Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (928 page)

Blanked by such love, I stood as in a drowse,
And the slow moon edged from the upland nigh,
My sad thoughts moving thuswise: “I may house

And I may husband her, yet what am I
But licensed tyrant to this bonded pair?
Says Charity, Do as ye would be done by.” . . .

Hurling my iron to the bushes there,
I bade them stay. And, as if brain and breast
Were passive, they walked with me to the stair.

Inside the house none watched; and on we prest
Before a mirror, in whose gleam I read
Her beauty, his, — and mine own mien unblest;

Till at her room I turned. “Madam,” I said,
“Have you the wherewithal for this? Pray speak.
Love fills no cupboard. You’ll need daily bread.”

“We’ve nothing, sire,” said she; “and nothing seek.
‘Twere base in me to rob my lord unware;
Our hands will earn a pittance week by week.”

And next I saw she’d piled her raiment rare
Within the garde-robes, and her household purse,
Her jewels, and least lace of personal wear;

And stood in homespun. Now grown wholly hers,
I handed her the gold, her jewels all,
And him the choicest of her robes diverse.

“I’ll take you to the doorway in the wall,
And then adieu,” I to them. “Friends, withdraw.”
They did so; and she went — beyond recall.

And as I paused beneath the arch I saw
Their moonlit figures — slow, as in surprise -
Descend the slope, and vanish on the haw.

“‘Fool,’ some will say,” I thought. “But who is wise,
Save God alone, to weigh my reasons why?”
- “Hast thou struck home?” came with the boughs’ night-sighs.

It was my friend. “I have struck well. They fly,
But carry wounds that none can cicatrize.”
- “Not mortal?” said he. “Lingering — worse,” said I.

LEIPZIG

(1813)
Scene: The Master-tradesmen’s Parlour at the Old Ship Inn,
Casterbridge. Evening.

“Old Norbert with the flat blue cap —
   A German said to be -
Why let your pipe die on your lap,
   Your eyes blink absently?” -

- “Ah! . . . Well, I had thought till my cheek was wet
   Of my mother — her voice and mien
When she used to sing and pirouette,
   And touse the tambourine

“To the march that yon street-fiddler plies:
   She told me ‘twas the same
She’d heard from the trumpets, when the Allies
   Her city overcame.

“My father was one of the German Hussars,
   My mother of Leipzig; but he,
Long quartered here, fetched her at close of the wars,
   And a Wessex lad reared me.

“And as I grew up, again and again
   She’d tell, after trilling that air,
Of her youth, and the battles on Leipzig plain
   And of all that was suffered there! . . .

“ — ’Twas a time of alarms. Three Chiefs-at-arms
   Combined them to crush One,
And by numbers’ might, for in equal fight
   He stood the matched of none.

“Carl Schwarzenberg was of the plot,
   And Blucher, prompt and prow,
And Jean the Crown-Prince Bernadotte:
   Buonaparte was the foe.

“City and plain had felt his reign
   From the North to the Middle Sea,
And he’d now sat down in the noble town
   Of the King of Saxony.

“October’s deep dew its wet gossamer threw
   Upon Leipzig’s lawns, leaf-strewn,
Where lately each fair avenue
   Wrought shade for summer noon.

“To westward two dull rivers crept
   Through miles of marsh and slough,
Whereover a streak of whiteness swept -
   The Bridge of Lindenau.

“Hard by, in the City, the One, care-tossed,
   Gloomed over his shrunken power;
And without the walls the hemming host
   Waxed denser every hour.

“He had speech that night on the morrow’s designs
   With his chiefs by the bivouac fire,
While the belt of flames from the enemy’s lines
   Flared nigher him yet and nigher.

“Three sky-lights then from the girdling trine
   Told, ‘Ready!’ As they rose
Their flashes seemed his Judgment-Sign
   For bleeding Europe’s woes.

“‘Twas seen how the French watch-fires that night
   Glowed still and steadily;
And the Three rejoiced, for they read in the sight
   That the One disdained to flee . . .

“ — Five hundred guns began the affray
   On next day morn at nine;
Such mad and mangling cannon-play
   Had never torn human line.

“Around the town three battles beat,
   Contracting like a gin;
As nearer marched the million feet
   Of columns closing in.

