Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (932 page)

Why thus my soul should be consigned
   To infelicity,
Why always I must feel as blind
   To sights my brethren see,
Why joys they’ve found I cannot find,
   Abides a mystery.

Since heart of mine knows not that ease
   Which they know; since it be
That He who breathes All’s Well to these
   Breathes no All’s-Well to me,
My lack might move their sympathies
   And Christian charity!

I am like a gazer who should mark
   An inland company
Standing upfingered, with, “Hark! hark!
   The glorious distant sea!”
And feel, “Alas, ‘tis but yon dark
   And wind-swept pine to me!”

Yet I would bear my shortcomings
   With meet tranquillity,
But for the charge that blessed things
   I’d liefer have unbe.
O, doth a bird deprived of wings
   Go earth-bound wilfully!

* * *

Enough. As yet disquiet clings
   About us. Rest shall we.

AT AN INN

When we as strangers sought
   Their catering care,
Veiled smiles bespoke their thought
   Of what we were.
They warmed as they opined
   Us more than friends -
That we had all resigned
   For love’s dear ends.

And that swift sympathy
   With living love
Which quicks the world — maybe
   The spheres above,
Made them our ministers,
   Moved them to say,
“Ah, God, that bliss like theirs
   Would flush our day!”

And we were left alone
   As Love’s own pair;
Yet never the love-light shone
   Between us there!
But that which chilled the breath
   Of afternoon,
And palsied unto death
   The pane-fly’s tune.

The kiss their zeal foretold,
   And now deemed come,
Came not: within his hold
   Love lingered-numb.
Why cast he on our port
   A bloom not ours?
Why shaped us for his sport
   In after-hours?

As we seemed we were not
   That day afar,
And now we seem not what
   We aching are.
O severing sea and land,
   O laws of men,
Ere death, once let us stand
   As we stood then!

THE SLOW NATURE (AN INCIDENT OF FROOM VALLEY)

“Thy husband — poor, poor Heart! — is dead —
   Dead, out by Moreford Rise;
A bull escaped the barton-shed,
   Gored him, and there he lies!”

- “Ha, ha — go away! ‘Tis a tale, methink,
   Thou joker Kit!” laughed she.
“I’ve known thee many a year, Kit Twink,
   And ever hast thou fooled me!”

- “But, Mistress Damon — I can swear
   Thy goodman John is dead!
And soon th’lt hear their feet who bear
   His body to his bed.”

So unwontedly sad was the merry man’s face -
   That face which had long deceived -
That she gazed and gazed; and then could trace
   The truth there; and she believed.

She laid a hand on the dresser-ledge,
   And scanned far Egdon-side;
And stood; and you heard the wind-swept sedge
   And the rippling Froom; till she cried:

“O my chamber’s untidied, unmade my bed
   Though the day has begun to wear!
‘What a slovenly hussif!’ it will be said,
   When they all go up my stair!”

She disappeared; and the joker stood
   Depressed by his neighbour’s doom,
And amazed that a wife struck to widowhood
   Thought first of her unkempt room.

But a fortnight thence she could take no food,
   And she pined in a slow decay;
While Kit soon lost his mournful mood
   And laughed in his ancient way.

1894.

IN A EWELEAZE NEAR WEATHERBURY

The years have gathered grayly
   Since I danced upon this leaze
With one who kindled gaily
   Love’s fitful ecstasies!
But despite the term as teacher,
   I remain what I was then
In each essential feature
   Of the fantasies of men.

Yet I note the little chisel
   Of never-napping Time,
Defacing ghast and grizzel
   The blazon of my prime.
When at night he thinks me sleeping,
   I feel him boring sly
Within my bones, and heaping
   Quaintest pains for by-and-by.

Still, I’d go the world with Beauty,
   I would laugh with her and sing,
I would shun divinest duty
   To resume her worshipping.
But she’d scorn my brave endeavour,
   She would not balm the breeze
By murmuring “Thine for ever!”
   As she did upon this leaze.

1890.

THE FIRE AT TRANTER SWEATLEY’S

They had long met o’ Zundays — her true love and she -
   And at junketings, maypoles, and flings;
But she bode wi’ a thirtover uncle, and he
Swore by noon and by night that her goodman should be
Naibour Sweatley — a gaffer oft weak at the knee
From taking o’ sommat more cheerful than tea -
   Who tranted, and moved people’s things.

