening sky when Caesar's power +Approached its bloody end: yea, saw'st that Noon +When darkness filled the earth till the ninth hour. + + + +THE BRIDGE OF LODI {2} +(Spring, 1887) + + + +I + +When of tender mind and body + I was moved by minstrelsy, +And that strain "The Bridge of Lodi" + Brought a strange delight to me. + +II + +In the battle-breathing jingle + Of its forward-footing tune +I could see the armies mingle, + And the columns cleft and hewn + +III + +On that far-famed spot by Lodi + Where Napoleon clove his way +To his fame, when like a god he + Bent the nations to his sway. + +IV + +Hence the tune came capering to me + While I traced the Rhone and Po; +Nor could Milan's Marvel woo me + From the spot englamoured so. + +V + +And to-day, sunlit and smiling, + Here I stand upon the scene, +With its saffron walls, dun tiling, + And its meads of maiden green, + +VI + +Even as when the trackway thundered + With the charge of grenadiers, +And the blood of forty hundred + Splashed its parapets and piers . . . + +VII + +Any ancient crone I'd toady + Like a lass in young-eyed prime, +Could she tell some tale of Lodi + At that moving mighty time. + +VIII + +So, I ask the wives of Lodi + For traditions of that day; +But alas! not anybody + Seems to know of such a fray. + +IX + +And they heed but transitory + Marketings in cheese and meat, +Till I judge that Lodi's story + Is extinct in Lodi's street. + +X + +Yet while here and there they thrid them + In their zest to sell and buy, +Let me sit me down amid them + And behold those thousands die . . . + +XI + +- Not a creature cares in Lodi + How Napoleon swept each arch, +Or where up and downward trod he, + Or for his memorial March! + +XII + +So that wherefore should I be here, + Watching Adda lip the lea, +When the whole romance to see here + Is the dream I bring with me? + +XIII + +And why sing "The Bridge of Lodi" + As I sit thereon and swing, +When none shows by smile or nod he + Guesses why or what I sing? . . . + +XIV + +Since all Lodi, low and head ones, + Seem to pass that story by, +It may be the Lodi-bred ones + Rate it truly, and not I. + +XV + +Once engrossing Bridge of Lodi, + Is thy claim to glory gone? +Must I pipe a palinody, + Or be silent thereupon? + +XVI + +And if here, from strand to steeple, + Be no stone to fame the fight, +Must I say the Lodi people + Are but viewing crime aright? + +XVII + +Nay; I'll sing "The Bridge of Lodi" - + That long-loved, romantic thing, +Though none show by smile or nod he + Guesses why and what I sing! + + + +ON AN INVITATION TO THE UNITED STATES + + + +I + +My ardours for emprize nigh lost +Since Life has bared its bones to me, +I shrink to seek a modern coast +Whose riper times have yet to be; +Where the new regions claim them free +From that long drip of human tears +Which peoples old in tragedy +Have left upon the centuried years. + +II + +For, wonning in these ancient lands, +Enchased and lettered as a tomb, +And scored with prints of perished hands, +And chronicled with dates of doom, +Though my own Being bear no bloom +I trace the lives such scenes enshrine, +Give past exemplars present room, +And their experience count as mine. + + + +THE MOTHER MOURNS + + + +When mid-autumn's moan shook the night-time, + And sedges were horny, +And summer's green wonderwork faltered + On leaze and in lane, + +I fared Yell'ham-Firs way, where dimly + Came wheeling around me +Those phantoms obscure and insistent + That shadows unchain. + +Till airs from the needle-thicks brought me + A low lamentation, +As 'twere of a tree-god disheartened, + Perplexed, or in pain. + +And, heeding, it awed me to gather + That Nature herself there +Was breathing in aerie accents, + With dirgeful refrain, + +Weary plaint that Mankind, in these late days, + Had grieved her by holding +Her ancient high fame of perfection + In doubt and disdain . . . + +- "I had not proposed me a Creature + (She soughed) so excelling +All else of my kingdom in compass + And brightness of brain + +"As to read my defects with a god-glance, + Uncover each vestige +Of old inadvertence, annunciate + Each flaw and each stain! + +"My purpose went not to develop + Such insight in Earthland; +Such potent appraisements affront me, + And sadden my reign! + +"Why loosened I olden control here + To mechanize skywards, +Undeeming great scope could outshape in + A globe of such grain? + +"Man's mountings of mind-sight I checked not, + Till range of his vision +Has topped my intent, and found blemish + Throughout my domain. + +"He holds as inept his own soul-shell - + My deftest achievement - +Contemns me for fitful inventions + Ill-timed and inane: + +"No more sees my sun as a Sanct-shape, + My moon as the Night-queen, +My stars as august and sublime ones + That influences rain: + +"Reckons gross and ignoble my teaching, + Immoral my story, +My love-lights a lure, that my species + May gather and gain. + +"'Give me,' he has said, 'but the matter + And means the gods lot her, +My brain could evolve a creation + More seemly, more sane.' + +- "If ever a naughtiness seized me + To woo adulation +From creatures more keen than those crude ones + That first formed my train - + +"If inly a moment I murmured, + 'The simple praise sweetly, +But sweetlier the sage'--and did rashly + Man's vision unrein, + +"I rue it! . . . His guileless forerunners, + Whose brains I could blandish, +To measure the deeps of my mysteries + Applied them in vain. + +"From them my waste aimings and futile + I subtly could cover; +'Every best thing,' said they, 'to best purpose + Her powers preordain.' - + +"No more such! . . . My species are dwindling, + My forests grow barren, +My popinjays fail from their tappings, + My larks from their strain. + +"My leopardine beauties are rarer, + My tusky ones vanish, +My children have aped mine own slaughters + To quicken my wane. + +"Let me grow, then, but mildews and mandrakes, + And slimy distortions, +Let nevermore things good and lovely + To me appertain; + +"For Reason is rank in my temples, + And Vision unruly, +And chivalrous laud of my cunning + Is heard not again!" + + + +"I SAID TO LOVE" + + + + I said to Love, +"It is not now as in old days +When men adored thee and thy ways + All else above; +Named thee the Boy, the Bright, the One +Who spread a heaven beneath the sun," + I said to Love. + + I said to him, +"We now know more of thee than then; +We were but weak in judgment when, + With hearts abrim, +We clamoured thee that thou would'st please +Inflict on us thine agonies," + I said to him. + + I said to Love, +"Thou art not young, thou art not fair, +No faery darts, no cherub air, + Nor swan, nor dove +Are thine; but features pitiless, +And iron daggers of distress," + I said to Love. + + "Depart then, Love! . . . +- Man's race shall end, dost threaten thou? +The age to come the man of now + Know nothing of? - +We fear not such a threat from thee; +We are too old in apathy! +Mankind shall cease.--So let it be," + I said to Love. + + + +A COMMONPLACE DAY + + + + The day is turning ghost, +And scuttles from the kalendar in fits and furtively, + To join the anonymous host +Of those that throng oblivion; ceding his place, maybe, + To one of like degree. + + I part the fire-gnawed logs, +Rake forth the embers, spoil the busy flames, and lay the ends + Upon the shining dogs; +Further and further from the nooks the twilight's stride extends, + And beamless black impends. + + Nothing of tiniest worth +Have I wrought, pondered, planned; no one thing asking blame or +praise, + Since the pale corpse-like birth +Of this diurnal unit, bearing blanks in all its rays - + Dullest of dull-hued Days! + + Wanly upon the panes +The rain slides as have slid since morn my colourless thoughts; and +yet + Here, while Day's presence wanes, +And over him the sepulchre-lid is slowly lowered and set, + He wakens my regret. + + Regret--though nothing dear +That I wot of, was toward in the wide world at his prime, + Or bloomed elsewhere than here, +To die with his decease, and leave a memory sweet, sublime, + Or mark him out in Time . . . + + --Yet, maybe, in some soul, +In some spot undiscerned on sea or land, some impulse rose, + Or some intent upstole +Of that enkindling ardency from whose maturer glows + The world's amendment flows; + + But which, benumbed at birth +By momentary chance or wile, has missed its hope to be + Embodied on the earth; +And undervoicings of this loss to man's futurity + May wake regret in me. + + + +AT A LUNAR ECLIPSE + + + +Thy shadow, Earth, from Pole to Central Sea, +Now steals along upon the Moon's meek shine +In even monochrome and curving line +Of imperturbable serenity. + +How shall I link such sun-cast symmetry +With the torn troubled form I know as thine, +That profile, placid as a brow divine, +With continents of moil and misery? + +And can immense Mortality but throw +So small a shade, and Heaven's high human scheme +Be hemmed within the coasts yon arc implies? + +Is such the stellar gauge of earthly show, +Nation at war with nation, brains that teem, +Heroes, and women fairer than the skies? + + + +THE LACKING SENSE +SCENE.--A sad-coloured landscape, Waddon Vale + + + +I + +"O Time, whence comes the Mother's moody look amid her labours, + As of one who all unwittingly has wounded where she loves? + Why weaves she not her world-webs to according lutes and tabors, +With nevermore this too remorseful air upon her face, + As of angel fallen from grace?" + +II + +- "Her look is but her story: construe not its symbols keenly: + In her wonderworks yea surely has she wounded where she loves. + The sense of ills misdealt for blisses blanks the mien most +queenly, +Self-smitings kill self-joys; and everywhere beneath the sun + Such deeds her hands have done." + +III + +- "And how explains thy Ancient Mind her crimes upon her creatures, + These fallings from her fair beginnings, woundings where she +loves, + Into her would-be perfect motions, modes, effects, and features +Admitting cramps, black humours, wan decay, and baleful blights, + Distress into delights?" + +IV + +- "Ah! know'st thou not her secret yet, her vainly veiled deficience, + Whence it comes that all unwittingly she wounds the lives she +loves? + That sightless are those orbs of hers?