Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (938 page)

      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

S
CENE. — 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.