Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (981 page)

What, then, was there to tell us
   The flux of flustering hours
Of their own tide would bring us
   By no device of ours
To where the daysprings well us
   Heart-hydromels that cheer,
Till Time enearth and swing us
   Round with the turning sphere.

AT THE RAILWAY STATION, UPWAY

   ”There is not much that I can do,
For I’ve no money that’s quite my own!”
   Spoke up the pitying child -
A little boy with a violin
At the station before the train came in, -
“But I can play my fiddle to you,
And a nice one ‘tis, and good in tone!”

   The man in the handcuffs smiled;
The constable looked, and he smiled, too,
   As the fiddle began to twang;
And the man in the handcuffs suddenly sang
      Uproariously:
      ”This life so free
      Is the thing for me!”
And the constable smiled, and said no word,
As if unconscious of what he heard;
And so they went on till the train came in -
The convict, and boy with the violin.

SIDE BY SIDE

So there sat they,
The estranged two,
Thrust in one pew
By chance that day;
Placed so, breath-nigh,
Each comer unwitting
Who was to be sitting
In touch close by.

Thus side by side
Blindly alighted,
They seemed united
As groom and bride,
Who’d not communed
For many years -
Lives from twain spheres
With hearts distuned.

Her fringes brushed
His garment’s hem
As the harmonies rushed
Through each of them:
Her lips could be heard
In the creed and psalms,
And their fingers neared
At the giving of alms.

And women and men,
The matins ended,
By looks commended
Them, joined again.
Quickly said she,
“Don’t undeceive them -
Better thus leave them:”
“Quite so,” said he.

Slight words! - the last
Between them said,
Those two, once wed,
Who had not stood fast.
Diverse their ways
From the western door,
To meet no more
In their span of days.

DREAM OF THE CITY SHOPWOMAN

‘Twere sweet to have a comrade here,
Who’d vow to love this garreteer,
By city people’s snap and sneer
      Tried oft and hard!

We’d rove a truant cock and hen
To some snug solitary glen,
And never be seen to haunt again
      This teeming yard.

Within a cot of thatch and clay
We’d list the flitting pipers play,
Our lives a twine of good and gay
      Enwreathed discreetly;

Our blithest deeds so neighbouring wise
That doves should coo in soft surprise,
“These must belong to Paradise
      Who live so sweetly.”

Our clock should be the closing flowers,
Our sprinkle-bath the passing showers,
Our church the alleyed willow bowers,
      The truth our theme;

And infant shapes might soon abound:
Their shining heads would dot us round
Like mushroom balls on grassy ground . . .
      - But all is dream!

O God, that creatures framed to feel
A yearning nature’s strong appeal
Should writhe on this eternal wheel
      In rayless grime;

And vainly note, with wan regret,
Each star of early promise set;
Till Death relieves, and they forget
      Their one Life’s time!

WESTBOURNE PARK VILLAS, 1866.

A MAIDEN’S PLEDGE

(SONG)

I do not wish to win your vow
To take me soon or late as bride,
And lift me from the nook where now
I tarry your farings to my side.
I am blissful ever to abide
In this green labyrinth - let all be,
If but, whatever may betide,
You do not leave off loving me!

Your comet-comings I will wait
With patience time shall not wear through;
The yellowing years will not abate
My largened love and truth to you,
Nor drive me to complaint undue
Of absence, much as I may pine,
If never another ‘twixt us two
Shall come, and you stand wholly mine.

THE CHILD AND THE SAGE

You say, O Sage, when weather-checked,
   ”I have been favoured so
With cloudless skies, I must expect
   This dash of rain or snow.”

“Since health has been my lot,” you say,
   ”So many months of late,
I must not chafe that one short day
   Of sickness mars my state.”

You say, “Such bliss has been my share
   From Love’s unbroken smile,
It is but reason I should bear
   A cross therein awhile.”

And thus you do not count upon
   Continuance of joy;
But, when at ease, expect anon
   A burden of annoy.