--which bar to her +omniscience +Brings those fearful unfulfilments, that red ravage through her zones + Whereat all creation groans. + +V + +"She whispers it in each pathetic strenuous slow endeavour, + When in mothering she unwittingly sets wounds on what she loves; + Yet her primal doom pursues her, faultful, fatal is she ever; +Though so deft and nigh to vision is her facile finger-touch + That the seers marvel much. + +VI + +"Deal, then, her groping skill no scorn, no note of malediction; + Not long on thee will press the hand that hurts the lives it +loves; + And while she dares dead-reckoning on, in darkness of affliction, +Assist her where thy creaturely dependence can or may, + For thou art of her clay." + + + +TO LIFE + + + + O life with the sad seared face, + I weary of seeing thee, +And thy draggled cloak, and thy hobbling pace, + And thy too-forced pleasantry! + + I know what thou would'st tell + Of Death, Time, Destiny - +I have known it long, and know, too, well + What it all means for me. + + But canst thou not array + Thyself in rare disguise, +And feign like truth, for one mad day, + That Earth is Paradise? + + I'll tune me to the mood, + And mumm with thee till eve; +And maybe what as interlude + I feign, I shall believe! + + + +DOOM AND SHE + + + +I + + There dwells a mighty pair - + Slow, statuesque, intense - + Amid the vague Immense: +None can their chronicle declare, + Nor why they be, nor whence. + +II + + Mother of all things made, + Matchless in artistry, + Unlit with sight is she. - +And though her ever well-obeyed + Vacant of feeling he. + +III + + The Matron mildly asks - + A throb in every word - + "Our clay-made creatures, lord, +How fare they in their mortal tasks + Upon Earth's bounded bord? + +IV + + "The fate of those I bear, + Dear lord, pray turn and view, + And notify me true; +Shapings that eyelessly I dare + Maybe I would undo. + +V + + "Sometimes from lairs of life + Methinks I catch a groan, + Or multitudinous moan, +As though I had schemed a world of strife, + Working by touch alone." + +VI + + "World-weaver!" he replies, + "I scan all thy domain; + But since nor joy nor pain +Doth my clear substance recognize, + I read thy realms in vain. + +VII + + "World-weaver! what IS Grief? + And what are Right, and Wrong, + And Feeling, that belong +To creatures all who owe thee fief? + What worse is Weak than Strong?" . . . + +VIII + + --Unlightened, curious, meek, + She broods in sad surmise . . . + --Some say they have heard her sighs +On Alpine height or Polar peak + When the night tempests rise. + + + +THE PROBLEM + + + + Shall we conceal the Case, or tell it - + We who believe the evidence? + Here and there the watch-towers knell it + With a sullen significance, +Heard of the few who hearken intently and carry an eagerly upstrained +sense. + + Hearts that are happiest hold not by it; + Better we let, then, the old view reign; + Since there is peace in it, why decry it? + Since there is comfort, why disdain? +Note not the pigment the while that the painting determines +humanity's joy and pain! + + + +THE SUBALTERNS + + + +I + +"Poor wanderer," said the leaden sky, + "I fain would lighten thee, +But there be laws in force on high + Which say it must not be." + +II + +- "I would not freeze thee, shorn one," cried + The North, "knew I but how +To warm my breath, to slack my stride; + But I am ruled as thou." + +III + +- "To-morrow I attack thee, wight," + Said Sickness. "Yet I swear +I bear thy little ark no spite, + But am bid enter there." + +IV + +- "Come hither, Son," I heard Death say; + "I did not will a grave +Should end thy pilgrimage to-day, + But I, too, am a slave!" + +V + +We smiled upon each other then, + And life to me wore less +That fell contour it wore ere when + They owned their passiveness. + + + +THE SLEEP-WORKER + + + +When wilt thou wake, O Mother, wake and see - +As one who, held in trance, has laboured long +By vacant rote and prepossession strong - +The coils that thou hast wrought unwittingly; + +Wherein have place, unrealized by thee, +Fair growths, foul cankers, right enmeshed with wrong, +Strange orchestras of victim-shriek and song, +And curious blends of ache and ecstasy? - + +Should that morn come, and show thy opened eyes +All that Life's palpitating tissues feel, +How wilt thou bear thyself in thy surprise? - + +Wilt thou destroy, in one wild shock of shame, +Thy whole high heaving firmamental frame, +Or patiently adjust, amend, and heal? + + + +THE BULLFINCHES + + + + Bother Bulleys, let us sing + From the dawn till evening! - +For we know not that we go not + When the day's pale pinions fold + Unto those who sang of old. + + When I flew to Blackmoor Vale, + Whence the green-gowned faeries hail, +Roosting near them I could hear them + Speak of queenly Nature's ways, + Means, and moods,--well known to fays. + + All we creatures, nigh and far + (Said they there), the Mother's are: +Yet she never shows endeavour + To protect from warrings wild + Bird or beast she calls her child. + + Busy in her handsome house + Known as Space, she falls a-drowse; +Yet, in seeming, works on dreaming, + While beneath her groping hands + Fiends make havoc in her bands. + + How her hussif'ry succeeds + She unknows or she unheeds, +All things making for Death's taking! + --So the green-gowned faeries say + Living over Blackmoor way. + + Come then, brethren, let us sing, + From the dawn till evening! - +For we know not that we go not + When the day's pale pinions fold + Unto those who sang of old. + + + +GOD-FORGOTTEN + + + + I towered far, and lo! I stood within + The presence of the Lord Most High, +Sent thither by the sons of earth, to win + Some answer to their cry. + + --"The Earth, say'st thou? The Human race? + By Me created? Sad its lot? +Nay: I have no remembrance of such place: + Such world I fashioned not." - + + --"O Lord, forgive me when I say + Thou spak'st the word, and mad'st it all." - +"The Earth of men--let me bethink me . . . Yea! + I dimly do recall + + "Some tiny sphere I built long back + (Mid millions of such shapes of mine) +So named . . . It perished, surely--not a wrack + Remaining, or a sign? + + "It lost my interest from the first, + My aims therefor succeeding ill; +Haply it died of doing as it durst?" - + "Lord, it existeth still." - + + "Dark, then, its life! For not a cry + Of aught it bears do I now hear; +Of its own act the threads were snapt whereby + Its plaints had reached mine ear. + + "It used to ask for gifts of good, + Till came its severance self-entailed, +When sudden silence on that side ensued, + And has till now prevailed. + + "All other orbs have kept in touch; + Their voicings reach me speedily: +Thy people took upon them overmuch + In sundering them from me! + + "And it is strange--though sad enough - + Earth's race should think that one whose call +Frames, daily, shining spheres of flawless stuff + Must heed their tainted ball! . . . + + "But say'st thou 'tis by pangs distraught, + And strife, and silent suffering? - +Deep grieved am I that injury should be wrought + Even on so poor a thing! + + "Thou should'st have learnt that Not to Mend + For Me could mean but Not to Know: +Hence, Messengers! and straightway put an end + To what men undergo." . . . + + Homing at dawn, I thought to see + One of the Messengers standing by. +- Oh, childish thought! . . . Yet oft it comes to me + When trouble hovers nigh. + + + +THE BEDRIDDEN PEASANT +TO AN UNKNOWING GOD + + + +Much wonder I--here long low-laid - + That this dead wall should be +Betwixt the Maker and the made, + Between Thyself and me! + +For, say one puts a child to nurse, + He eyes it now and then +To know if better 'tis, or worse, + And if it mourn, and when. + +But Thou, Lord, giv'st us men our clay + In helpless bondage thus +To Time and Chance, and seem'st straightway + To think no more of us! + +That some disaster cleft Thy scheme + And tore us wide apart, +So that no cry can cross, I deem; + For Thou art mild of heart, + +And would'st not shape and shut us in + Where voice can not he heard: +'Tis plain Thou meant'st that we should win + Thy succour by a word. + +Might but Thy sense flash down the skies + Like man's from clime to clime, +Thou would'st not let me agonize + Through my remaining time; + +But, seeing how much Thy creatures bear - + Lame, starved, or maimed, or blind - +Thou'dst heal the ills with quickest care + Of me and all my kind. + +Then, since Thou mak'st not these things be, + But these things dost not know, +I'll praise Thee as were shown to me + The mercies Thou would'st show! + + + +BY THE EARTH'S CORPSE + + + +I + + "O Lord, why grievest Thou? - + Since Life has ceased to be + Upon this globe, now cold + As lunar land and sea, +And humankind, and fowl, and fur + Are gone eternally, +All is the same to Thee as ere + They knew mortality." + +II + +"O Time," replied the Lord, + "Thou read'st me ill, I ween; +Were all THE SAME, I should not grieve + At that late earthly scene, +Now blestly past--though planned by me + With interest close and keen! - +Nay, nay: things now are NOT the same + As they have earlier been. + +III + + "Written indelibly + On my eternal mind + Are all the wrongs endured + By Earth's poor patient kind, +Which my too oft unconscious hand + Let enter undesigned. +No god can cancel deeds foredone, + Or thy old coils unwind! + +IV + + "As when, in Noe's days, + I whelmed the plains with sea, + So at this last, when flesh + And herb but fossils be, +And, all extinct, their piteous dust + Revolves obliviously, +That I made Earth, and life, and man, + It still