Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (958 page)

And to me, though Time’s unflinching rigour,
   In mindless rote, has ruled from sight
The substance now, one phantom figure
   Remains on the slope, as when that night
      Saw us alight.

I look and see it there, shrinking, shrinking,
   I look back at it amid the rain
For the very last time; for my sand is sinking,
   And I shall traverse old love’s domain
      Never again.

March 1913.

PLACES

Nobody says: Ah, that is the place
Where chanced, in the hollow of years ago,
What none of the Three Towns cared to know —
The birth of a little girl of grace -
The sweetest the house saw, first or last;
   Yet it was so
   On that day long past.

Nobody thinks: There, there she lay
In a room by the Hoe, like the bud of a flower,
And listened, just after the bedtime hour,
To the stammering chimes that used to play
The quaint Old Hundred-and-Thirteenth tune
   In Saint Andrew’s tower
   Night, morn, and noon.

Nobody calls to mind that here
Upon Boterel Hill, where the carters skid,
With cheeks whose airy flush outbid
Fresh fruit in bloom, and free of fear,
She cantered down, as if she must fall
   (Though she never did),
   To the charm of all.

Nay: one there is to whom these things,
That nobody else’s mind calls back,
Have a savour that scenes in being lack,
And a presence more than the actual brings;
To whom to-day is beneaped and stale,
   And its urgent clack
   But a vapid tale.

PLYMOUTH, March 1913.

THE PHANTOM HORSEWOMAN

I

Queer are the ways of a man I know:
   He comes and stands
   In a careworn craze,
   And looks at the sands
   And the seaward haze,
   With moveless hands
   And face and gaze,
   Then turns to go . . .
And what does he see when he gazes so?

II

They say he sees as an instant thing
   More clear than to-day,
   A sweet soft scene
   That once was in play
   By that briny green;
   Yes, notes alway
   Warm, real, and keen,
   What his back years bring -
A phantom of his own figuring.

III

Of this vision of his they might say more:
   Not only there
   Does he see this sight,
   But everywhere
   In his brain — day, night,
   As if on the air
   It were drawn rose bright -
   Yea, far from that shore
Does he carry this vision of heretofore:

IV

A ghost-girl-rider. And though, toil-tried,
   He withers daily,
   Time touches her not,
   But she still rides gaily
   In his rapt thought
   On that shagged and shaly
   Atlantic spot,
   And as when first eyed
Draws rein and sings to the swing of the tide.

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES

THE WISTFUL LADY

‘Love, while you were away there came to me -
   From whence I cannot tell -
A plaintive lady pale and passionless,
Who bent her eyes upon me critically,
And weighed me with a wearing wistfulness,
   As if she knew me well.”

“I saw no lady of that wistful sort
   As I came riding home.
Perhaps she was some dame the Fates constrain
By memories sadder than she can support,
Or by unhappy vacancy of brain,
   To leave her roof and roam?”

“Ah, but she knew me. And before this time
   I have seen her, lending ear
To my light outdoor words, and pondering each,
Her frail white finger swayed in pantomime,
As if she fain would close with me in speech,
   And yet would not come near.

“And once I saw her beckoning with her hand
   As I came into sight
At an upper window. And I at last went out;
But when I reached where she had seemed to stand,
And wandered up and down and searched about,
   I found she had vanished quite.”

Then thought I how my dead Love used to say,
   With a small smile, when she
Was waning wan, that she would hover round
And show herself after her passing day
To any newer Love I might have found,
   But show her not to me.

THE WOMAN IN THE RYE

“Why do you stand in the dripping rye,
Cold-lipped, unconscious, wet to the knee,
When there are firesides near?” said I.
“I told him I wished him dead,” said she.

“Yea, cried it in my haste to one
Whom I had loved, whom I well loved still;
And die he did. And I hate the sun,
And stand here lonely, aching, chill;

“Stand waiting, waiting under skies
That blow reproach, the while I see
The rooks sheer off to where he lies
Wrapt in a peace withheld from me.”

THE CHEVAL-GLASS

Why do you harbour that great cheval-glass
   Filling up your narrow room?
   You never preen or plume,
Or look in a week at your full-length figure -
   Picture of bachelor gloom!

“Well, when I dwelt in ancient England,
   Renting the valley farm,
   Thoughtless of all heart-harm,
I used to gaze at the parson’s daughter,
   A creature of nameless charm.

“Thither there came a lover and won her,
   Carried her off from my view.
   O it was then I knew
Misery of a cast undreamt of -
   More than, indeed, my due!

“Then far rumours of her ill-usage
   Came, like a chilling breath
   When a man languisheth;
Followed by news that her mind lost balance,
   And, in a space, of her death.

“Soon sank her father; and next was the auction -
   Everything to be sold:
   Mid things new and old
Stood this glass in her former chamber,
   Long in her use, I was told.

“Well, I awaited the sale and bought it . . .
   There by my bed it stands,
   And as the dawn expands
Often I see her pale-faced form there
   Brushing her hair’s bright bands.

“There, too, at pallid midnight moments
   Quick she will come to my call,
   Smile from the frame withal
Ponderingly, as she used to regard me
   Passing her father’s wall.

“So that it was for its revelations
   I brought it oversea,
   And drag it about with me . . .
Anon I shall break it and bury its fragments
   Where my grave is to be.”