“The first battle nighed on the low Southern side;
   The second by the Western way;
The nearing of the third on the North was heard:
  — The French held all at bay.

“Against the first band did the Emperor stand;
   Against the second stood Ney;
Marmont against the third gave the order-word:
  — Thus raged it throughout the day.

“Fifty thousand sturdy souls on those trampled plains and knolls,
   Who met the dawn hopefully,
And were lotted their shares in a quarrel not theirs,
   Dropt then in their agony.

“‘O,’ the old folks said, ‘ye Preachers stern!
   O so-called Christian time!
When will men’s swords to ploughshares turn?
   When come the promised prime?’ . . .

“ — The clash of horse and man which that day began,
   Closed not as evening wore;
And the morrow’s armies, rear and van,
   Still mustered more and more.

“From the City towers the Confederate Powers
   Were eyed in glittering lines,
And up from the vast a murmuring passed
   As from a wood of pines.

“‘‘Tis well to cover a feeble skill
   By numbers!’ scoffed He;
‘But give me a third of their strength, I’d fill
   Half Hell with their soldiery!’

“All that day raged the war they waged,
   And again dumb night held reign,
Save that ever upspread from the dark deathbed
   A miles-wide pant of pain.

“Hard had striven brave Ney, the true Bertrand,
   Victor, and Augereau,
Bold Poniatowski, and Lauriston,
   To stay their overthrow;

“But, as in the dream of one sick to death
   There comes a narrowing room
That pens him, body and limbs and breath,
   To wait a hideous doom,

“So to Napoleon, in the hush
   That held the town and towers
Through these dire nights, a creeping crush
   Seemed inborne with the hours.

“One road to the rearward, and but one,
   Did fitful Chance allow;
‘Twas where the Pleiss’ and Elster run -
   The Bridge of Lindenau.

“The nineteenth dawned. Down street and Platz
   The wasted French sank back,
Stretching long lines across the Flats
   And on the bridge-way track;

“When there surged on the sky an earthen wave,
   And stones, and men, as though
Some rebel churchyard crew updrave
   Their sepulchres from below.

“To Heaven is blown Bridge Lindenau;
   Wrecked regiments reel therefrom;
And rank and file in masses plough
   The sullen Elster-Strom.

“A gulf was Lindenau; and dead
   Were fifties, hundreds, tens;
And every current rippled red
   With Marshal’s blood and men’s.

“The smart Macdonald swam therein,
   And barely won the verge;
Bold Poniatowski plunged him in
   Never to re-emerge.

“Then stayed the strife. The remnants wound
   Their Rhineward way pell-mell;
And thus did Leipzig City sound
   An Empire’s passing bell;

“While in cavalcade, with band and blade,
   Came Marshals, Princes, Kings;
And the town was theirs . . . Ay, as simple maid,
   My mother saw these things!

“And whenever those notes in the street begin,
   I recall her, and that far scene,
And her acting of how the Allies marched in,
   And her touse of the tambourine!”

THE PEASANT’S CONFESSION

“Si le marechal Grouchy avait ete rejoint par l’officier que Napoleon lui avait expedie la veille a dix heures du soir, toute question eut disparu. Mais cet officier n’etait point parvenu a sa destination, ainsi que le marechal n’a cesse de l’affirmer toute sa vie, et il faut l’en croire, car autrement il n’aurait eu aucune raison pour hesiter. Cet officier avait-il ete pris? avait-il passe a l’ennemi? C’est ce qu’on a toujours ignore.”

- THIERS: Histoire de l’Empire. “Waterloo.”

Good Father! . . . ‘Twas an eve in middle June,
   And war was waged anew
By great Napoleon, who for years had strewn
   Men’s bones all Europe through.

Three nights ere this, with columned corps he’d crossed
   The Sambre at Charleroi,
To move on Brussels, where the English host
   Dallied in Parc and Bois.

The yestertide we’d heard the gloomy gun
   Growl through the long-sunned day
From Quatre-Bras and Ligny; till the dun
   Twilight suppressed the fray;

Albeit therein — as lated tongues bespoke -
   Brunswick’s high heart was drained,
And Prussia’s Line and Landwehr, though unbroke,
   Stood cornered and constrained.