repenteth me!" + + + +MUTE OPINION + + + +I + +I traversed a dominion +Whose spokesmen spake out strong +Their purpose and opinion +Through pulpit, press, and song. +I scarce had means to note there +A large-eyed few, and dumb, +Who thought not as those thought there +That stirred the heat and hum. + +II + +When, grown a Shade, beholding +That land in lifetime trode, +To learn if its unfolding +Fulfilled its clamoured code, +I saw, in web unbroken, +Its history outwrought +Not as the loud had spoken, +But as the mute had thought. + + + +TO AN UNBORN PAUPER CHILD + + + +I + + Breathe not, hid Heart: cease silently, + And though thy birth-hour beckons thee, + Sleep the long sleep: + The Doomsters heap + Travails and teens around us here, +And Time-wraiths turn our songsingings to fear. + +II + + Hark, how the peoples surge and sigh, + And laughters fail, and greetings die: + Hopes dwindle; yea, + Faiths waste away, + Affections and enthusiasms numb; +Thou canst not mend these things if thou dost come. + +III + + Had I the ear of wombed souls + Ere their terrestrial chart unrolls, + And thou wert free + To cease, or be, + Then would I tell thee all I know, +And put it to thee: Wilt thou take Life so? + +IV + + Vain vow! No hint of mine may hence + To theeward fly: to thy locked sense + Explain none can + Life's pending plan: + Thou wilt thy ignorant entry make +Though skies spout fire and blood and nations quake. + +V + + Fain would I, dear, find some shut plot + Of earth's wide wold for thee, where not + One tear, one qualm, + Should break the calm. + But I am weak as thou and bare; +No man can change the common lot to rare. + +VI + + Must come and bide. And such are we - + Unreasoning, sanguine, visionary - + That I can hope + Health, love, friends, scope + In full for thee; can dream thou'lt find +Joys seldom yet attained by humankind! + + + +TO FLOWERS FROM ITALY IN WINTER + + + +Sunned in the South, and here to-day; + --If all organic things +Be sentient, Flowers, as some men say, + What are your ponderings? + +How can you stay, nor vanish quite + From this bleak spot of thorn, +And birch, and fir, and frozen white + Expanse of the forlorn? + +Frail luckless exiles hither brought! + Your dust will not regain +Old sunny haunts of Classic thought + When you shall waste and wane; + +But mix with alien earth, be lit + With frigid Boreal flame, +And not a sign remain in it + To tell men whence you came. + + + +ON A FINE MORNING + + + +Whence comes Solace?--Not from seeing +What is doing, suffering, being, +Not from noting Life's conditions, +Nor from heeding Time's monitions; + But in cleaving to the Dream, + And in gazing at the gleam + Whereby gray things golden seem. + +II + +Thus do I this heyday, holding +Shadows but as lights unfolding, +As no specious show this moment +With its irised embowment; + But as nothing other than + Part of a benignant plan; + Proof that earth was made for man. + +February 1899. + + + +TO LIZBIE BROWNE + + + +I + +Dear Lizbie Browne, +Where are you now? +In sun, in rain? - +Or is your brow +Past joy, past pain, +Dear Lizbie Browne? + +II + +Sweet Lizbie Browne +How you could smile, +How you could sing! - +How archly wile +In glance-giving, +Sweet Lizbie Browne! + +III + +And, Lizbie Browne, +Who else had hair +Bay-red as yours, +Or flesh so fair +Bred out of doors, +Sweet Lizbie Browne? + +IV + +When, Lizbie Browne, +You had just begun +To be endeared +By stealth to one, +You disappeared +My Lizbie Browne! + +V + +Ay, Lizbie Browne, +So swift your life, +And mine so slow, +You were a wife +Ere I could show +Love, Lizbie Browne. + +VI + +Still, Lizbie Browne, +You won, they said, +The best of men +When you were wed . . . +Where went you then, +O Lizbie Browne? + +VII + +Dear Lizbie Browne, +I should have thought, +"Girls ripen fast," +And coaxed and caught +You ere you passed, +Dear Lizbie Browne! + +VIII + +But, Lizbie Browne, +I let you slip; +Shaped not a sign; +Touched never your lip +With lip of mine, +Lost Lizbie Browne! + +IX + +So, Lizbie Browne, +When on a day +Men speak of me +As not, you'll say, +"And who was he?" - +Yes, Lizbie Browne! + + + +SONG OF HOPE + + + +O sweet To-morrow! - + After to-day + There will away +This sense of sorrow. +Then let us borrow +Hope, for a gleaming +Soon will be streaming, + Dimmed by no gray - + No gray! + +While the winds wing us + Sighs from The Gone, + Nearer to dawn +Minute-beats bring us; +When there will sing us +Larks of a glory +Waiting our story + Further anon - + Anon! + +Doff the black token, + Don the red shoon, + Right and retune +Viol-strings broken; +Null the words spoken +In speeches of rueing, +The night cloud is hueing, + To-morrow shines soon - + Shines soon! + + + +THE WELL-BELOVED + + + +I wayed by star and planet shine + Towards the dear one's home +At Kingsbere, there to make her mine + When the next sun upclomb. + +I edged the ancient hill and wood + Beside the Ikling Way, +Nigh where the Pagan temple stood + In the world's earlier day. + +And as I quick and quicker walked + On gravel and on green, +I sang to sky, and tree, or talked + Of her I called my queen. + +- "O faultless is her dainty form, + And luminous her mind; +She is the God-created norm + Of perfect womankind!" + +A shape whereon one star-blink gleamed + Glode softly by my side, +A woman's; and her motion seemed + The motion of my bride. + +And yet methought she'd drawn erstwhile + Adown the ancient leaze, +Where once were pile and peristyle + For men's idolatries. + +- "O maiden lithe and lone, what may + Thy name and lineage be, +Who so resemblest by this ray + My darling?--Art thou she?" + +The Shape: "Thy bride remains within + Her father's grange and grove." +- "Thou speakest rightly," I broke in, + "Thou art not she I love." + +- "Nay: though thy bride remains inside + Her father's walls," said she, +"The one most dear is with thee here, + For thou dost love but me." + +Then I: "But she, my only choice, + Is now at Kingsbere Grove?" +Again her soft mysterious voice: + "I am thy only Love." + +Thus still she vouched, and still I said, + "O sprite, that cannot be!" . . . +It was as if my bosom bled, + So much she troubled me. + +The sprite resumed: "Thou hast transferred + To her dull form awhile +My beauty, fame, and deed, and word, + My gestures and my smile. + +"O fatuous man, this truth infer, + Brides are not what they seem; +Thou lovest what thou dreamest her; + I am thy very dream!" + +- "O then," I answered miserably, + Speaking as scarce I knew, +"My loved one, I must wed with thee + If what thou say'st be true!" + +She, proudly, thinning in the gloom: + "Though, since troth-plight began, +I've ever stood as bride to groom, + I wed no mortal man!" + +Thereat she vanished by the Cross + That, entering Kingsbere town, +The two long lanes form, near the fosse + Below the faneless Down. + +- When I arrived and met my bride, + Her look was pinched and thin, +As if her soul had shrunk and died, + And left a waste within. + + + +HER REPROACH + + + +Con the dead page as 'twere live love: press on! +Cold wisdom's words will ease thy track for thee; +Aye, go; cast off sweet ways, and leave me wan +To biting blasts that are intent on me. + +But if thy object Fame's far summits be, +Whose inclines many a skeleton o'erlies +That missed both dream and substance, stop and see +How absence wears these cheeks and dims these eyes! + +It surely is far sweeter and more wise +To water love, than toil to leave anon +A name whose glory-gleam will but advise +Invidious minds to quench it with their own, + +And over which the kindliest will but stay +A moment, musing, "He, too, had his day!" + +WESTBOURNE PARK VILLAS, +1867. + + + +THE INCONSISTENT + + + +I say, "She was as good as fair," + When standing by her mound; +"Such passing sweetness," I declare, + "No longer treads the ground." +I say, "What living Love can catch + Her bloom and bonhomie, +And what in newer maidens match + Her olden warmth to me!" + +- There stands within yon vestry-nook + Where bonded lovers sign, +Her name upon a faded book + With one that is not mine. +To him she breathed the tender vow + She once had breathed to me, +But yet I say, "O love, even now + Would I had died for thee!" + + + +A BROKEN APPOINTMENT + + + + You did not come, +And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb. - +Yet less for loss of your dear presence there +Than that I thus found lacking in your make +That high compassion which can overbear +Reluctance for pure lovingkindness' sake +Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum, + You did not come. + + You love not me, +And love alone can lend you loyalty; +- I know and knew it. But, unto the store +Of human deeds divine in all but name, +Was it not worth a little hour or more +To add yet this: Once, you, a woman, came +To soothe a time-torn man; even though it be + You love not me? + + + +"BETWEEN US NOW" + + + +Between us now and here - + Two thrown together +Who are not wont to wear + Life's flushest feather - +Who see the scenes slide past, +The daytimes dimming fast, +Let there be truth at last, + Even if despair. + +So thoroughly and long + Have you now known me, +So real in faith and strong + Have I now shown me, +That nothing needs disguise +Further in any wise, +Or asks or justifies + A guarded tongue. + +Face unto face, then, say, + Eyes mine own meeting, +Is your heart far away, + Or with mine beating? +When false things are brought low, +And swift things have grown slow, +Feigning like froth shall go, + Faith be for aye. + + + +"HOW GREAT MY GRIEF" +(TRIOLET) + + +How great my grief, my joys how few, +Since first it was my fate to know thee! +- Have the slow years not brought to view +How great my grief, my joys how few, +Nor memory shaped old times anew, + Nor loving-kindness helped to show thee +How great my grief, my joys how few, + Since first it was my fate to know thee? + + + +"I NEED NOT GO" + + + +I need not go +Through sleet and snow +To where I know +She waits for me; +She will wait me there +Till I find it fair, +And have time to spare +From company. + +When I've overgot +The world somewhat, +When things cost not +Such stress and strain, +Is soon enough +By cypress sough +To tell my Love +I am come again. + +And if some day, +When none cries nay, +I still delay +To seek her side, +(Though ample measure +Of fitting leisure +Await my pleasure) +She will riot chide. + +What--not upbraid me +That I delayed me, +Nor ask what stayed me +So long? Ah, no! - +New cares may claim me, +New loves inflame me, +She will not blame me, +But suffer it so. + + + +THE COQUETTE, AND AFTER +(TRIOLETS) + + + +I + +For long the cruel wish I knew +That your free heart should ache for me +While mine should bear no ache for you; +For, long--the cruel wish!