She cried, “O pray pity me!” Nought would he hear;
   Then with wild rainy eyes she obeyed.
She chid when her Love was for clinking off wi’ her.
The pa’son was told, as the season drew near
To throw over pu’pit the names of the peair
   As fitting one flesh to be made.

The wedding-day dawned and the morning drew on;
   The couple stood bridegroom and bride;
The evening was passed, and when midnight had gone
The folks horned out, “God save the King,” and anon
   The two home-along gloomily hied.

The lover Tim Tankens mourned heart-sick and drear
   To be thus of his darling deprived:
He roamed in the dark ath’art field, mound, and mere,
And, a’most without knowing it, found himself near
The house of the tranter, and now of his Dear,
   Where the lantern-light showed ‘em arrived.

The bride sought her cham’er so calm and so pale
   That a Northern had thought her resigned;
But to eyes that had seen her in tide-times of weal,
Like the white cloud o’ smoke, the red battle-field’s vail,
   That look spak’ of havoc behind.

The bridegroom yet laitered a beaker to drain,
   Then reeled to the linhay for more,
When the candle-snoff kindled some chaff from his grain -
Flames spread, and red vlankers, wi’ might and wi’ main,
   And round beams, thatch, and chimley-tun roar.

Young Tim away yond, rafted up by the light,
   Through brimble and underwood tears,
Till he comes to the orchet, when crooping thereright
In the lewth of a codlin-tree, bivering wi’ fright,
Wi’ on’y her night-rail to screen her from sight,
   His lonesome young Barbree appears.

Her cwold little figure half-naked he views
   Played about by the frolicsome breeze,
Her light-tripping totties, her ten little tooes,
All bare and besprinkled wi’ Fall’s chilly dews,
While her great gallied eyes, through her hair hanging loose,
   Sheened as stars through a tardle o’ trees.

She eyed en; and, as when a weir-hatch is drawn,
   Her tears, penned by terror afore,
With a rushing of sobs in a shower were strawn,
Till her power to pour ‘em seemed wasted and gone
   From the heft o’ misfortune she bore.

“O Tim, my OWN Tim I must call ‘ee — I will!
   All the world ha’ turned round on me so!
Can you help her who loved ‘ee, though acting so ill?
Can you pity her misery — feel for her still?
When worse than her body so quivering and chill
   Is her heart in its winter o’ woe!

“I think I mid almost ha’ borne it,” she said,
   ”Had my griefs one by one come to hand;
But O, to be slave to thik husbird for bread,
And then, upon top o’ that, driven to wed,
And then, upon top o’ that, burnt out o’ bed,
   Is more than my nater can stand!”

Tim’s soul like a lion ‘ithin en outsprung -
(Tim had a great soul when his feelings were wrung) —
   ”Feel for ‘ee, dear Barbree?” he cried;
And his warm working-jacket about her he flung,
Made a back, horsed her up, till behind him she clung
Like a chiel on a gipsy, her figure uphung
   By the sleeves that around her he tied.

Over piggeries, and mixens, and apples, and hay,
   They lumpered straight into the night;
And finding bylong where a halter-path lay,
At dawn reached Tim’s house, on’y seen on their way
By a naibour or two who were up wi’ the day;
   But they gathered no clue to the sight.

Then tender Tim Tankens he searched here and there
   For some garment to clothe her fair skin;
But though he had breeches and waistcoats to spare,
He had nothing quite seemly for Barbree to wear,
Who, half shrammed to death, stood and cried on a chair
   At the caddle she found herself in.

There was one thing to do, and that one thing he did,
   He lent her some clouts of his own,
And she took ‘em perforce; and while in ‘em she slid,
Tim turned to the winder, as modesty bid,
Thinking, “O that the picter my duty keeps hid
   To the sight o’ my eyes mid be shown!”

In the tallet he stowed her; there huddied she lay,
   Shortening sleeves, legs, and tails to her limbs;
But most o’ the time in a mortal bad way,
Well knowing that there’d be the divel to pay
If ‘twere found that, instead o’ the elements’ prey,
   She was living in lodgings at Tim’s.

