Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (951 page)

   ”Here a day onward, towards the eventide,
Our men were piping to a Pyrrhic dance
Trod by their comrades, when the young women came
To fill their pitchers, as their custom was.
I proffered help to one — a slim girl, coy
Even as a fawn, meek, and as innocent.
Her long blue gown, the string of silver coins
That hung down by her banded beautiful hair,
Symboled in full immaculate modesty.

   ”Well, I was young, and hot, and readily stirred
To quick desire. ‘Twas tedious timing out
The convalescence of the soldiery;
And I beguiled the long and empty days
By blissful yieldance to her sweet allure,
Who had no arts, but what out-arted all,
The tremulous tender charm of trustfulness.
We met, and met, and under the winking stars
That passed which peoples earth — true union, yea,
To the pure eye of her simplicity.

   ”Meanwhile the sick found health; and we pricked on.
I made her no rash promise of return,
As some do use; I was sincere in that;
I said we sundered never to meet again -
And yet I spoke untruth unknowingly! -
For meet again we did. Now, guess you aught?
The weeping mother on Calvaria
Was she I had known — albeit that time and tears
Had wasted rudely her once flowerlike form,
And her soft eyes, now swollen with sorrowing.

   ”Though I betrayed some qualms, she marked me not;
And I was scarce of mood to comrade her
And close the silence of so wide a time
To claim a malefactor as my son -
(For so I guessed him). And inquiry made
Brought rumour how at Nazareth long before
An old man wedded her for pity’s sake
On finding she had grown pregnant, none knew how,
Cared for her child, and loved her till he died.

   ”Well; there it ended; save that then I learnt
That he — the man whose ardent blood was mine -
Had waked sedition long among the Jews,
And hurled insulting parlance at their god,
Whose temple bulked upon the adjoining hill,
Vowing that he would raze it, that himself
Was god as great as he whom they adored,
And by descent, moreover, was their king;
With sundry other incitements to misrule.

   ”The impalements done, and done the soldiers’ game
Of raffling for the clothes, a legionary,
Longinus, pierced the young man with his lance
At signs from me, moved by his agonies
Through naysaying the drug they had offered him.
It brought the end. And when he had breathed his last
The woman went. I saw her never again . . .
Now glares my moody meaning on you, friend? -
That when you talk of offspring as sheer joy
So trustingly, you blink contingencies.
Fors Fortuna! He who goes fathering
Gives frightful hostages to hazardry!”

   Thus Panthera’s tale. ‘Twas one he seldom told,
But yet it got abroad. He would unfold,
At other times, a story of less gloom,
Though his was not a heart where jests had room.
He would regret discovery of the truth
Was made too late to influence to ruth
The Procurator who had condemned his son —
Or rather him so deemed. For there was none
To prove that Panthera erred not: and indeed,
When vagueness of identity I would plead,
Panther himself would sometimes own as much -
Yet lothly. But, assuming fact was such,
That the said woman did not recognize
Her lover’s face, is matter for surprise.
However, there’s his tale, fantasy or otherwise.

   Thereafter shone not men of Panthera’s kind:
The indolent heads at home were ill-inclined
To press campaigning that would hoist the star
Of their lieutenants valorous afar.
Jealousies kept him irked abroad, controlled
And stinted by an Empire no more bold.
Yet in some actions southward he had share -
In Mauretania and Numidia; there
With eagle eye, and sword and steed and spur,
Quelling uprisings promptly. Some small stir
In Parthia next engaged him, until maimed,
As I have said; and cynic Time proclaimed
His noble spirit broken. What a waste
Of such a Roman! — one in youth-time graced
With indescribable charm, so I have heard,
Yea, magnetism impossible to word
When faltering as I saw him. What a fame,
O Son of Saturn, had adorned his name,
Might the Three so have urged Thee! — Hour by hour
His own disorders hampered Panthera’s power
To brood upon the fate of those he had known,
Even of that one he always called his own -
Either in morbid dream or memory . . .
He died at no great age, untroublously,
An exit rare for ardent soldiers such as he.