--I knew +How men can feel, and craved to view +My triumph--fated not to be +For long! . . . The cruel wish I knew +That your free heart should ache for me! + +II + +At last one pays the penalty - +The woman--women always do. +My farce, I found, was tragedy +At last!--One pays the penalty +With interest when one, fancy-free, +Learns love, learns shame . . . Of sinners two +At last ONE pays the penalty - +The woman--women always do! + + + +A SPOT + + + + In years defaced and lost, + Two sat here, transport-tossed, + Lit by a living love +The wilted world knew nothing of: + Scared momently + By gaingivings, + Then hoping things + That could not be. + + Of love and us no trace + Abides upon the place; + The sun and shadows wheel, +Season and season sereward steal; + Foul days and fair + Here, too, prevail, + And gust and gale + As everywhere. + + But lonely shepherd souls + Who bask amid these knolls + May catch a faery sound +On sleepy noontides from the ground: + "O not again + Till Earth outwears + Shall love like theirs + Suffuse this glen!" + + + +LONG PLIGHTED + + + + Is it worth while, dear, now, +To call for bells, and sally forth arrayed +For marriage-rites -- discussed, decried, delayed + So many years? + + Is it worth while, dear, now, +To stir desire for old fond purposings, +By feints that Time still serves for dallyings, + Though quittance nears? + + Is it worth while, dear, when +The day being so far spent, so low the sun, +The undone thing will soon be as the done, + And smiles as tears? + + Is it worth while, dear, when +Our cheeks are worn, our early brown is gray; +When, meet or part we, none says yea or nay, + Or heeds, or cares? + + Is it worth while, dear, since +We still can climb old Yell'ham's wooded mounds +Together, as each season steals its rounds + And disappears? + + Is it worth while, dear, since +As mates in Mellstock churchyard we can lie, +Till the last crash of all things low and high + Shall end the spheres? + + + +THE WIDOW + + + +By Mellstock Lodge and Avenue + Towards her door I went, +And sunset on her window-panes + Reflected our intent. + +The creeper on the gable nigh + Was fired to more than red +And when I came to halt thereby + "Bright as my joy!" I said. + +Of late days it had been her aim + To meet me in the hall; +Now at my footsteps no one came; + And no one to my call. + +Again I knocked; and tardily + An inner step was heard, +And I was shown her presence then + With scarce an answering word. + +She met me, and but barely took + My proffered warm embrace; +Preoccupation weighed her look, + And hardened her sweet face. + +"To-morrow--could you--would you call? + Make brief your present stay? +My child is ill--my one, my all! - + And can't be left to-day." + +And then she turns, and gives commands + As I were out of sound, +Or were no more to her and hers + Than any neighbour round . . . + +- As maid I wooed her; but one came + And coaxed her heart away, +And when in time he wedded her + I deemed her gone for aye. + +He won, I lost her; and my loss + I bore I know not how; +But I do think I suffered then + Less wretchedness than now. + +For Time, in taking him, had oped + An unexpected door +Of bliss for me, which grew to seem + Far surer than before . . . + +Her word is steadfast, and I know + That plighted firm are we: +But she has caught new love-calls since + She smiled as maid on me! + + + +AT A HASTY WEDDING +(TRIOLET) + + + +If hours be years the twain are blest, +For now they solace swift desire +By bonds of every bond the best, +If hours be years. The twain are blest +Do eastern stars slope never west, +Nor pallid ashes follow fire: +If hours be years the twain are blest, +For now they solace swift desire. + + + +THE DREAM-FOLLOWER + + + +A dream of mine flew over the mead + To the halls where my old Love reigns; +And it drew me on to follow its lead: + And I stood at her window-panes; + +And I saw but a thing of flesh and bone + Speeding on to its cleft in the clay; +And my dream was scared, and expired on a moan, + And I whitely hastened away. + + + +HIS IMMORTALITY + + + +I + + I saw a dead man's finer part +Shining within each faithful heart +Of those bereft. Then said I: "This must be + His immortality." + +II + + I looked there as the seasons wore, +And still his soul continuously upbore +Its life in theirs. But less its shine excelled + Than when I first beheld. + +III + + His fellow-yearsmen passed, and then +In later hearts I looked for him again; +And found him--shrunk, alas! into a thin + And spectral mannikin. + +IV + + Lastly I ask--now old and chill - +If aught of him remain unperished still; +And find, in me alone, a feeble spark, + Dying amid the dark. + +February 1899. + + + +THE TO-BE-FORGOTTEN + + + +I + + I heard a small sad sound, +And stood awhile amid the tombs around: +"Wherefore, old friends," said I, "are ye distrest, + Now, screened from life's unrest?" + +II + + --"O not at being here; +But that our future second death is drear; +When, with the living, memory of us numbs, + And blank oblivion comes! + +III + + "Those who our grandsires be +Lie here embraced by deeper death than we; +Nor shape nor thought of theirs canst thou descry + With keenest backward eye. + +IV + + "They bide as quite forgot; +They are as men who have existed not; +Theirs is a loss past loss of fitful breath; + It is the second death. + +V + + "We here, as yet, each day +Are blest with dear recall; as yet, alway +In some soul hold a loved continuance + Of shape and voice and glance. + +VI + + "But what has been will be - +First memory, then oblivion's turbid sea; +Like men foregone, shall we merge into those + Whose story no one knows. + +VII + + "For which of us could hope +To show in life that world-awakening scope +Granted the few whose memory none lets die, + But all men magnify? + +VIII + + "We were but Fortune's sport; +Things true, things lovely, things of good report +We neither shunned nor sought . . . We see our bourne, + And seeing it we mourn." + + + +WIVES IN THE SERE + + + +I + +Never a careworn wife but shows, + If a joy suffuse her, +Something beautiful to those + Patient to peruse her, +Some one charm the world unknows + Precious to a muser, +Haply what, ere years were foes, + Moved her mate to choose her. + +II + +But, be it a hint of rose + That an instant hues her, +Or some early light or pose + Wherewith thought renews her - +Seen by him at full, ere woes + Practised to abuse her - +Sparely comes it, swiftly goes, + Time again subdues her. + + + +THE SUPERSEDED + + + +I + +As newer comers crowd the fore, + We drop behind. +- We who have laboured long and sore + Times out of mind, +And keen are yet, must not regret + To drop behind. + +II + +Yet there are of us some who grieve + To go behind; +Staunch, strenuous souls who scarce believe + Their fires declined, +And know none cares, remembers, spares + Who go behind. + +III + +'Tis not that we have unforetold + The drop behind; +We feel the new must oust the old + In every kind; +But yet we think, must we, must WE, + Too, drop behind? + + + +AN AUGUST MIDNIGHT + + + +I + +A shaded lamp and a waving blind, +And the beat of a clock from a distant floor: +On this scene enter--winged, horned, and spined - +A longlegs, a moth, and a dumbledore; +While 'mid my page there idly stands +A sleepy fly, that rubs its hands . . . + +II + +Thus meet we five, in this still place, +At this point of time, at this point in space. +- My guests parade my new-penned ink, +Or bang at the lamp-glass, whirl, and sink. +"God's humblest, they!" I muse. Yet why? +They know Earth-secrets that know not I. + +MAX GATE, 1899. + + + +THE CAGED THRUSH FREED AND HOME AGAIN +(VILLANELLE) + + +"Men know but little more than we, +Who count us least of things terrene, +How happy days are made to be! + +"Of such strange tidings what think ye, +O birds in brown that peck and preen? +Men know but little more than we! + +"When I was borne from yonder tree +In bonds to them, I hoped to glean +How happy days are made to be, + +"And want and wailing turned to glee; +Alas, despite their mighty mien +Men know but little more than we! + +"They cannot change the Frost's decree, +They cannot keep the skies serene; +How happy days are made to be + +"Eludes great Man's sagacity +No less than ours, O tribes in treen! +Men know but little more than we +How happy days are made to be." + + + +BIRDS AT WINTER NIGHTFALL +(TRIOLET) + + + +Around the house the flakes fly faster, +And all the berries now are gone +From holly and cotoneaster +Around the house. The flakes fly!--faster +Shutting indoors that crumb-outcaster +We used to see upon the lawn +Around the house. The flakes fly faster, +And all the berries now are gone! + +MAX GATE. + + + + +THE PUZZLED GAME-BIRDS +(TRIOLET) + + + +They are not those who used to feed us +When we were young--they cannot be - +These shapes that now bereave and bleed us? +They are not those who used to feed us, - +For would they not fair terms concede us? +- If hearts can house such treachery +They are not those who used to feed us +When we were young--they cannot be! + + + +WINTER IN DURNOVER FIELD + + + +SCENE.