Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (931 page)

I said: “My days are lonely here;
   I need thy smile alway:
I’ll use this night my ball or blade,
   And join thee ere the day.”

A tremor stirred her tender lips,
   Which parted to dissuade:
“That cannot be, O friend,” she cried;
   ”Think, I am but a Shade!

“A Shade but in its mindful ones
   Has immortality;
By living, me you keep alive,
   By dying you slay me.

“In you resides my single power
   Of sweet continuance here;
On your fidelity I count
   Through many a coming year.”

- I started through me at her plight,
   So suddenly confessed:
Dismissing late distaste for life,
   I craved its bleak unrest.

“I will not die, my One of all! -
   To lengthen out thy days
I’ll guard me from minutest harms
   That may invest my ways!”

She smiled and went. Since then she comes
   Oft when her birth-moon climbs,
Or at the seasons’ ingresses
   Or anniversary times;

But grows my grief. When I surcease,
   Through whom alone lives she,
Ceases my Love, her words, her ways,
   Never again to be!

THE IVY-WIFE

I longed to love a full-boughed beech
   And be as high as he:
I stretched an arm within his reach,
   And signalled unity.
But with his drip he forced a breach,
   And tried to poison me.

I gave the grasp of partnership
   To one of other race —
A plane: he barked him strip by strip
   From upper bough to base;
And me therewith; for gone my grip,
   My arms could not enlace.

In new affection next I strove
   To coll an ash I saw,
And he in trust received my love;
   Till with my soft green claw
I cramped and bound him as I wove . . .
   Such was my love: ha-ha!

By this I gained his strength and height
   Without his rivalry.
But in my triumph I lost sight
   Of afterhaps. Soon he,
Being bark-bound, flagged, snapped, fell outright,
   And in his fall felled me!

A MEETING WITH DESPAIR

As evening shaped I found me on a moor
   Which sight could scarce sustain:
The black lean land, of featureless contour,
   Was like a tract in pain.

“This scene, like my own life,” I said, “is one
   Where many glooms abide;
Toned by its fortune to a deadly dun -
   Lightless on every side.

I glanced aloft and halted, pleasure-caught
   To see the contrast there:
The ray-lit clouds gleamed glory; and I thought,
   ”There’s solace everywhere!”

Then bitter self-reproaches as I stood
   I dealt me silently
As one perverse — misrepresenting Good
   In graceless mutiny.

Against the horizon’s dim-discerned wheel
   A form rose, strange of mould:
That he was hideous, hopeless, I could feel
   Rather than could behold.

“‘Tis a dead spot, where even the light lies spent
   To darkness!” croaked the Thing.
“Not if you look aloft!” said I, intent
   On my new reasoning.

 ”Yea — but await awhile!” he cried. “Ho-ho! -
   Look now aloft and see!”
I looked. There, too, sat night: Heaven’s radiant show
   Had gone. Then chuckled he.

UNKNOWING

When, soul in soul reflected,
We breathed an aethered air,
   When we neglected
   All things elsewhere,
And left the friendly friendless
To keep our love aglow,
   We deemed it endless . . .
  — We did not know!

When, by mad passion goaded,
We planned to hie away,
   But, unforeboded,
   The storm-shafts gray
So heavily down-pattered
That none could forthward go,
   Our lives seemed shattered . . .
  — We did not know!

When I found you, helpless lying,
And you waived my deep misprise,
   And swore me, dying,
   In phantom-guise
To wing to me when grieving,
And touch away my woe,
   We kissed, believing . . .
  — We did not know!

But though, your powers outreckoning,
You hold you dead and dumb,
   Or scorn my beckoning,
   And will not come;
And I say, “‘Twere mood ungainly
To store her memory so:”
   I say it vainly -
   I feel and know!

FRIENDS BEYOND

William Dewy, Tranter Reuben, Farmer Ledlow late at plough,
   Robert’s kin, and John’s, and Ned’s,
And the Squire, and Lady Susan, lie in Mellstock churchyard now!

