Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (944 page)

“But you are pale — you did not know?”
They archly asked, alas for me,
I stammered, “Yes — some days-ago,”
While coffined clay I wished to be.

“‘Twas done to please her, we surmise?”
(They spoke quite lightly in their glee)
“Done by him as a fond surprise?”
I thought their words would madden me.

Her lover entered. “Where’s my bird? -
My bird — my flower — my picotee?
First time of asking, soon the third!”
Ah, in my grave I well may be.

To me he whispered: “Since your call — ”
So spoke he then, alas for me -
“I’ve felt for her, and righted all.”
- I think of it to agony.

“She’s faint to-day — tired — nothing more — ”
Thus did I lie, alas for me . . .
I called her at her chamber door
As one who scarce had strength to be.

No voice replied. I went within -
O women! scourged the worst are we . . .
I shrieked. The others hastened in
And saw the stroke there dealt on me.

There she lay — silent, breathless, dead,
Stone dead she lay — wronged, sinless she! -
Ghost-white the cheeks once rosy-red:
Death had took her. Death took not me.

I kissed her colding face and hair,
I kissed her corpse — the bride to be! -
My punishment I cannot bear,
But pray God NOT to pity me.

January 1904.

THE HOUSE OF HOSPITALITIES

Here we broached the Christmas barrel,
   Pushed up the charred log-ends;
Here we sang the Christmas carol,
      And called in friends.

Time has tired me since we met here
   When the folk now dead were young,
Since the viands were outset here
      And quaint songs sung.

And the worm has bored the viol
   That used to lead the tune,
Rust eaten out the dial
      That struck night’s noon.

Now no Christmas brings in neighbours,
   And the New Year comes unlit;
Where we sang the mole now labours,
      And spiders knit.

Yet at midnight if here walking,
   When the moon sheets wall and tree,
I see forms of old time talking,
      Who smile on me.

BEREFT

   In the black winter morning
No light will be struck near my eyes
While the clock in the stairway is warning
For five, when he used to rise.
      Leave the door unbarred,
      The clock unwound,
      Make my lone bed hard -
      Would ‘twere underground!

   When the summer dawns clearly,
And the appletree-tops seem alight,
Who will undraw the curtain and cheerly
Call out that the morning is bright?

   When I tarry at market
No form will cross Durnover Lea
In the gathering darkness, to hark at
Grey’s Bridge for the pit-pat o’ me.

   When the supper crock’s steaming,
And the time is the time of his tread,
I shall sit by the fire and wait dreaming
In a silence as of the dead.
      Leave the door unbarred,
      The clock unwound,
      Make my lone bed hard -
      Would ‘twere underground!

1901.

JOHN AND JANE

I

He sees the world as a boisterous place
Where all things bear a laughing face,
And humorous scenes go hourly on,
   Does John.

II

They find the world a pleasant place
Where all is ecstasy and grace,
Where a light has risen that cannot wane,
   Do John and Jane.

III

They see as a palace their cottage-place,
Containing a pearl of the human race,
A hero, maybe, hereafter styled,
   Do John and Jane with a baby-child.

IV

They rate the world as a gruesome place,
Where fair looks fade to a skull’s grimace, -
As a pilgrimage they would fain get done -
   Do John and Jane with their worthless son.

THE CURATE’S KINDNESS A WORKHOUSE IRONY

I

I thought they’d be strangers aroun’ me,
   But she’s to be there!
Let me jump out o’ waggon and go back and drown me
At Pummery or Ten-Hatches Weir.

II

I thought: “Well, I’ve come to the Union -
   The workhouse at last -
After honest hard work all the week, and Communion
O’ Zundays, these fifty years past.

III

“‘Tis hard; but,” I thought, “never mind it:
   There’s gain in the end:
And when I get used to the place I shall find it
   A home, and may find there a friend.

IV

“Life there will be better than t’other.
   For peace is assured.
THE MEN IN ONE WING AND THEIR WIVES IN ANOTHER
   Is strictly the rule of the Board.”

V

Just then one young Pa’son arriving
   Steps up out of breath
To the side o’ the waggon wherein we were driving
   To Union; and calls out and saith:

VI

“Old folks, that harsh order is altered,
   Be not sick of heart!
The Guardians they poohed and they pished and they paltered
   When urged not to keep you apart.

VII

“‘It is wrong,’ I maintained, ‘to divide them,
   Near forty years wed.’
‘Very well, sir. We promise, then, they shall abide them
   In one wing together,’ they said.”

VIII

Then I sank — knew ‘twas quite a foredone thing
   That misery should be
To the end! . . . To get freed of her there was the one thing
   Had made the change welcome to me.

IX

To go there was ending but badly;
   ’Twas shame and ‘twas pain;
“But anyhow,” thought I, “thereby I shall gladly
   Get free of this forty years’ chain.”

X

I thought they’d be strangers aroun’ me,
   But she’s to be there!
Let me jump out o’ waggon and go back and drown me
   At Pummery or Ten-Hatches Weir.

THE FLIRT’S TRAGEDY (17 — )

Here alone by the logs in my chamber,
   Deserted, decrepit -
Spent flames limning ghosts on the wainscot
   Of friends I once knew -

My drama and hers begins weirdly
   Its dumb re-enactment,
Each scene, sigh, and circumstance passing
   In spectral review.

- Wealth was mine beyond wish when I met her -
   The pride of the lowland -
Embowered in Tintinhull Valley
   By laurel and yew;

And love lit my soul, notwithstanding
   My features’ ill favour,
Too obvious beside her perfections
   Of line and of hue.

But it pleased her to play on my passion,
   And whet me to pleadings
That won from her mirthful negations
   And scornings undue.