--A wide stretch of fallow ground recently sown with wheat, and +frozen to iron hardness. Three large birds walking about thereon, +and wistfully eyeing the surface. Wind keen from north-east: sky a +dull grey. + +(TRIOLET) + +Rook.--Throughout the field I find no grain; + The cruel frost encrusts the cornland! +Starling.--Aye: patient pecking now is vain + Throughout the field, I find . . . +Rook.--No grain! +Pigeon.--Nor will be, comrade, till it rain, + Or genial thawings loose the lorn land + Throughout the field. +Rook.--I find no grain: + The cruel frost encrusts the cornland! + + + +THE LAST CHRYSANTHEMUM + + + +Why should this flower delay so long + To show its tremulous plumes? +Now is the time of plaintive robin-song, + When flowers are in their tombs. + +Through the slow summer, when the sun + Called to each frond and whorl +That all he could for flowers was being done, + Why did it not uncurl? + +It must have felt that fervid call + Although it took no heed, +Waking but now, when leaves like corpses fall, + And saps all retrocede. + +Too late its beauty, lonely thing, + The season's shine is spent, +Nothing remains for it but shivering + In tempests turbulent. + +Had it a reason for delay, + Dreaming in witlessness +That for a bloom so delicately gay + Winter would stay its stress? + +- I talk as if the thing were born + With sense to work its mind; +Yet it is but one mask of many worn + By the Great Face behind. + + + +THE DARKLING THRUSH + + + +I leant upon a coppice gate + When Frost was spectre-gray, +And Winter's dregs made desolate + The weakening eye of day. +The tangled bine-stems scored the sky + Like strings from broken lyres, +And all mankind that haunted nigh + Had sought their household fires. + +The land's sharp features seemed to be + The Century's corpse outleant, +His crypt the cloudy canopy, + The wind his death-lament. +The ancient pulse of germ and birth + Was shrunken hard and dry, +And every spirit upon earth + Seemed fervourless as I. + +At once a voice outburst among + The bleak twigs overhead +In a full-hearted evensong + Of joy illimited; +An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, + In blast-beruffled plume, +Had chosen thus to fling his soul + Upon the growing gloom. + +So little cause for carollings + Of such ecstatic sound +Was written on terrestrial things + Afar or nigh around, +That I could think there trembled through + His happy good-night air +Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew + And I was unaware. + +December 1900. + + + +THE COMET AT YALBURY OR YELL'HAM + + + +I + +It bends far over Yell'ham Plain, + And we, from Yell'ham Height, +Stand and regard its fiery train, + So soon to swim from sight. + +II + +It will return long years hence, when + As now its strange swift shine +Will fall on Yell'ham; but not then + On that sweet form of thine. + + + +MAD JUDY + + + +When the hamlet hailed a birth + Judy used to cry: +When she heard our christening mirth + She would kneel and sigh. +She was crazed, we knew, and we +Humoured her infirmity. + +When the daughters and the sons + Gathered them to wed, +And we like-intending ones + Danced till dawn was red, +She would rock and mutter, "More +Comers to this stony shore!" + +When old Headsman Death laid hands + On a babe or twain, +She would feast, and by her brands + Sing her songs again. +What she liked we let her do, +Judy was insane, we knew. + + + +A WASTED ILLNESS + + + + Through vaults of pain, +Enribbed and wrought with groins of ghastliness, +I passed, and garish spectres moved my brain + To dire distress. + + And hammerings, +And quakes, and shoots, and stifling hotness, blent +With webby waxing things and waning things + As on I went. + + "Where lies the end +To this foul way?" I asked with weakening breath. +Thereon ahead I saw a door extend - + The door to death. + + It loomed more clear: +"At last!" I cried. "The all-delivering door!" +And then, I knew not how, it grew less near + Than theretofore. + + And back slid I +Along the galleries by which I came, +And tediously the day returned, and sky, + And life--the same. + + And all was well: +Old circumstance resumed its former show, +And on my head the dews of comfort fell + As ere my woe. + + I roam anew, +Scarce conscious of my late distress . . . And yet +Those backward steps through pain I cannot view + Without regret. + + For that dire train +Of waxing shapes and waning, passed before, +And those grim aisles, must be traversed again + To reach that door. + + + +A MAN +(IN MEMORY OF H. OF M.) + + + +I + +In Casterbridge there stood a noble pile, +Wrought with pilaster, bay, and balustrade +In tactful times when shrewd Eliza swayed. - + On burgher, squire, and clown +It smiled the long street down for near a mile + +II + +But evil days beset that domicile; +The stately beauties of its roof and wall +Passed into sordid hands. Condemned to fall + Were cornice, quoin, and cove, +And all that art had wove in antique style. + +III + +Among the hired dismantlers entered there +One till the moment of his task untold. +When charged therewith he gazed, and answered bold: + "Be needy I or no, +I will not help lay low a house so fair! + +IV + +"Hunger is hard. But since the terms be such - +No wage, or labour stained with the disgrace +Of wrecking what our age cannot replace + To save its tasteless soul - +I'll do without your dole. Life is not much! + +V + +Dismissed with sneers he backed his tools and went, +And wandered workless; for it seemed unwise +To close with one who dared to criticize + And carp on points of taste: +To work where they were placed rude men were meant. + +VI + +Years whiled. He aged, sank, sickened, and was not: +And it was said, "A man intractable +And curst is gone." None sighed to hear his knell, + None sought his churchyard-place; +His name, his rugged face, were soon forgot. + +VII + +The stones of that fair hall lie far and wide, +And but a few recall its ancient mould; +Yet when I pass the spot I long to hold + As truth what fancy saith: +"His protest lives where deathless things abide!" + + + +THE DAME OF ATHELHALL + + + +I + +"Soul! Shall I see thy face," she said, + "In one brief hour? +And away with thee from a loveless bed +To a far-off sun, to a vine-wrapt bower, +And be thine own unseparated, + And challenge the world's white glower? + +II + +She quickened her feet, and met him where + They had predesigned: +And they clasped, and mounted, and cleft the air +Upon whirling wheels; till the will to bind +Her life with his made the moments there + Efface the years behind. + +III + +Miles slid, and the sight of the port upgrew + As they sped on; +When slipping its bond the bracelet flew +From her fondled arm. Replaced anon, +Its cameo of the abjured one drew + Her musings thereupon. + +IV + +The gaud with his image once had been + A gift from him: +And so it was that its carving keen +Refurbished memories wearing dim, +Which set in her soul a throe of teen, + And a tear on her lashes' brim. + +V + +"I may not go!" she at length upspake, + "Thoughts call me back - +I would still lose all for your dear, dear sake; +My heart is thine, friend! But my track +I home to Athelhall must take + To hinder household wrack!" + +VI + +He appealed. But they parted, weak and wan: + And he left the shore; +His ship diminished, was low, was gone; +And she heard in the waves as the daytide wore, +And read in the leer of the sun that shone, + That they parted for evermore. + +VII + +She homed as she came, at the dip of eve + On Athel Coomb +Regaining the Hall she had sworn to leave . . . +The house was soundless as a tomb, +And she entered her chamber, there to grieve + Lone, kneeling, in the gloom. + +VIII + +From the lawn without rose her husband's voice + To one his friend: +"Another her Love, another my choice, +Her going is good. Our conditions mend; +In a change of mates we shall both rejoice; + I hoped that it thus might end! + +IX + +"A quick divorce; she will make him hers, + And I wed mine. +So Time rights all things in long, long years - +Or rather she, by her bold design! +I admire a woman no balk deters: + She has blessed my life, in fine. + +X + +"I shall build new rooms for my new true bride, + Let the bygone be: +By now, no doubt, she has crossed the tide +With the man to her mind. Far happier she +In some warm vineland by his side + Than ever she was with me." + + + +THE SEASONS OF HER YEAR + + + +I + +Winter is white on turf and tree, + And birds are fled; +But summer songsters pipe to me, + And petals spread, +For what I dreamt of secretly + His lips have said! + +II + +O 'tis a fine May morn, they say, + And blooms have blown; +But wild and wintry is my day, + My birds make moan; +For he who vowed leaves me to pay + Alone--alone! + + + +THE MILKMAID + + + + Under a daisied bank +There stands a rich red ruminating cow, + And hard against her flank +A cotton-hooded milkmaid bends her brow. + + The flowery river-ooze +Upheaves and falls; the milk purrs in the pail; + Few pilgrims but would choose +The peace of such a life in such a vale. + + The maid breathes words--to vent, +It seems, her sense of Nature's scenery, + Of whose life, sentiment, +And essence, very part itself is she. + + She bends a glance of pain, +And, at a moment, lets escape a tear; + Is it that passing train, +Whose alien whirr offends her country ear? - + + Nay! Phyllis does not dwell +On visual and familiar things like these; + What moves her is the spell +Of inner themes and inner poetries: + + Could but by Sunday morn +Her gay new gown come, meads might dry to dun, + Trains shriek till ears were torn, +If Fred would not prefer that Other One. + + + +THE LEVELLED CHURCHYARD + + + +"O passenger, pray list and catch + Our sighs and piteous groans, +Half stifled in this jumbled patch + Of wrenched memorial stones! + +"We