Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (947 page)

But chancing to trace her sunburnt grace that morning as I passed nigh,
I went and I said “Poor maidy dear! — and will none of the people buy?”
And so it began; and soon we knew what the end of it all must be,
And I found that though no others had bid, a prize had been won by me.

V

THE INQUIRY

And are ye one of Hermitage -
Of Hermitage, by Ivel Road,
And do ye know, in Hermitage
A thatch-roofed house where sengreens grow?
And does John Waywood live there still -
He of the name that there abode
When father hurdled on the hill
   Some fifteen years ago?

Does he now speak o’ Patty Beech,
The Patty Beech he used to — see,
Or ask at all if Patty Beech
Is known or heard of out this way?
- Ask ever if she’s living yet,
And where her present home may be,
And how she bears life’s fag and fret
   After so long a day?

In years agone at Hermitage
This faded face was counted fair,
None fairer; and at Hermitage
We swore to wed when he should thrive.
But never a chance had he or I,
And waiting made his wish outwear,
And Time, that dooms man’s love to die,
   Preserves a maid’s alive.

VI

A WIFE WAITS

Will’s at the dance in the Club-room below,
   Where the tall liquor-cups foam;
I on the pavement up here by the Bow,
   Wait, wait, to steady him home.

Will and his partner are treading a tune,
   Loving companions they be;
Willy, before we were married in June,
   Said he loved no one but me;

Said he would let his old pleasures all go
   Ever to live with his Dear.
Will’s at the dance in the Club-room below,
   Shivering I wait for him here.

NOTE. — ”The Bow” (line 3). The old name for the curved corner by the cross- streets in the middle of Casterbridge.

VII

AFTER THE FAIR

The singers are gone from the Cornmarket-place
      With their broadsheets of rhymes,
The street rings no longer in treble and bass
      With their skits on the times,
And the Cross, lately thronged, is a dim naked space
   That but echoes the stammering chimes.

From Clock-corner steps, as each quarter ding-dongs,
      Away the folk roam
By the “Hart” and Grey’s Bridge into byways and “drongs,”
      Or across the ridged loam;
The younger ones shrilling the lately heard songs,
   The old saying, “Would we were home.”

The shy-seeming maiden so mute in the fair
      Now rattles and talks,
And that one who looked the most swaggering there
      Grows sad as she walks,
And she who seemed eaten by cankering care
   In statuesque sturdiness stalks.

And midnight clears High Street of all but the ghosts
      Of its buried burghees,
From the latest far back to those old Roman hosts
      Whose remains one yet sees,
Who loved, laughed, and fought, hailed their friends, drank their toasts
   At their meeting-times here, just as these!

1902.

NOTE. — ”The Chimes” (line 6) will be listened for in vain here at midnight now, having been abolished some years ago.

THE DARK-EYED GENTLEMAN

I

I pitched my day’s leazings in Crimmercrock Lane,
To tie up my garter and jog on again,
When a dear dark-eyed gentleman passed there and said,
In a way that made all o’ me colour rose-red,
   ”What do I see -
   O pretty knee!”
And he came and he tied up my garter for me.

II

‘Twixt sunset and moonrise it was, I can mind:
Ah, ‘tis easy to lose what we nevermore find! -
Of the dear stranger’s home, of his name, I knew nought,
But I soon knew his nature and all that it brought.
   Then bitterly
   Sobbed I that he
Should ever have tied up my garter for me!

III

Yet now I’ve beside me a fine lissom lad,
And my slip’s nigh forgot, and my days are not sad;
My own dearest joy is he, comrade, and friend,
He it is who safe-guards me, on him I depend;
   No sorrow brings he,
   And thankful I be
That his daddy once tied up my garter for me!

NOTE. — ”Leazings” (line 1). — Bundle of gleaned corn.

TO CARREY CLAVEL

You turn your back, you turn your back,
   And never your face to me,
Alone you take your homeward track,
   And scorn my company.

What will you do when Charley’s seen
   Dewbeating down this way?
- You’ll turn your back as now, you mean?
   Nay, Carrey Clavel, nay!