But, Sage - this Earth - why not a place
   Where no reprisals reign,
Where never a spell of pleasantness
   Makes reasonable a pain?

December
21, 1908.

MISMET

I

   He was leaning by a face,
   He was looking into eyes,
   And he knew a trysting-place,
   And he heard seductive sighs;
      But the face,
      And the eyes,
      And the place,
      And the sighs,
Were not, alas, the right ones - the ones meet for him -
Though fine and sweet the features, and the feelings all abrim.

II

   She was looking at a form,
   She was listening for a tread,
   She could feel a waft of charm
   When a certain name was said;
      But the form,
      And the tread,
      And the charm
      Of name said,
Were the wrong ones for her, and ever would be so,
While the heritor of the right it would have saved her soul to know!

AN AUTUMN RAIN-SCENE

There trudges one to a merry-making
      With a sturdy swing,
   On whom the rain comes down.

To fetch the saving medicament
      Is another bent,
   On whom the rain comes down.

One slowly drives his herd to the stall
      Ere ill befall,
   On whom the rain comes down.

This bears his missives of life and death
      With quickening breath,
   On whom the rain comes down.

One watches for signals of wreck or war
      From the hill afar,
   On whom the rain comes down.

No care if he gain a shelter or none,
      Unhired moves one,
   On whom the rain comes down.

And another knows nought of its chilling fall
      Upon him at all,
   On whom the rain comes down.

October
1904.

MEDITATIONS ON A HOLIDAY

(A NEW THEME TO AN OLD FOLK-JINGLE)

‘Tis May morning,
All-adorning,
No cloud warning
   Of rain to-day.
Where shall I go to,
Go to, go to? -
Can I say No to
   Lyonnesse-way?

Well - what reason
Now at this season
Is there for treason
   To other shrines?
Tristram is not there,
Isolt forgot there,
New eras blot there
   Sought-for signs!

Stratford-on-Avon -
Poesy-paven -
I’ll find a haven
   There, somehow!
-
Nay - I’m but caught of
Dreams long thought of,
The Swan knows nought of
   His Avon now!

What shall it be, then,
I go to see, then,
Under the plea, then,
   Of votary?
I’ll go to Lakeland,
Lakeland, Lakeland,
Certainly Lakeland
   Let it be.

But - why to that place,
That place, that place,
Such a hard come-at place
   Need I fare?
When its bard cheers no more,
Loves no more, fears no more,
Sees no more, hears no more
   Anything there!

Ah, there is Scotland,
Burns’s Scotland,
And Waverley’s.  To what land
   Better can I hie?
-
Yet - if no whit now
Feel those of it now -
Care not a bit now
   For it - why I?

I’ll seek a town street,
Aye, a brick-brown street,
Quite a tumbledown street,
   Drawing no eyes.
For a Mary dwelt there,
And a Percy felt there
Heart of him melt there,
   A Claire likewise.

Why incline to
that
city,
Such a city,
that
city,
Now a mud-bespat city! -
   Care the lovers who
Now live and walk there,
Sit there and talk there,
Buy there, or hawk there,
   Or wed, or woo?

Laughters in a volley
Greet so fond a folly
As nursing melancholy
   In this and that spot,
Which, with most endeavour,
Those can visit never,
But for ever and ever
   Will now know not!

If, on lawns Elysian,
With a broadened vision
And a faint derision
   Conscious be they,
How they might reprove me
That these fancies move me,
Think they ill behoove me,
   Smile, and say:

“What! - our hoar old houses,
Where the past dead-drowses,
Nor a child nor spouse is
   Of our name at all?
Such abodes to care for,
Inquire about and bear for,
And suffer wear and tear for -
   How weak of you and small!”

May
1921.

AN EXPERIENCE

Wit, weight, or wealth there was not
   In anything that was said,
   In anything that was done;
All was of scope to cause not
   A triumph, dazzle, or dread
   To even the subtlest one,
      My friend,
   To even the subtlest one.