late-lamented, resting here, + Are mixed to human jam, +And each to each exclaims in fear, + 'I know not which I am!' + +"The wicked people have annexed + The verses on the good; +A roaring drunkard sports the text + Teetotal Tommy should! + +"Where we are huddled none can trace, + And if our names remain, +They pave some path or p-ing place + Where we have never lain! + +"There's not a modest maiden elf + But dreads the final Trumpet, +Lest half of her should rise herself, + And half some local strumpet! + +"From restorations of Thy fane, + From smoothings of Thy sward, +From zealous Churchmen's pick and plane + Deliver us O Lord! Amen!" + +1882. + + + +THE RUINED MAID + + + +"O 'Melia, my dear, this does everything crown! +Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town? +And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?" - +"O didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she. + +- "You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks, +Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks; +And now you've gay bracelets and bright feathers three!" - +"Yes: that's how we dress when we're ruined," said she. + +- "At home in the barton you said 'thee' and 'thou,' +And 'thik oon,' and 'theas oon,' and 't'other'; but now +Your talking quite fits 'ee for high compa-ny!" - +"Some polish is gained with one's ruin," said she. + +- "Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak, +But now I'm bewitched by your delicate cheek, +And your little gloves fit as on any la-dy!" - +"We never do work when we're ruined," said she. + +- "You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream, +And you'd sigh, and you'd sock; but at present you seem +To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!" - +"True. There's an advantage in ruin," said she. + +- "I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown, +And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!" - +"My dear--a raw country girl, such as you be, +Isn't equal to that. You ain't ruined," said she. + +WESTBOURNE PARK VILLAS, 1866, + + + +THE RESPECTABLE BURGHER ON "THE HIGHER CRITICISM" + + + +Since Reverend Doctors now declare +That clerks and people must prepare +To doubt if Adam ever were; +To hold the flood a local scare; +To argue, though the stolid stare, +That everything had happened ere +The prophets to its happening sware; +That David was no giant-slayer, +Nor one to call a God-obeyer +In certain details we could spare, +But rather was a debonair +Shrewd bandit, skilled as banjo-player: +That Solomon sang the fleshly Fair, +And gave the Church no thought whate'er; +That Esther with her royal wear, +And Mordecai, the son of Jair, +And Joshua's triumphs, Job's despair, +And Balaam's ass's bitter blare; +Nebuchadnezzar's furnace-flare, +And Daniel and the den affair, +And other stories rich and rare, +Were writ to make old doctrine wear +Something of a romantic air: +That the Nain widow's only heir, +And Lazarus with cadaverous glare +(As done in oils by Piombo's care) +Did not return from Sheol's lair: +That Jael set a fiendish snare, +That Pontius Pilate acted square, +That never a sword cut Malchus' ear +And (but for shame I must forbear) +That -- -- did not reappear! . . . +- Since thus they hint, nor turn a hair, +All churchgoing will I forswear, +And sit on Sundays in my chair, +And read that moderate man Voltaire. + + + +ARCHITECTURAL MASKS + + + +I + +There is a house with ivied walls, +And mullioned windows worn and old, +And the long dwellers in those halls +Have souls that know but sordid calls, + And daily dote on gold. + +II + +In blazing brick and plated show +Not far away a "villa" gleams, +And here a family few may know, +With book and pencil, viol and bow, + Lead inner lives of dreams. + +III + +The philosophic passers say, +"See that old mansion mossed and fair, +Poetic souls therein are they: +And O that gaudy box! Away, + You vulgar people there." + + + +THE TENANT-FOR-LIFE + + + +The sun said, watching my watering-pot + "Some morn you'll pass away; +These flowers and plants I parch up hot - + Who'll water them that day? + +"Those banks and beds whose shape your eye + Has planned in line so true, +New hands will change, unreasoning why + Such shape seemed best to you. + +"Within your house will strangers sit, + And wonder how first it came; +They'll talk of their schemes for improving it, + And will not mention your name. + +"They'll care not how, or when, or at what + You sighed, laughed, suffered here, +Though you feel more in an hour of the spot + Than they will feel in a year + +"As I look on at you here, now, + Shall I look on at these; +But as to our old times, avow + No knowledge--hold my peace! . . . + +"O friend, it matters not, I say; + Bethink ye, I have shined +On nobler ones than you, and they + Are dead men out of mind!" + + + +THE KING'S EXPERIMENT + + + + It was a wet wan hour in spring, +And Nature met King Doom beside a lane, +Wherein Hodge trudged, all blithely ballading + The Mother's smiling reign. + + "Why warbles he that skies are fair +And coombs alight," she cried, "and fallows gay, +When I have placed no sunshine in the air + Or glow on earth to-day?" + + "'Tis in the comedy of things +That such should be," returned the one of Doom; +"Charge now the scene with brightest blazonings, + And he shall call them gloom." + + She gave the word: the sun outbroke, +All Froomside shone, the hedgebirds raised a song; +And later Hodge, upon the midday stroke, + Returned the lane along, + + Low murmuring: "O this bitter scene, +And thrice accurst horizon hung with gloom! +How deadly like this sky, these fields, these treen, + To trappings of the tomb!" + + The Beldame then: "The fool and blind! +Such mad perverseness who may apprehend?" - +"Nay; there's no madness in it; thou shalt find + Thy law there," said her friend. + + "When Hodge went forth 'twas to his Love, +To make her, ere this eve, his wedded prize, +And Earth, despite the heaviness above, + Was bright as Paradise. + + "But I sent on my messenger, +With cunning arrows poisonous and keen, +To take forthwith her laughing life from her, + And dull her little een, + + "And white her cheek, and still her breath, +Ere her too buoyant Hodge had reached her side; +So, when he came, he clasped her but in death, + And never as his bride. + + "And there's the humour, as I said; +Thy dreary dawn he saw as gleaming gold, +And in thy glistening green and radiant red + Funereal gloom and cold." + + + +THE TREE +AN OLD MAN'S STORY + + + +I + +Its roots are bristling in the air +Like some mad Earth-god's spiny hair; +The loud south-wester's swell and yell +Smote it at midnight, and it fell. + Thus ends the tree + Where Some One sat with me. + +II + +Its boughs, which none but darers trod, +A child may step on from the sod, +And twigs that earliest met the dawn +Are lit the last upon the lawn. + Cart off the tree + Beneath whose trunk sat we! + +III + +Yes, there we sat: she cooed content, +And bats ringed round, and daylight went; +The gnarl, our seat, is wrenched and sunk, +Prone that queer pocket in the trunk + Where lay the key + To her pale mystery. + +IV + +"Years back, within this pocket-hole +I found, my Love, a hurried scrawl +Meant not for me," at length said I; +"I glanced thereat, and let it lie: + The words were three - + 'Beloved, I agree.' + +V + +"Who placed it here; to what request +It gave assent, I never guessed. +Some prayer of some hot heart, no doubt, +To some coy maiden hereabout, + Just as, maybe, + With you, Sweet Heart, and me." + +VI + +She waited, till with quickened breath +She spoke, as one who banisheth +Reserves that lovecraft heeds so well, +To ease some mighty wish to tell: + "'Twas I," said she, + "Who wrote thus clinchingly. + +VII + +"My lover's wife--aye, wife!--knew nought +Of what we felt, and bore, and thought . . . +He'd said: 'I wed with thee or die: +She stands between, 'tis true. But why? + Do thou agree, + And--she shalt cease to be.' + +VIII + +"How I held back, how love supreme +Involved me madly in his scheme +Why should I say? . . . I wrote assent +(You found it hid) to his intent . . . + She--DIED . . . But he + Came not to wed with me. + +IX + +"O shrink not, Love!--Had these eyes seen +But once thine own, such had not been! +But we were strangers . . . Thus the plot +Cleared passion's path.--Why came he not + To wed with me? . . . + He wived the gibbet-tree." + +X + +- Under that oak of heretofore +Sat Sweetheart mine with me no more: +By many a Fiord, and Strom, and Fleuve +Have I since wandered . . . Soon, for love, + Distraught went she - + 'Twas said for love of me. + + + +HER LATE HUSBAND +(KING'S-HINTOCK, 182-.) + + + +"No--not where I shall make my own; + But dig his grave just by +The woman's with the initialed stone - + As near as he can lie - +After whose death he seemed to ail, + Though none considered why. + +"And when I also claim a nook, + And your feet tread me in, +Bestow me, under my old name, + Among my kith and kin, +That strangers gazing may not dream + I did a husband win." + +"Widow, your wish shall be obeyed; + Though, thought I, certainly +You'd lay him where your folk are laid, + And your grave, too, will be, +As custom hath it; you to right, + And on the left hand he." + +"Aye, sexton; such the Hintock rule, + And none has said it nay; +But now it haps a native here + Eschews that ancient way . . . +And it may be, some Christmas night, + When angels walk, they'll say: + +"'O strange interment! Civilized lands + Afford few types thereof; +Here is a man who takes his rest + Beside his very Love, +Beside the one who was his wife + In our sight up above!'" + + + +THE SELF-UNSEEING + + + +Here is the ancient floor, +Footworn and hollowed and thin, +Here was the former door +Where the dead feet walked in. + +She sat here in her chair, +Smiling into the fire; +He who played stood there, +Bowing it higher and higher. + +Childlike, I danced in a dream; +Blessings emblazoned that day +Everything glowed with a gleam; +Yet we were looking away! + + + +DE PROFUNDIS + + + +I + +"Percussus sum sicut foenum, et aruit cor meum." +- Ps. ci + + Wintertime nighs; +But my bereavement-pain +It cannot bring again: + Twice no one dies. + + Flower-petals flee; +But, since it once hath been, +No more that severing scene + Can harrow me. + + Birds faint in dread: +I shall not lose old strength +In the lone frost's black length: + Strength long since fled! + + Leaves freeze to dun; +But friends can not turn cold +This season as of old + For him with none. + + Tempests may scath; +But love can not make smart +Again this year his heart + Who no heart hath. + + Black is night's cope; +But death will not appal +One who, past doubtings all, + Waits in unhope. + + +DE PROFUNDIS + + + +II + +"Considerabam ad dexteram, et videbam; et non erat qui cognosceret me +. . . Non est qui requirat animam meam."