THE RE-ENACTMENT

   Between the folding sea-downs,
      In the gloom
   Of a wailful wintry nightfall,
      When the boom
Of the ocean, like a hammering in a hollow tomb,

   Throbbed up the copse-clothed valley
      From the shore
   To the chamber where I darkled,
      Sunk and sore
With gray ponderings why my Loved one had not come before

   To salute me in the dwelling
      That of late
   I had hired to waste a while in -
      Vague of date,
Quaint, and remote — wherein I now expectant sate;

   On the solitude, unsignalled,
      Broke a man
   Who, in air as if at home there,
      Seemed to scan
Every fire-flecked nook of the apartment span by span.

   A stranger’s and no lover’s
      Eyes were these,
   Eyes of a man who measures
      What he sees
But vaguely, as if wrapt in filmy phantasies.

   Yea, his bearing was so absent
      As he stood,
   It bespoke a chord so plaintive
      In his mood,
That soon I judged he would not wrong my quietude.

   ”Ah — the supper is just ready,”
      Then he said,
   ”And the years’-long binned Madeira
      Flashes red!”
(There was no wine, no food, no supper-table spread.)

   ”You will forgive my coming,
      Lady fair?
   I see you as at that time
      Rising there,
The self-same curious querying in your eyes and air.

   ”Yet no. How so? You wear not
      The same gown,
   Your locks show woful difference,
      Are not brown:
What, is it not as when I hither came from town?

   ”And the place . . . But you seem other -
      Can it be?
   What’s this that Time is doing
      Unto me?
YOU dwell here, unknown woman? . . . Whereabouts, then, is she?

   ”And the house — things are much shifted. -
      Put them where
   They stood on this night’s fellow;
      Shift her chair:
Here was the couch: and the piano should be there.”

   I indulged him, verily nerve-strained
      Being alone,
   And I moved the things as bidden,
      One by one,
And feigned to push the old piano where he had shown.

   ”Aha — now I can see her!
      Stand aside:
   Don’t thrust her from the table
      Where, meek-eyed,
She makes attempt with matron-manners to preside.

   ”She serves me: now she rises,
      Goes to play . . .
   But you obstruct her, fill her
      With dismay,
And embarrassed, scared, she vanishes away!”

   And, as ‘twere useless longer
      To persist,
   He sighed, and sought the entry
      Ere I wist,
And retreated, disappearing soundless in the mist.

   That here some mighty passion
      Once had burned,
   Which still the walls enghosted,
      I discerned,
And that by its strong spell mine might be overturned.

   I sat depressed; till, later,
      My Love came;
   But something in the chamber
      Dimmed our flame, -
An emanation, making our due words fall tame,

   As if the intenser drama
      Shown me there
   Of what the walls had witnessed
      Filled the air,
And left no room for later passion anywhere.

   So came it that our fervours
      Did quite fail
   Of future consummation -
      Being made quail
By the weird witchery of the parlour’s hidden tale,

   Which I, as years passed, faintly
      Learnt to trace, -
   One of sad love, born full-winged
      In that place
Where the predestined sorrowers first stood face to face.

   And as that month of winter
      Circles round,
   And the evening of the date-day
      Grows embrowned,
I am conscious of those presences, and sit spellbound.

   There, often — lone, forsaken -
      Queries breed
   Within me; whether a phantom
      Had my heed
On that strange night, or was it some wrecked heart indeed?

HER SECRET

That love’s dull smart distressed my heart
   He shrewdly learnt to see,
But that I was in love with a dead man
   Never suspected he.

He searched for the trace of a pictured face,
   He watched each missive come,
And a note that seemed like a love-line
   Made him look frozen and glum.

He dogged my feet to the city street,
   He followed me to the sea,
But not to the neighbouring churchyard
   Did he dream of following me.

SHE CHARGED ME

She charged me with having said this and that
To another woman long years before,
In the very parlour where we sat, -

Sat on a night when the endless pour
Of rain on the roof and the road below
Bent the spring of the spirit more and more . . .

- So charged she me; and the Cupid’s bow
Of her mouth was hard, and her eyes, and her face,
And her white forefinger lifted slow.

Had she done it gently, or shown a trace
That not too curiously would she view
A folly passed ere her reign had place,

A kiss might have ended it. But I knew
From the fall of each word, and the pause between,
That the curtain would drop upon us two
Ere long, in our play of slave and queen.

THE NEWCOMER’S WIFE

He paused on the sill of a door ajar
That screened a lively liquor-bar,
For the name had reached him through the door
Of her he had married the week before.

“We called her the Hack of the Parade;
But she was discreet in the games she played;
If slightly worn, she’s pretty yet,
And gossips, after all, forget.

“And he knows nothing of her past;
I am glad the girl’s in luck at last;
Such ones, though stale to native eyes,
Newcomers snatch at as a prize.”

“Yes, being a stranger he sees her blent
Of all that’s fresh and innocent,
Nor dreams how many a love-campaign
She had enjoyed before his reign!”

That night there was the splash of a fall
Over the slimy harbour-wall:
They searched, and at the deepest place
Found him with crabs upon his face.

A CONVERSATION AT DAWN

He lay awake, with a harassed air,
And she, in her cloud of loose lank hair,
   Seemed trouble-tried
As the dawn drew in on their faces there.

The chamber looked far over the sea
From a white hotel on a white-stoned quay,
   And stepping a stride
He parted the window-drapery.

Above the level horizon spread
The sunrise, firing them foot to head
   From its smouldering lair,
And painting their pillows with dyes of red.

“What strange disquiets have stirred you, dear,
This dragging night, with starts in fear
   Of me, as it were,
Or of something evil hovering near?”

“My husband, can I have fear of you?
What should one fear from a man whom few,
   Or none, had matched
In that late long spell of delays undue!”

He watched her eyes in the heaving sun:
“Then what has kept, O reticent one,
   Those lids unlatched -
Anything promised I’ve not yet done?”