“Gone,” I call them, gone for good, that group of local hearts and
heads;
   Yet at mothy curfew-tide,
And at midnight when the noon-heat breathes it back from walls and
leads,

They’ve a way of whispering to me — fellow-wight who yet abide -
   In the muted, measured note
Of a ripple under archways, or a lone cave’s stillicide:

“We have triumphed: this achievement turns the bane to antidote,
   Unsuccesses to success,
- Many thought-worn eves and morrows to a morrow free of thought.

“No more need we corn and clothing, feel of old terrestrial stress;
   Chill detraction stirs no sigh;
Fear of death has even bygone us: death gave all that we possess.”

W. D. — ”Ye mid burn the wold bass-viol that I set such vallie by.”
   Squire. — ”You may hold the manse in fee,
You may wed my spouse, my children’s memory of me may decry.”

Lady. — ”You may have my rich brocades, my laces; take each household
key;
   Ransack coffer, desk, bureau;
Quiz the few poor treasures hid there, con the letters kept by me.”

Far. — ”Ye mid zell my favourite heifer, ye mid let the charlock grow,
   Foul the grinterns, give up thrift.”
Wife. — ”If ye break my best blue china, children, I shan’t care or
ho.”

All. — ”We’ve no wish to hear the tidings, how the people’s fortunes
shift;
   What your daily doings are;
Who are wedded, born, divided; if your lives beat slow or swift.

“Curious not the least are we if our intents you make or mar,
   If you quire to our old tune,
If the City stage still passes, if the weirs still roar afar.”

- Thus, with very gods’ composure, freed those crosses late and soon
   Which, in life, the Trine allow
(Why, none witteth), and ignoring all that haps beneath the moon,

William Dewy, Tranter Reuben, Farmer Ledlow late at plough,
   Robert’s kin, and John’s, and Ned’s,
And the Squire, and Lady Susan, murmur mildly to me now.

TO OUTER NATURE

Show thee as I thought thee
When I early sought thee,
   Omen-scouting,
   All undoubting
Love alone had wrought thee -

Wrought thee for my pleasure,
Planned thee as a measure
   For expounding
   And resounding
Glad things that men treasure.

O for but a moment
Of that old endowment -
   Light to gaily
   See thy daily
Irised embowment!

But such re-adorning
Time forbids with scorning -
   Makes me see things
   Cease to be things
They were in my morning.

Fad’st thou, glow-forsaken,
Darkness-overtaken!
   Thy first sweetness,
   Radiance, meetness,
None shall re-awaken.

Why not sempiternal
Thou and I? Our vernal
   Brightness keeping,
   Time outleaping;
Passed the hodiernal!

THOUGHTS OF PHENA AT NEWS OF HER DEATH

      Not a line of her writing have I,
         Not a thread of her hair,
No mark of her late time as dame in her dwelling, whereby
      I may picture her there;
   And in vain do I urge my unsight
      To conceive my lost prize
At her close, whom I knew when her dreams were upbrimming with light,
      And with laughter her eyes.

      What scenes spread around her last days,
         Sad, shining, or dim?
Did her gifts and compassions enray and enarch her sweet ways
      With an aureate nimb?
   Or did life-light decline from her years,
      And mischances control
Her full day-star; unease, or regret, or forebodings, or fears
      Disennoble her soul?

      Thus I do but the phantom retain
         Of the maiden of yore
As my relic; yet haply the best of her — fined in my brain
      It maybe the more
   That no line of her writing have I,
      Nor a thread of her hair,
No mark of her late time as dame in her dwelling, whereby
      I may picture her there.

March 1890.

MIDDLE-AGE ENTHUSIASMS

To M. H.

   We passed where flag and flower
   Signalled a jocund throng;
   We said: “Go to, the hour
   Is apt!” — and joined the song;
And, kindling, laughed at life and care,
Although we knew no laugh lay there.

   We walked where shy birds stood
   Watching us, wonder-dumb;
   Their friendship met our mood;
   We cried: “We’ll often come:
We’ll come morn, noon, eve, everywhen!”
- We doubted we should come again.

   We joyed to see strange sheens
   Leap from quaint leaves in shade;
   A secret light of greens
   They’d for their pleasure made.
We said: “We’ll set such sorts as these!”
- We knew with night the wish would cease.