--Ps. cxli. + +When the clouds' swoln bosoms echo back the shouts of the many and +strong +That things are all as they best may be, save a few to be right ere +long, +And my eyes have not the vision in them to discern what to these is +so clear, +The blot seems straightway in me alone; one better he were not here. + +The stout upstanders say, All's well with us: ruers have nought to +rue! +And what the potent say so oft, can it fail to be somewhat true? +Breezily go they, breezily come; their dust smokes around their +career, +Till I think I am one horn out of due time, who has no calling here. + +Their dawns bring lusty joys, it seems; their eves exultance sweet; +Our times are blessed times, they cry: Life shapes it as is most +meet, +And nothing is much the matter; there are many smiles to a tear; +Then what is the matter is I, I say. Why should such an one be here? +. . . + +Let him to whose ears the low-voiced Best seems stilled by the clash +of the First, +Who holds that if way to the Better there be, it exacts a full look +at the Worst, +Who feels that delight is a delicate growth cramped by crookedness, +custom, and fear, +Get him up and be gone as one shaped awry; he disturbs the order +here. + +1895-96. + + + +DE PROFUNDIS + + + +III + +"Heu mihi, quia incolatus meus prolongatus est! Habitavi cum +habitantibus Cedar; multum incola fuit aninia mea."--Ps. cxix. + +There have been times when I well might have passed and the ending +have come - +Points in my path when the dark might have stolen on me, artless, +unrueing - +Ere I had learnt that the world was a welter of futile doing: +Such had been times when I well might have passed, and the ending +have come! + +Say, on the noon when the half-sunny hours told that April was nigh, +And I upgathered and cast forth the snow from the crocus-border, +Fashioned and furbished the soil into a summer-seeming order, +Glowing in gladsome faith that I quickened the year thereby. + +Or on that loneliest of eves when afar and benighted we stood, +She who upheld me and I, in the midmost of Egdon together, +Confident I in her watching and ward through the blackening heather, +Deeming her matchless in might and with measureless scope endued. + +Or on that winter-wild night when, reclined by the chimney-nook +quoin, +Slowly a drowse overgat me, the smallest and feeblest of folk there, +Weak from my baptism of pain; when at times and anon I awoke there - +Heard of a world wheeling on, with no listing or longing to join. + +Even then! while unweeting that vision could vex or that knowledge +could numb, +That sweets to the mouth in the belly are bitter, and tart, and +untoward, +Then, on some dim-coloured scene should my briefly raised curtain +have lowered, +Then might the Voice that is law have said "Cease!" and the ending +have come. + +1896. + + + +THE CHURCH-BUILDER + + + +I + +The church flings forth a battled shade + Over the moon-blanched sward; +The church; my gift; whereto I paid + My all in hand and hoard: + Lavished my gains + With stintless pains + To glorify the Lord. + +II + +I squared the broad foundations in + Of ashlared masonry; +I moulded mullions thick and thin, + Hewed fillet and ogee; + I circleted + Each sculptured head + With nimb and canopy. + +III + +I called in many a craftsmaster + To fix emblazoned glass, +To figure Cross and Sepulchre + On dossal, boss, and brass. + My gold all spent, + My jewels went + To gem the cups of Mass. + +IV + +I borrowed deep to carve the screen + And raise the ivoried Rood; +I parted with my small demesne + To make my owings good. + Heir-looms unpriced + I sacrificed, + Until debt-free I stood. + +V + +So closed the task. "Deathless the Creed + Here substanced!" said my soul: +"I heard me bidden to this deed, + And straight obeyed the call. + Illume this fane, + That not in vain + I build it, Lord of all!" + +VI + +But, as it chanced me, then and there + Did dire misfortunes burst; +My home went waste for lack of care, + My sons rebelled and curst; + Till I confessed + That aims the best + Were looking like the worst. + +VII + +Enkindled by my votive work + No burning faith I find; +The deeper thinkers sneer and smirk, + And give my toil no mind; + From nod and wink + I read they think + That I am fool and blind. + +VIII + +My gift to God seems futile, quite; + The world moves as erstwhile; +And powerful wrong on feeble right + Tramples in olden style. + My faith burns down, + I see no crown; + But Cares, and Griefs, and Guile. + +IX + +So now, the remedy? Yea, this: + I gently swing the door +Here, of my fane--no soul to wis - + And cross the patterned floor + To the rood-screen + That stands between + The nave and inner chore. + +X + +The rich red windows dim the moon, + But little light need I; +I mount the prie-dieu, lately hewn + From woods of rarest dye; + Then from below + My garment, so, + I draw this cord, and tie + +XI + +One end thereof around the beam + Midway 'twixt Cross and truss: +I noose the nethermost extreme, + And in ten seconds thus + I journey hence - + To that land whence + No rumour reaches us. + +XII + +Well: Here at morn they'll light on one + Dangling in mockery +Of what he spent his substance on + Blindly and uselessly! . . . + "He might," they'll say, + "Have built, some way. + A cheaper gallows-tree!" + + + +THE LOST PYX +A MEDIAEVAL LEGEND {3} + +Some say the spot is banned; that the pillar Cross-and-Hand + Attests to a deed of hell; +But of else than of bale is the mystic tale + That ancient Vale-folk tell. + +Ere Cernel's Abbey ceased hereabout there dwelt a priest, + (In later life sub-prior +Of the brotherhood there, whose bones are now bare + In the field that was Cernel choir). + +One night in his cell at the foot of yon dell + The priest heard a frequent cry: +"Go, father, in haste to the cot on the waste, + And shrive a man waiting to die." + +Said the priest in a shout to the caller without, + "The night howls, the tree-trunks bow; +One may barely by day track so rugged a way, + And can I then do so now?" + +No further word from the dark was heard, + And the priest moved never a limb; +And he slept and dreamed; till a Visage seemed + To frown from Heaven at him. + +In a sweat he arose; and the storm shrieked shrill, + And smote as in savage joy; +While High-Stoy trees twanged to Bubb-Down Hill, + And Bubb-Down to High-Stoy. + +There seemed not a holy thing in hail, + Nor shape of light or love, +From the Abbey north of Blackmore Vale + To the Abbey south thereof. + +Yet he plodded thence through the dark immense, + And with many a stumbling stride +Through copse and briar climbed nigh and nigher + To the cot and the sick man's side. + +When he would have unslung the Vessels uphung + To his arm in the steep ascent, +He made loud moan: the Pyx was gone + Of the Blessed Sacrament. + +Then in dolorous dread he beat his head: + "No earthly prize or pelf +Is the thing I've lost in tempest tossed, + But the Body of Christ Himself!" + +He thought of the Visage his dream revealed, + And turned towards whence he came, +Hands groping the ground along foot-track and field, + And head in a heat of shame. + +Till here on the hill, betwixt vill and vill, + He noted a clear straight ray +Stretching down from the sky to a spot hard by, + Which shone with the light of day. + +And gathered around the illumined ground + Were common beasts and rare, +All kneeling at gaze, and in pause profound + Attent on an object there. + +'Twas the Pyx, unharmed 'mid the circling rows + Of Blackmore's hairy throng, +Whereof were oxen, sheep, and does, + And hares from the brakes among; + +And badgers grey, and conies keen, + And squirrels of the tree, +And many a member seldom seen + Of Nature's family. + +The ireful winds that scoured and swept + Through coppice, clump, and dell, +Within that holy circle slept + Calm as in hermit's cell. + +Then the priest bent likewise to the sod + And thanked the Lord of Love, +And Blessed Mary, Mother of God, + And all the saints above. + +And turning straight with his priceless freight, + He reached the dying one, +Whose passing sprite had been stayed for the rite + Without which bliss hath none. + +And when by grace the priest won place, + And served the Abbey well, +He reared this stone to mark where shone + That midnight miracle. + + + +TESS'S LAMENT + + + +I + +I would that folk forgot me quite, + Forgot me quite! +I would that I could shrink from sight, + And no more see the sun. +Would it were time to say farewell, +To claim my nook, to need my knell, +Time for them all to stand and tell + Of my day's work as done. + +II + +Ah! dairy where I lived so long, + I lived so long; +Where I would rise up stanch and strong, + And lie down hopefully. +'Twas there within the chimney-seat +He watched me to the clock's slow beat - +Loved me, and learnt to call me sweet, + And whispered words to me. + +III + +And now he's gone; and now he's gone; . . . + And now he's gone! +The flowers we potted