And at next noon-time Grouchy slowly passed
   With thirty thousand men:
We hoped thenceforth no army, small or vast,
   Would trouble us again.

My hut lay deeply in a vale recessed,
   And never a soul seemed nigh
When, reassured at length, we went to rest -
   My children, wife, and I.

But what was this that broke our humble ease?
   What noise, above the rain,
Above the dripping of the poplar trees
   That smote along the pane?

- A call of mastery, bidding me arise,
   Compelled me to the door,
At which a horseman stood in martial guise -
   Splashed — sweating from every pore.

Had I seen Grouchy? Yes? Which track took he?
   Could I lead thither on? -
Fulfilment would ensure gold pieces three,
   Perchance more gifts anon.

“I bear the Emperor’s mandate,” then he said,
   ”Charging the Marshal straight
To strike between the double host ahead
   Ere they co-operate,

“Engaging Blucher till the Emperor put
   Lord Wellington to flight,
And next the Prussians. This to set afoot
   Is my emprise to-night.”

I joined him in the mist; but, pausing, sought
   To estimate his say.
Grouchy had made for Wavre; and yet, on thought,
   I did not lead that way.

I mused: “If Grouchy thus instructed be,
   The clash comes sheer hereon;
My farm is stript. While, as for pieces three,
   Money the French have none.

“Grouchy unwarned, moreo’er, the English win,
   And mine is left to me -
They buy, not borrow.” — Hence did I begin
   To lead him treacherously.

By Joidoigne, near to east, as we ondrew,
   Dawn pierced the humid air;
And eastward faced I with him, though I knew
   Never marched Grouchy there.

Near Ottignies we passed, across the Dyle
   (Lim’lette left far aside),
And thence direct toward Pervez and Noville
   Through green grain, till he cried:

“I doubt thy conduct, man! no track is here -
   I doubt thy gaged word!”
Thereat he scowled on me, and pranced me near,
   And pricked me with his sword.

“Nay, Captain, hold! We skirt, not trace the course
   Of Grouchy,” said I then:
“As we go, yonder went he, with his force
   Of thirty thousand men.”

- At length noon nighed; when west, from Saint-John’s-Mound,
   A hoarse artillery boomed,
And from Saint-Lambert’s upland, chapel-crowned,
   The Prussian squadrons loomed.

Then to the wayless wet gray ground he leapt;
   ”My mission fails!” he cried;
“Too late for Grouchy now to intercept,
   For, peasant, you have lied!”

He turned to pistol me. I sprang, and drew
   The sabre from his flank,
And ‘twixt his nape and shoulder, ere he knew,
   I struck, and dead he sank.

I hid him deep in nodding rye and oat -
   His shroud green stalks and loam;
His requiem the corn-blade’s husky note -
   And then I hastened home, . . .

- Two armies writhe in coils of red and blue,
   And brass and iron clang
From Goumont, past the front of Waterloo,
   To Pap’lotte and Smohain.

The Guard Imperial wavered on the height;
   The Emperor’s face grew glum;
“I sent,” he said, “to Grouchy yesternight,
   And yet he does not come!”

‘Twas then, Good Father, that the French espied,
   Streaking the summer land,
The men of Blucher. But the Emperor cried,
   ”Grouchy is now at hand!”

And meanwhile Vand’leur, Vivian, Maitland, Kempt,
   Met d’Erlon, Friant, Ney;
But Grouchy — mis-sent, blamed, yet blame-exempt -
   Grouchy was far away.

By even, slain or struck, Michel the strong,
   Bold Travers, Dnop, Delord,
Smart Guyot, Reil-le, l’Heriter, Friant,
   Scattered that champaign o’er.

Fallen likewise wronged Duhesme, and skilled Lobau
   Did that red sunset see;
Colbert, Legros, Blancard! . . . And of the foe
   Picton and Ponsonby;

With Gordon, Canning, Blackman, Ompteda,
   L’Estrange, Delancey, Packe,
Grose, D’Oyly, Stables, Morice, Howard, Hay,
   Von Schwerin, Watzdorf, Boek,

Smith, Phelips, Fuller, Lind, and Battersby,
   And hosts of ranksmen round . . .
Memorials linger yet to speak to thee
   Of those that bit the ground!