   ”So sweet the place,” we said,
   ”Its tacit tales so dear,
   Our thoughts, when breath has sped,
   Will meet and mingle here!” . . .
“Words!” mused we. “Passed the mortal door,
Our thoughts will reach this nook no more.”

IN A WOOD

See “THE WOODLANDERS”

Pale beech and pine-tree blue,
   Set in one clay,
Bough to bough cannot you
   Bide out your day?
When the rains skim and skip,
Why mar sweet comradeship,
Blighting with poison-drip
   Neighbourly spray?

Heart-halt and spirit-lame,
   City-opprest,
Unto this wood I came
   As to a nest;
Dreaming that sylvan peace
Offered the harrowed ease —
Nature a soft release
   From men’s unrest.

But, having entered in,
   Great growths and small
Show them to men akin -
   Combatants all!
Sycamore shoulders oak,
Bines the slim sapling yoke,
Ivy-spun halters choke
   Elms stout and tall.

Touches from ash, O wych,
   Sting you like scorn!
You, too, brave hollies, twitch
   Sidelong from thorn.
Even the rank poplars bear
Illy a rival’s air,
Cankering in black despair
   If overborne.

Since, then, no grace I find
   Taught me of trees,
Turn I back to my kind,
   Worthy as these.
There at least smiles abound,
There discourse trills around,
There, now and then, are found
   Life-loyalties.

1887: 1896.

TO A LADY OFFENDED BY A BOOK OF THE WRITER’S

Now that my page upcloses, doomed, maybe,
Never to press thy cosy cushions more,
Or wake thy ready Yeas as heretofore,
Or stir thy gentle vows of faith in me:

Knowing thy natural receptivity,
I figure that, as flambeaux banish eve,
My sombre image, warped by insidious heave
Of those less forthright, must lose place in thee.

So be it. I have borne such. Let thy dreams
Of me and mine diminish day by day,
And yield their space to shine of smugger things;
Till I shape to thee but in fitful gleams,
And then in far and feeble visitings,
And then surcease. Truth will be truth alway.

TO AN ORPHAN CHILD A WHIMSEY

Ah, child, thou art but half thy darling mother’s;
   Hers couldst thou wholly be,
My light in thee would outglow all in others;
   She would relive to me.
But niggard Nature’s trick of birth
   Bars, lest she overjoy,
Renewal of the loved on earth
      Save with alloy.

The Dame has no regard, alas, my maiden,
   For love and loss like mine -
No sympathy with mind-sight memory-laden;
   Only with fickle eyne.
To her mechanic artistry
   My dreams are all unknown,
And why I wish that thou couldst be
      But One’s alone!

NATURE’S QUESTIONING

   When I look forth at dawning, pool,
      Field, flock, and lonely tree,
      All seem to gaze at me
Like chastened children sitting silent in a school;

   Their faces dulled, constrained, and worn,
      As though the master’s ways
      Through the long teaching days
Their first terrestrial zest had chilled and overborne.

   And on them stirs, in lippings mere
      (As if once clear in call,
      But now scarce breathed at all) -
“We wonder, ever wonder, why we find us here!

   ”Has some Vast Imbecility,
      Mighty to build and blend,
      But impotent to tend,
Framed us in jest, and left us now to hazardry?

   ”Or come we of an Automaton
      Unconscious of our pains? . . .
      Or are we live remains
Of Godhead dying downwards, brain and eye now gone?

   ”Or is it that some high Plan betides,
      As yet not understood,
      Of Evil stormed by Good,
We the Forlorn Hope over which Achievement strides?”

   Thus things around. No answerer I . . .
      Meanwhile the winds, and rains,
      And Earth’s old glooms and pains
Are still the same, and gladdest Life Death neighbours nigh.

THE IMPERCIPIENT (AT A CATHEDRAL SERVICE)

That from this bright believing band
   An outcast I should be,
That faiths by which my comrades stand
   Seem fantasies to me,
And mirage-mists their Shining Land,
   Is a drear destiny.