p'rhaps are thrown + To rot upon the farm. +And where we had our supper-fire +May now grow nettle, dock, and briar, +And all the place be mould and mire + So cozy once and warm. + +IV + +And it was I who did it all, + Who did it all; +'Twas I who made the blow to fall + On him who thought no guile. +Well, it is finished--past, and he +Has left me to my misery, +And I must take my Cross on me + For wronging him awhile. + +V + +How gay we looked that day we wed, + That day we wed! +"May joy be with ye!" all o'm said + A standing by the durn. +I wonder what they say o's now, +And if they know my lot; and how +She feels who milks my favourite cow, + And takes my place at churn! + +VI + +It wears me out to think of it, + To think of it; +I cannot bear my fate as writ, + I'd have my life unbe; +Would turn my memory to a blot, +Make every relic of me rot, +My doings be as they were not, + And what they've brought to me! + + + +THE SUPPLANTER +A TALE + + + +I + +He bends his travel-tarnished feet + To where she wastes in clay: +From day-dawn until eve he fares + Along the wintry way; +From day-dawn until eve repairs + Unto her mound to pray. + +II + +"Are these the gravestone shapes that meet + My forward-straining view? +Or forms that cross a window-blind + In circle, knot, and queue: +Gay forms, that cross and whirl and wind + To music throbbing through?" - + +III + +"The Keeper of the Field of Tombs + Dwells by its gateway-pier; +He celebrates with feast and dance + His daughter's twentieth year: +He celebrates with wine of France + The birthday of his dear." - + +IV + +"The gates are shut when evening glooms: + Lay down your wreath, sad wight; +To-morrow is a time more fit + For placing flowers aright: +The morning is the time for it; + Come, wake with us to-night!" - + +V + +He grounds his wreath, and enters in, + And sits, and shares their cheer. - +"I fain would foot with you, young man, + Before all others here; +I fain would foot it for a span + With such a cavalier!" + +VI + +She coaxes, clasps, nor fails to win + His first-unwilling hand: +The merry music strikes its staves, + The dancers quickly band; +And with the damsel of the graves + He duly takes his stand. + +VII + +"You dance divinely, stranger swain, + Such grace I've never known. +O longer stay! Breathe not adieu + And leave me here alone! +O longer stay: to her be true + Whose heart is all your own!" - + +VIII + +"I mark a phantom through the pane, + That beckons in despair, +Its mouth all drawn with heavy moan - + Her to whom once I sware!" - +"Nay; 'tis the lately carven stone + Of some strange girl laid there!" - + +IX + +"I see white flowers upon the floor + Betrodden to a clot; +My wreath were they?"--"Nay; love me much, + Swear you'll forget me not! +'Twas but a wreath! Full many such + Are brought here and forgot." + +* * * + +X + +The watches of the night grow hoar, + He rises ere the sun; +"Now could I kill thee here!" he says, + "For winning me from one +Who ever in her living days + Was pure as cloistered nun!" + +XI + +She cowers, and he takes his track + Afar for many a mile, +For evermore to be apart + From her who could beguile +His senses by her burning heart, + And win his love awhile. + +XII + +A year: and he is travelling back + To her who wastes in clay; +From day-dawn until eve he fares + Along the wintry way, +From day-dawn until eve repairs + Unto her mound to pray. + +XIII + +And there he sets him to fulfil + His frustrate first intent: +And lay upon her bed, at last, + The offering earlier meant: +When, on his stooping figure, ghast + And haggard eyes are bent. + +XIV + +"O surely for a little while + You can be kind to me! +For do you love her, do you hate, + She knows not--cares not she: +Only the living feel the weight + Of loveless misery! + +XV + +"I own my sin; I've paid its cost, + Being outcast, shamed, and bare: +I give you daily my whole heart, + Your babe my tender care, +I pour you prayers; and aye to part + Is more than I can bear!" + +XVI + +He turns--unpitying, passion-tossed; + "I know you not!" he cries, +"Nor know your child. I knew this maid, + But she's in Paradise!" +And swiftly in the winter shade + He breaks from her and flies. + + + +SAPPHIC FRAGMENT + + + +"Thou shalt be--Nothing."--OMAR KHAYYAM. +"Tombless, with no remembrance."--W. SHAKESPEARE. + +Dead shalt thou lie; and nought + Be told of thee or thought, +For thou hast plucked not of the Muses' tree: + And even in Hades' halls + Amidst thy fellow-thralls +No friendly shade thy shade shall company! + + + +CATULLUS: XXXI +(After passing Sirmione, April 1887.) + + + +Sirmio, thou dearest dear of strands +That Neptune strokes in lake and sea, +With what high joy from stranger lands +Doth thy old friend set foot on thee! +Yea, barely seems it true to me +That no Bithynia holds me now, +But calmly and assuringly +Around me stretchest homely Thou. + +Is there a scene more sweet than when +Our clinging cares are undercast, +And, worn by alien moils and men, +The long untrodden sill repassed, +We press the pined for couch at last, +And find a full repayment there? +Then hail, sweet Sirmio; thou that wast, +And art, mine own unrivalled Fair! + + + +AFTER SCHILLER + + + +Knight, a true sister-love + This heart retains; +Ask me no other love, + That way lie pains! + +Calm must I view thee come, + Calm see thee go; +Tale-telling tears of thine + I must not know! + + + +SONG FROM HEINE + + + +I scanned her picture dreaming, + Till each dear line and hue +Was imaged, to my seeming, + As if it lived anew. + +Her lips began to borrow + Their former wondrous smile; +Her fair eyes, faint with sorrow, + Grew sparkling as erstwhile. + +Such tears as often ran not + Ran then, my love, for thee; +And O, believe I cannot + That thou are lost to me! + + + +FROM VICTOR HUGO + + + +Child, were I king, I'd yield my royal rule, + My chariot, sceptre, vassal-service due, +My crown, my porphyry-basined waters cool, +My fleets, whereto the sea is but a pool, + For a glance from you! + +Love, were I God, the earth and its heaving airs, + Angels, the demons abject under me, +Vast chaos with its teeming womby lairs, +Time, space, all would I give--aye, upper spheres, + For a kiss from thee! + + + +CARDINAL BEMBO'S EPITAPH ON RAPHAEL + + + +Here's one in whom Nature feared--faint at such vying - +Eclipse while he lived, and decease at his dying. + + + +"I HAVE LIVED WITH SHADES" + + + +I + +I have lived with shades so long, +And talked to them so oft, +Since forth from cot and croft +I went mankind among, + That sometimes they + In their dim style + Will pause awhile + To hear my say; + +II + +And take me by the hand, +And lead me through their rooms +In the To-be, where Dooms +Half-wove and shapeless stand: + And show from there + The dwindled dust + And rot and rust + Of things that were. + +III + +"Now turn," spake they to me +One day: "Look whence we came, +And signify his name +Who gazes thence at thee." - + --"Nor name nor race + Know I, or can," + I said, "Of man + So commonplace. + +IV + +"He moves me not at all; +I note no ray or jot +Of rareness in his lot, +Or star exceptional. + Into the dim + Dead throngs around + He'll sink, nor sound + Be left of him." + +V + +"Yet," said they, "his frail speech, +Hath accents pitched like thine - +Thy mould and his define +A likeness each to each - + But go! Deep pain + Alas, would be + His name to thee, + And told in vain!" + +Feb. 2, 1899. + + + +MEMORY AND I + + + +"O memory, where is now my youth, +Who used to say that life was truth?" + +"I saw him in a crumbled cot + Beneath a tottering tree; +That he as phantom lingers there + Is only known to me." + +"O Memory, where is now my joy, +Who lived with me in sweet employ?" + +"I saw him in gaunt gardens lone, + Where laughter used to be; +That he as phantom wanders there + Is known to none but me." + +"O Memory, where is now my hope, +Who charged with deeds my skill and scope?" + +"I saw her in a tomb of tomes, + Where dreams are wont to be; +That she as spectre haunteth there + Is only known to me." + +"O Memory, where is now my faith, +One time a champion, now a wraith?" + +"I saw her in a ravaged aisle, + Bowed down on bended knee; +That her poor ghost outflickers there + Is known to none but me." + +"O Memory, where is now my love, +That rayed me as a god above?" + +"I saw him by an ageing shape + Where beauty used to be; +That his fond phantom lingers there + Is only known to me." + + + +[GREEK TITLE] + + + +Long have I framed weak phantasies of Thee, + O Willer masked and dumb! + Who makest Life become, - +As though by labouring all-unknowingly, + Like one whom reveries numb. + +How much of consciousness informs Thy will + Thy biddings, as if blind, + Of death-inducing kind, +Nought shows to us ephemeral ones who fill + But moments in Thy mind. + +Perhaps Thy ancient rote-restricted ways + Thy ripening rule transcends; + That listless effort tends +To grow percipient with advance of days, + And with percipience mends. + +For, in unwonted purlieus, far and nigh, + At whiles or short or long, + May be discerned a wrong +Dying as of self-slaughter; whereat I + Would raise my voice in song. + + + +Footnotes: + +{1} The "Race" is the turbulent sea-area off the Bill of Portland, +where contrary tides meet. + +{2} Pronounce "Loddy." + +{3} On a lonely table-land above the Vale of Blackmore, between +High-Stoy and Bubb-Down hills, and commanding in clear weather views +that extend from the English to the Bristol Channel, stands a pillar, +apparently mediaeval, called Cross-and-Hand or Christ-in-Hand. Among +other stories of its origin a local tradition preserves the one here +given. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Poems of the Past and the Present, by Hardy + diff --git a/old/pmpst10.zip b/old/pmpst10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..363930b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/pmpst10.zip |