You’ll see none’s looking; put your lip
   Up like a tulip, so;
And he will coll you, bend, and sip:
   Yes, Carrey, yes; I know!

THE ORPHANED OLD MAID

I wanted to marry, but father said, “No -
‘Tis weakness in women to give themselves so;
If you care for your freedom you’ll listen to me,
Make a spouse in your pocket, and let the men be.”

I spake on’t again and again: father cried,
“Why — if you go husbanding, where shall I bide?
For never a home’s for me elsewhere than here!”
And I yielded; for father had ever been dear.

But now father’s gone, and I feel growing old,
And I’m lonely and poor in this house on the wold,
And my sweetheart that was found a partner elsewhere,
And nobody flings me a thought or a care.

THE SPRING CALL

Down Wessex way, when spring’s a-shine,
   The blackbird’s “pret-ty de-urr!”
In Wessex accents marked as mine
   Is heard afar and near.

He flutes it strong, as if in song
   No R’s of feebler tone
Than his appear in “pretty dear,”
   Have blackbirds ever known.

Yet they pipe “prattie deerh!” I glean,
   Beneath a Scottish sky,
And “pehty de-aw!” amid the treen
   Of Middlesex or nigh.

While some folk say — perhaps in play -
   Who know the Irish isle,
‘Tis “purrity dare!” in treeland there
   When songsters would beguile.

Well: I’ll say what the listening birds
   Say, hearing “pret-ty de-urr!” -
However strangers sound such words,
   That’s how we sound them here.

Yes, in this clime at pairing time,
   As soon as eyes can see her
At dawn of day, the proper way
   To call is “pret-ty de-urr!”

JULIE-JANE

   Sing; how ‘a would sing!
   How ‘a would raise the tune
When we rode in the waggon from harvesting
      By the light o’ the moon!

   Dance; how ‘a would dance!
   If a fiddlestring did but sound
She would hold out her coats, give a slanting glance,
      And go round and round.

   Laugh; how ‘a would laugh!
   Her peony lips would part
As if none such a place for a lover to quaff
      At the deeps of a heart.

   Julie, O girl of joy,
   Soon, soon that lover he came.
Ah, yes; and gave thee a baby-boy,
      But never his name . . .

  — Tolling for her, as you guess;
   And the baby too . . . ‘Tis well.
You knew her in maidhood likewise? — Yes,
      That’s her burial bell.

   ”I suppose,” with a laugh, she said,
   ”I should blush that I’m not a wife;
But how can it matter, so soon to be dead,
      What one does in life!”

   When we sat making the mourning
   By her death-bed side, said she,
“Dears, how can you keep from your lovers, adorning
      In honour of me!”

   Bubbling and brightsome eyed!
   But now — O never again.
She chose her bearers before she died
      From her fancy-men.

NOTE. — It is, or was, a common custom in Wessex, and probably other country places, to prepare the mourning beside the death-bed, the dying person sometimes assisting, who also selects his or her bearers on such occasions.

“Coats” (line 7). — Old name for petticoats.

NEWS FOR HER MOTHER

I

   One mile more is
   Where your door is
      Mother mine! -
   Harvest’s coming,
   Mills are strumming,
      Apples fine,
And the cider made to-year will be as wine.

II

   Yet, not viewing
   What’s a-doing
      Here around
   Is it thrills me,
   And so fills me
      That I bound
Like a ball or leaf or lamb along the ground.

III

   Tremble not now
   At your lot now,
      Silly soul!
   Hosts have sped them
   Quick to wed them,
      Great and small,
Since the first two sighing half-hearts made a whole.

IV

   Yet I wonder,
   Will it sunder
      Her from me?
   Will she guess that
   I said “Yes,” — that
      His I’d be,
Ere I thought she might not see him as I see!

V

   Old brown gable,
   Granary, stable,
      Here you are!
   O my mother,
   Can another
      Ever bar
Mine from thy heart, make thy nearness seem afar?