THE UNBORN

I rose at night, and visited
   The Cave of the Unborn:
And crowding shapes surrounded me
For tidings of the life to be,
Who long had prayed the silent Head
   To haste its advent morn.

Their eyes were lit with artless trust,
   Hope thrilled their every tone;
“A scene the loveliest, is it not?
A pure delight, a beauty-spot
Where all is gentle, true and just,
   And darkness is unknown?”

My heart was anguished for their sake,
   I could not frame a word;
And they descried my sunken face,
And seemed to read therein, and trace
The news that pity would not break,
   Nor truth leave unaverred.

And as I silently retired
   I turned and watched them still,
And they came helter-skelter out,
Driven forward like a rabble rout
Into the world they had so desired
   By the all-immanent Will.

1905.

THE MAN HE KILLED

   ”Had he and I but met
   By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
   Right many a nipperkin!

   ”But ranged as infantry,
   And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
   And killed him in his place.

   ”I shot him dead because -
   Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;
   That’s clear enough; although

   ”He thought he’d ‘list, perhaps,
   Off-hand like — just as I -
Was out of work — had sold his traps -
   No other reason why.

   ”Yes; quaint and curious war is!
   You shoot a fellow down
You’d treat if met where any bar is,
   Or help to half-a-crown.”

1902.

GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE (A MEMORY OF CHRISTIANA C-)

Where Blackmoor was, the road that led
   To Bath, she could not show,
Nor point the sky that overspread
   Towns ten miles off or so.

But that Calcutta stood this way,
   Cape Horn there figured fell,
That here was Boston, here Bombay,
   She could declare full well.

Less known to her the track athwart
   Froom Mead or Yell’ham Wood
Than how to make some Austral port
   In seas of surly mood.

She saw the glint of Guinea’s shore
   Behind the plum-tree nigh,
Heard old unruly Biscay’s roar
   In the weir’s purl hard by . . .

“My son’s a sailor, and he knows
   All seas and many lands,
And when he’s home he points and shows
   Each country where it stands.

“He’s now just there — by Gib’s high rock -
   And when he gets, you see,
To Portsmouth here, behind the clock,
   Then he’ll come back to me!”

ONE RALPH BLOSSOM SOLILOQUIZES

(“It being deposed that vij women who were mayds before he knew them have been brought upon the towne [rates?] by the fornicacions of one Ralph Blossom, Mr Major inquired why he should not contribute xiv pence weekly toward their mayntenance. But it being shewn that the sayd R. B. was dying of a purple feaver, no order was made.” — Budmouth Borough Minutes: 16 — .)

When I am in hell or some such place,
A-groaning over my sorry case,
What will those seven women say to me
Who, when I coaxed them, answered “Aye” to me?

“I did not understand your sign!”
Will be the words of Caroline;
While Jane will cry, “If I’d had proof of you,
I should have learnt to hold aloof of you!”

“I won’t reproach: it was to be!”
Will dryly murmur Cicely;
And Rosa: “I feel no hostility,
For I must own I lent facility.”

Lizzy says: “Sharp was my regret,
And sometimes it is now! But yet
I joy that, though it brought notoriousness,
I knew Love once and all its gloriousness!”

Says Patience: “Why are we apart?
Small harm did you, my poor Sweet Heart!
A manchild born, now tall and beautiful,
Was worth the ache of days undutiful.”

And Anne cries: “O the time was fair,
So wherefore should you burn down there?
There is a deed under the sun, my Love,
And that was ours. What’s done is done, my Love.
These trumpets here in Heaven are dumb to me
With you away. Dear, come, O come to me!”

THE NOBLE LADY’S TALE (circa 1790)

I

   ”We moved with pensive paces,
      I and he,
   And bent our faded faces
      Wistfully,
For something troubled him, and troubled me.

   ”The lanthorn feebly lightened
      Our grey hall,
   Where ancient brands had brightened
      Hearth and wall,
And shapes long vanished whither vanish all.