But there was a new afflation -
   An aura zephyring round,
   That care infected not:
It came as a salutation,
   And, in my sweet astound,
   I scarcely witted what
      Might pend,
   I scarcely witted what.

The hills in samewise to me
   Spoke, as they grayly gazed,
   - First hills to speak so yet!
The thin-edged breezes blew me
   What I, though cobwebbed, crazed,
   Was never to forget,
   My friend,
   Was never to forget!

THE BEAUTY

O do not praise my beauty more,
   In such word-wild degree,
And say I am one all eyes adore;
   For these things harass me!

But do for ever softly say:
   ”From now unto the end
Come weal, come wanzing, come what may,
   Dear, I will be your friend.”

I hate my beauty in the glass:
   My beauty is not I:
I wear it: none cares whether, alas,
   Its wearer live or die!

The inner I O care for, then,
   Yea, me and what I am,
And shall be at the gray hour when
   My cheek begins to clam.

Note
. - “The Regent Street beauty, Miss Verrey, the Swiss confectioner’s daughter, whose personal attractions have been so mischievously exaggerated, died of fever on Monday evening, brought on by the annoyance she had been for some time subject to.” - London paper, October 1828.

THE COLLECTOR CLEANS HIS PICTURE

Fili hominis, ecce ego tollo a te desiderabile oculorum tuorom in plaga. - EZECH. xxiv. 16.

   How I remember cleaning that strange picture!
I had been deep in duty for my sick neighbour -
His besides my own - over several Sundays,
Often, too, in the week; so with parish pressures,
Baptisms, burials, doctorings, conjugal counsel -
All the whatnots asked of a rural parson -
Faith, I was well-nigh broken, should have been fully
Saving for one small secret relaxation,
One that in mounting manhood had grown my hobby.

   This was to delve at whiles for easel-lumber,
Stowed in the backmost slums of a soon-reached city,
Merely on chance to uncloak some worthy canvas,
Panel, or plaque, blacked blind by uncouth adventure,
Yet under all concealing a precious art-feat.
Such I had found not yet.  My latest capture
Came from the rooms of a trader in ancient house-gear
Who had no scent of beauty or soul for brushcraft.
Only a tittle cost it - murked with grime-films,
Gatherings of slow years, thick-varnished over,
Never a feature manifest of man’s painting.

   So, one Saturday, time ticking hard on midnight
Ere an hour subserved, I set me upon it.
Long with coiled-up sleeves I cleaned and yet cleaned,
Till a first fresh spot, a high light, looked forth,
Then another, like fair flesh, and another;
Then a curve, a nostril, and next a finger,
Tapering, shapely, significantly pointing slantwise.
“Flemish?” I said. “Nay, Spanish . . . But, nay, Italian!”
- Then meseemed it the guise of the ranker Venus,
Named of some Astarte, of some Cotytto.
Down I knelt before it and kissed the panel,
Drunk with the lure of love’s inhibited dreamings.

   Till the dawn I rubbed, when there gazed up at me
A hag, that had slowly emerged from under my hands there,
Pointing the slanted finger towards a bosom
Eaten away of a rot from the lusts of a lifetime . . .
- I could have ended myself in heart-shook horror.
Stunned I sat till roused by a clear-voiced bell-chime,
Fresh and sweet as the dew-fleece under my luthern.
It was the matin service calling to me
From the adjacent steeple.

THE WOOD FIRE

(A FRAGMENT)

“This is a brightsome blaze you’ve lit good friend, to-night!”
“ - Aye, it has been the bleakest spring I have felt for years,
And nought compares with cloven logs to keep alight:
I buy them bargain-cheap of the executioners,
As I dwell near; and they wanted the crosses out of sight
By Passover, not to affront the eyes of visitors.

“Yes, they’re from the crucifixions last week-ending
At Kranion.  We can sometimes use the poles again,
But they get split by the nails, and ‘tis quicker work than mending
To knock together new; though the uprights now and then
Serve twice when they’re let stand.  But if a feast’s impending,
As lately, you’ve to tidy up for the corners’ ken.