“Where’s the tranter?” said men and boys; “where can er be?”
   ”Where’s the tranter?” said Barbree alone.
“Where on e’th is the tranter?” said everybod-y:
They sifted the dust of his perished roof-tree,
   And all they could find was a bone.

Then the uncle cried, “Lord, pray have mercy on me!”
   And in terror began to repent.
But before ‘twas complete, and till sure she was free,
Barbree drew up her loft-ladder, tight turned her key -
Tim bringing up breakfast and dinner and tea -
   Till the news of her hiding got vent.

Then followed the custom-kept rout, shout, and flare
Of a skimmington-ride through the naibourhood, ere
   Folk had proof o’ wold Sweatley’s decay.
Whereupon decent people all stood in a stare,
Saying Tim and his lodger should risk it, and pair:
So he took her to church. An’ some laughing lads there
Cried to Tim, “After Sweatley!” She said, “I declare
   I stand as a maiden to-day!”

Written 1866; printed 1875.

HEIRESS AND ARCHITECT FOR A. W. B.

She sought the Studios, beckoning to her side
An arch-designer, for she planned to build.
He was of wise contrivance, deeply skilled
In every intervolve of high and wide -
   Well fit to be her guide.

      ”Whatever it be,”
      Responded he,
With cold, clear voice, and cold, clear view,
“In true accord with prudent fashionings
For such vicissitudes as living brings,
And thwarting not the law of stable things,
   That will I do.”

“Shape me,” she said, “high halls with tracery
And open ogive-work, that scent and hue
Of buds, and travelling bees, may come in through,
The note of birds, and singings of the sea,
   For these are much to me.”

   ”An idle whim!”
   Broke forth from him
Whom nought could warm to gallantries:
“Cede all these buds and birds, the zephyr’s call,
And scents, and hues, and things that falter all,
And choose as best the close and surly wall,
   For winters freeze.”

“Then frame,” she cried, “wide fronts of crystal glass,
That I may show my laughter and my light -
Light like the sun’s by day, the stars’ by night -
Till rival heart-queens, envying, wail, ‘Alas,
   Her glory!’ as they pass.”

   ”O maid misled!”
   He sternly said,
Whose facile foresight pierced her dire;
“Where shall abide the soul when, sick of glee,
It shrinks, and hides, and prays no eye may see?
Those house them best who house for secrecy,
   For you will tire.”

“A little chamber, then, with swan and dove
Ranged thickly, and engrailed with rare device
Of reds and purples, for a Paradise
Wherein my Love may greet me, I my Love,
   When he shall know thereof?”

   ”This, too, is ill,”
   He answered still,
The man who swayed her like a shade.
“An hour will come when sight of such sweet nook
Would bring a bitterness too sharp to brook,
When brighter eyes have won away his look;
   For you will fade.”

Then said she faintly: “O, contrive some way -
Some narrow winding turret, quite mine own,
To reach a loft where I may grieve alone!
It is a slight thing; hence do not, I pray,
   This last dear fancy slay!”

   ”Such winding ways
   Fit not your days,”
Said he, the man of measuring eye;
“I must even fashion as my rule declares,
To wit: Give space (since life ends unawares)
To hale a coffined corpse adown the stairs;
   For you will die.”

1867.

THE TWO MEN

There were two youths of equal age,
Wit, station, strength, and parentage;
They studied at the selfsame schools,
And shaped their thoughts by common rules.

One pondered on the life of man,
His hopes, his ending, and began
To rate the Market’s sordid war
As something scarce worth living for.

“I’ll brace to higher aims,” said he,
“I’ll further Truth and Purity;
Thereby to mend the mortal lot
And sweeten sorrow. Thrive I not,

“Winning their hearts, my kind will give
Enough that I may lowly live,
And house my Love in some dim dell,
For pleasing them and theirs so well.”

Idly attired, with features wan,
In secret swift he laboured on:
Such press of power had brought much gold
Applied to things of meaner mould.

Sometimes he wished his aims had been
To gather gains like other men;
Then thanked his God he’d traced his track
Too far for wish to drag him back.