   ”‘O why, Love, nightly, daily,’
      I had said,
   ’Dost sigh, and smile so palely,
      As if shed
Were all Life’s blossoms, all its dear things dead?’

   ”‘Since silence sets thee grieving,’
      He replied,
   ’And I abhor deceiving
      One so tried,
Why, Love, I’ll speak, ere time us twain divide.’

   ”He held me, I remember,
      Just as when
   Our life was June — (September
      It was then);
And we walked on, until he spoke again.

   ”‘Susie, an Irish mummer,
      Loud-acclaimed
   Through the gay London summer,
      Was I; named
A master in my art, who would be famed.

   ”‘But lo, there beamed before me
      Lady Su;
   God’s altar-vow she swore me
      When none knew,
And for her sake I bade the sock adieu.

   ”‘My Lord your father’s pardon
      Thus I won:
   He let his heart unharden
      Towards his son,
And honourably condoned what we had done;

   ”‘But said — recall you, dearest? -
      As for Su,
   I’d see her — ay, though nearest
      Me unto -
Sooner entombed than in a stage purlieu!

   ”‘Just so. — And here he housed us,
      In this nook,
   Where Love like balm has drowsed us:
      Robin, rook,
Our chief familiars, next to string and book.

   ”‘Our days here, peace-enshrouded,
      Followed strange
   The old stage-joyance, crowded,
      Rich in range;
But never did my soul desire a change,

   ”‘Till now, when far uncertain
      Lips of yore
   Call, call me to the curtain,
      There once more,
But ONCE, to tread the boards I trod before.

   ”‘A night — the last and single
      Ere I die -
   To face the lights, to mingle
      As did I
Once in the game, and rivet every eye!’

   ”‘To something drear, distressing
      As the knell
   Of all hopes worth possessing!’ . . .
     — What befell
Seemed linked with me, but how I could not tell.

   ”Hours passed; till I implored him,
      As he knew
   How faith and frankness toward him
      Ruled me through,
To say what ill I had done, and could undo.

   ”‘FAITH — FRANKNESS. Ah! Heaven save such!’
      Murmured he,
   ’They are wedded wealth!
I
gave such
      Liberally,
But you, Dear, not. For you suspected me.’

   ”I was about beseeching
      In hurt haste
   More meaning, when he, reaching
      To my waist,
Led me to pace the hall as once we paced.

   ”‘I never meant to draw you
      To own all,’
   Declared he. ‘But — I SAW you -
      By the wall,
Half-hid. And that was why I failed withal!’

   ”‘Where? when?’ said I — ’Why, nigh me,
      At the play
   That night. That you should spy me,
      Doubt my fay,
And follow, furtive, took my heart away!’

   ”That I had never been there,
      But had gone
   To my locked room — unseen there,
      Curtains drawn,
Long days abiding — told I, wonder-wan.

   ”‘Nay, ‘twas your form and vesture,
      Cloak and gown,
   Your hooded features — gesture
      Half in frown,
That faced me, pale,’ he urged, ‘that night in town.

   ”‘And when, outside, I handed
      To her chair
   (As courtesy demanded
      Of me there)
The leading lady, you peeped from the stair.

   ”Straight pleaded I: ‘Forsooth, Love,
      Had I gone,
   I must have been in truth, Love,
      Mad to don
Such well-known raiment.’ But he still went on

   ”That he was not mistaken
      Nor misled. -
   I felt like one forsaken,
      Wished me dead,
That he could think thus of the wife he had wed!

   ”His going seemed to waste him
      Like a curse,
   To wreck what once had graced him;
      And, averse
To my approach, he mused, and moped, and worse.

   ”Till, what no words effected
      Thought achieved:
   IT WAS MY WRAITH — projected,
      He conceived,
Thither, by my tense brain at home aggrieved.

   ”Thereon his credence centred
      Till he died;
   And, no more tempted, entered
      Sanctified,
The little vault with room for one beside.”

III

   Thus far the lady’s story. -
      Now she, too,
   Reclines within that hoary
      Last dark mew
In Mellstock Quire with him she loved so true.