THE FIDDLER

The fiddler knows what’s brewing
   To the lilt of his lyric wiles:
The fiddler knows what rueing
   Will come of this night’s smiles!

He sees couples join them for dancing,
   And afterwards joining for life,
He sees them pay high for their prancing
   By a welter of wedded strife.

He twangs: “Music hails from the devil,
   Though vaunted to come from heaven,
For it makes people do at a revel
   What multiplies sins by seven.

“There’s many a heart now mangled,
   And waiting its time to go,
Whose tendrils were first entangled
   By my sweet viol and bow!”

THE HUSBAND’S VIEW

“Can anything avail
Beldame, for my hid grief? -
Listen: I’ll tell the tale,
It may bring faint relief! -

“I came where I was not known,
In hope to flee my sin;
And walking forth alone
A young man said, ‘Good e’en.’

“In gentle voice and true
He asked to marry me;
‘You only — only you
Fulfil my dream!’ said he.

“We married o’ Monday morn,
In the month of hay and flowers;
My cares were nigh forsworn,
And perfect love was ours.

“But ere the days are long
Untimely fruit will show;
My Love keeps up his song,
Undreaming it is so.

“And I awake in the night,
And think of months gone by,
And of that cause of flight
Hidden from my Love’s eye.

“Discovery borders near,
And then! . . . But something stirred? -
My husband — he is here!
Heaven — has he overheard?” -

“Yes; I have heard, sweet Nan;
I have known it all the time.
I am not a particular man;
Misfortunes are no crime:

“And what with our serious need
Of sons for soldiering,
That accident, indeed,
To maids, is a useful thing!”

ROSE-ANN

Why didn’t you say you was promised, Rose-Ann?
   Why didn’t you name it to me,
Ere ever you tempted me hither, Rose-Ann,
   So often, so wearifully?

O why did you let me be near ‘ee, Rose-Ann,
   Talking things about wedlock so free,
And never by nod or by whisper, Rose-Ann,
   Give a hint that it wasn’t to be?

Down home I was raising a flock of stock ewes,
   Cocks and hens, and wee chickens by scores,
And lavendered linen all ready to use,
   A-dreaming that they would be yours.

Mother said: “She’s a sport-making maiden, my son”;
   And a pretty sharp quarrel had we;
O why do you prove by this wrong you have done
   That I saw not what mother could see?

Never once did you say you was promised, Rose-Ann,
   Never once did I dream it to be;
And it cuts to the heart to be treated, Rose-Ann,
   As you in your scorning treat me!

THE HOMECOMING

Gruffly growled the wind on Toller downland broad and bare,
And lonesome was the house, and dark; and few came there.

“Now don’t ye rub your eyes so red; we’re home and have no cares;
Here’s a skimmer-cake for supper, peckled onions, and some pears;
I’ve got a little keg o’ summat strong, too, under stairs:
- What, slight your husband’s victuals? Other brides can tackle theirs!”

The wind of winter mooed and mouthed their chimney like a horn,
And round the house and past the house ‘twas leafless and lorn.

“But my dear and tender poppet, then, how came ye to agree
In Ivel church this morning? Sure, there-right you married me!”
- “Hoo-hoo! — I don’t know — I forgot how strange and far ‘twould be,
An’ I wish I was at home again with dear daddee!”

Gruffly growled the wind on Toller downland broad and bare,
And lonesome was the house and dark; and few came there.

“I didn’t think such furniture as this was all you’d own,
And great black beams for ceiling, and a floor o’ wretched stone,
And nasty pewter platters, horrid forks of steel and bone,
And a monstrous crock in chimney. ‘Twas to me quite unbeknown!”

Rattle rattle went the door; down flapped a cloud of smoke,
As shifting north the wicked wind assayed a smarter stroke.

“Now sit ye by the fire, poppet; put yourself at ease:
And keep your little thumb out of your mouth, dear, please!
And I’ll sing to ‘ee a pretty song of lovely flowers and bees,
And happy lovers taking walks within a grove o’ trees.”