Then I fled her disdains and derisions
   To cities of pleasure,
And made me the crony of idlers
   In every purlieu.

Of those who lent ear to my story,
   A needy Adonis
Gave hint how to grizzle her garden
   From roses to rue,

Could his price but be paid for so purging
   My scorner of scornings:
Thus tempted, the lust to avenge me
   Germed inly and grew.

I clothed him in sumptuous apparel,
   Consigned to him coursers,
Meet equipage, liveried attendants
   In full retinue.

So dowered, with letters of credit
   He wayfared to England,
And spied out the manor she goddessed,
   And handy thereto,

Set to hire him a tenantless mansion
   As coign-stone of vantage
For testing what gross adulation
   Of beauty could do.

He laboured through mornings and evens,
   On new moons and sabbaths,
By wiles to enmesh her attention
   In park, path, and pew;

And having afar played upon her,
   Advanced his lines nearer,
And boldly outleaping conventions,
   Bent briskly to woo.

His gay godlike face, his rare seeming
   Anon worked to win her,
And later, at noontides and night-tides
   They held rendezvous.

His tarriance full spent, he departed
   And met me in Venice,
And lines from her told that my jilter
   Was stooping to sue.

Not long could be further concealment,
   She pled to him humbly:
“By our love and our sin, O protect me;
   I fly unto you!”

A mighty remorse overgat me,
   I heard her low anguish,
And there in the gloom of the calle
   My steel ran him through.

A swift push engulphed his hot carrion
   Within the canal there -
That still street of waters dividing
   The city in two.

- I wandered awhile all unable
   To smother my torment,
My brain racked by yells as from Tophet
   Of Satan’s whole crew.

A month of unrest brought me hovering
   At home in her precincts,
To whose hiding-hole local story
   Afforded a clue.

Exposed, and expelled by her people,
   Afar off in London
I found her alone, in a sombre
   And soul-stifling mew.

Still burning to make reparation
   I pleaded to wive her,
And father her child, and thus faintly
   My mischief undo.

She yielded, and spells of calm weather
   Succeeded the tempest;
And one sprung of him stood as scion
   Of my bone and thew . . .

But Time unveils sorrows and secrets,
   And so it befell now:
By inches the curtain was twitched at,
   And slowly undrew.

As we lay, she and I, in the night-time,
   We heard the boy moaning:
“O misery mine! My false father
   Has murdered my true!”

She gasped: yea, she heard; understood it.
   Next day the child fled us;
And nevermore sighted was even
   A print of his shoe.

Thenceforward she shunned me, and languished;
   Till one day the park-pool
Embraced her fair form, and extinguished
   Her eyes’ living blue.

- So; ask not what blast may account for
   This aspect of pallor,
These bones that just prison within them
   Life’s poor residue;

But pass by, and leave unregarded
   A Cain to his suffering,
For vengeance too dark on the woman
   Whose lover he slew.

THE REJECTED MEMBER’S WIFE

We shall see her no more
   On the balcony,
Smiling, while hurt, at the roar
   As of surging sea
From the stormy sturdy band
   Who have doomed her lord’s cause,
Though she waves her little hand
   As it were applause.

Here will be candidates yet,
   And candidates’ wives,
Fervid with zeal to set
   Their ideals on our lives:
Here will come market-men
   On the market-days,
Here will clash now and then
   More such party assays.

And the balcony will fill
   When such times are renewed,
And the throng in the street will thrill
   With to-day’s mettled mood;
But she will no more stand
   In the sunshine there,
With that wave of her white-gloved hand,
   And that chestnut hair.

January 1906.

THE FARM-WOMAN’S WINTER

I

If seasons all were summers,
   And leaves would never fall,
And hopping casement-comers
   Were foodless not at all,
And fragile folk might be here
   That white winds bid depart;
Then one I used to see here
   Would warm my wasted heart!

II

One frail, who, bravely tilling
   Long hours in gripping gusts,
Was mastered by their chilling,
   And now his ploughshare rusts.
So savage winter catches
   The breath of limber things,
And what I love he snatches,
   And what I love not, brings.

AUTUMN IN KING’S HINTOCK PARK

Here by the baring bough
   Raking up leaves,
Often I ponder how
   Springtime deceives, -
I, an old woman now,
   Raking up leaves.

Here in the avenue
   Raking up leaves,
Lords’ ladies pass in view,
   Until one heaves
Sighs at life’s russet hue,
   Raking up leaves!

Just as my shape you see
   Raking up leaves,
I saw, when fresh and free,
   Those memory weaves
Into grey ghosts by me,
   Raking up leaves.

Yet, Dear, though one may sigh,
   Raking up leaves,
New leaves will dance on high -
   Earth never grieves! -
Will not, when missed am I
   Raking up leaves.

1901.

SHUT OUT THAT MOON

Close up the casement, draw the blind,
   Shut out that stealing moon,
She wears too much the guise she wore
   Before our lutes were strewn
With years-deep dust, and names we read
   On a white stone were hewn.

Step not out on the dew-dashed lawn
   To view the Lady’s Chair,
Immense Orion’s glittering form,
   The Less and Greater Bear:
Stay in; to such sights we were drawn
   When faded ones were fair.

Brush not the bough for midnight scents
   That come forth lingeringly,
And wake the same sweet sentiments
   They breathed to you and me
When living seemed a laugh, and love
   All it was said to be.

Within the common lamp-lit room
   Prison my eyes and thought;
Let dingy details crudely loom,
   Mechanic speech be wrought:
Too fragrant was Life’s early bloom,
   Too tart the fruit it brought!

1904.

REMINISCENCES OF A DANCING MAN