Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (965 page)

1916.

NEAR LANIVET, 1872

There was a stunted handpost just on the crest,
   Only a few feet high:
She was tired, and we stopped in the twilight-time for her rest,
   At the crossways close thereby.

She leant back, being so weary, against its stem,
   And laid her arms on its own,
Each open palm stretched out to each end of them,
   Her sad face sideways thrown.

Her white-clothed form at this dim-lit cease of day
   Made her look as one crucified
In my gaze at her from the midst of the dusty way,
   And hurriedly “Don’t,” I cried.

I do not think she heard. Loosing thence she said,
   As she stepped forth ready to go,
“I am rested now. — Something strange came into my head;
   I wish I had not leant so!”

And wordless we moved onward down from the hill
   In the west cloud’s murked obscure,
And looking back we could see the handpost still
   In the solitude of the moor.

“It struck her too,” I thought, for as if afraid
   She heavily breathed as we trailed;
Till she said, “I did not think how ‘twould look in the shade,
   When I leant there like one nailed.”

I, lightly: “There’s nothing in it. For YOU, anyhow!”
  — ”O I know there is not,” said she . . .
“Yet I wonder . . . If no one is bodily crucified now,
   In spirit one may be!”

And we dragged on and on, while we seemed to see
   In the running of Time’s far glass
Her crucified, as she had wondered if she might be
   Some day. — Alas, alas!

JOYS OF MEMORY

   When the spring comes round, and a certain day
Looks out from the brume by the eastern copsetrees
         And says, Remember,
      I begin again, as if it were new,
      A day of like date I once lived through,
      Whiling it hour by hour away;
         So shall I do till my December,
            When spring comes round.

   I take my holiday then and my rest
Away from the dun life here about me,
         Old hours re-greeting
      With the quiet sense that bring they must
      Such throbs as at first, till I house with dust,
      And in the numbness my heartsome zest
         For things that were, be past repeating
            When spring comes round.

TO THE MOON

   ”What have you looked at, Moon,
      In your time,
   Now long past your prime?”
“O, I have looked at, often looked at
      Sweet, sublime,
Sore things, shudderful, night and noon
      In my time.”

   ”What have you mused on, Moon,
      In your day,
   So aloof, so far away?”
“O, I have mused on, often mused on
      Growth, decay,
Nations alive, dead, mad, aswoon,
      In my day!”

   ”Have you much wondered, Moon,
      On your rounds,
   Self-wrapt, beyond Earth’s bounds?”
“Yea, I have wondered, often wondered
      At the sounds
Reaching me of the human tune
      On my rounds.”

   ”What do you think of it, Moon,
      As you go?
   Is Life much, or no?”
“O, I think of it, often think of it
      As a show
God ought surely to shut up soon,
      As I go.”

COPYING ARCHITECTURE IN AN OLD MINSTER

(Wimborne)

   How smartly the quarters of the hour march by
      That the jack-o’-clock never forgets;
   Ding-dong; and before I have traced a cusp’s eye,
Or got the true twist of the ogee over,
         A double ding-dong ricochetts.

   Just so did he clang here before I came,
      And so will he clang when I’m gone
   Through the Minster’s cavernous hollows — the same
Tale of hours never more to be will he deliver
      To the speechless midnight and dawn!

   I grow to conceive it a call to ghosts,
      Whose mould lies below and around.
   Yes; the next “Come, come,” draws them out from their posts,
And they gather, and one shade appears, and another,
      As the eve-damps creep from the ground.

   See — a Courtenay stands by his quatre-foiled tomb,
      And a Duke and his Duchess near;
   And one Sir Edmund in columned gloom,
And a Saxon king by the presbytery chamber;
      And shapes unknown in the rear.

   Maybe they have met for a parle on some plan
      To better ail-stricken mankind;
   I catch their cheepings, though thinner than
The overhead creak of a passager’s pinion
      When leaving land behind.

   Or perhaps they speak to the yet unborn,
      And caution them not to come
   To a world so ancient and trouble-torn,
Of foiled intents, vain lovingkindness,
      And ardours chilled and numb.

   They waste to fog as I stir and stand,
      And move from the arched recess,
   And pick up the drawing that slipped from my hand,
And feel for the pencil I dropped in the cranny
      In a moment’s forgetfulness.

TO SHAKESPEARE AFTER THREE HUNDRED YEARS

   Bright baffling Soul, least capturable of themes,
   Thou, who display’dst a life of common-place,
   Leaving no intimate word or personal trace
   Of high design outside the artistry
      Of thy penned dreams,
Still shalt remain at heart unread eternally.

   Through human orbits thy discourse to-day,
   Despite thy formal pilgrimage, throbs on
   In harmonies that cow Oblivion,
   And, like the wind, with all-uncared effect
      Maintain a sway
Not fore-desired, in tracks unchosen and unchecked.

   And yet, at thy last breath, with mindless note
   The borough clocks but samely tongued the hour,
   The Avon just as always glassed the tower,
   Thy age was published on thy passing-bell
      But in due rote
With other dwellers’ deaths accorded a like knell.

   And at the strokes some townsman (met, maybe,
   And thereon queried by some squire’s good dame
   Driving in shopward) may have given thy name,
   With, “Yes, a worthy man and well-to-do;
      Though, as for me,
I knew him but by just a neighbour’s nod, ‘tis true.

   ”I’ faith, few knew him much here, save by word,
   He having elsewhere led his busier life;
   Though to be sure he left with us his wife.”
  — ”Ah, one of the tradesmen’s sons, I now recall . . .
      Witty, I’ve heard . . .
We did not know him . . . Well, good-day. Death comes to all.”

   So, like a strange bright bird we sometimes find
   To mingle with the barn-door brood awhile,
   Then vanish from their homely domicile -
   Into man’s poesy, we wot not whence,
      Flew thy strange mind,
Lodged there a radiant guest, and sped for ever thence.

1916.

QUID HIC AGIS?

I

When I weekly knew
An ancient pew,
And murmured there
The forms of prayer
And thanks and praise
In the ancient ways,
And heard read out
During August drought
That chapter from Kings
Harvest-time brings;
- How the prophet, broken
By griefs unspoken,
Went heavily away
To fast and to pray,
And, while waiting to die,
The Lord passed by,
And a whirlwind and fire
Drew nigher and nigher,
And a small voice anon
Bade him up and be gone, -
I did not apprehend
As I sat to the end
And watched for her smile
Across the sunned aisle,
That this tale of a seer
Which came once a year
Might, when sands were heaping,
Be like a sweat creeping,
Or in any degree
Bear on her or on me!

II

When later, by chance
Of circumstance,
It befel me to read
On a hot afternoon
At the lectern there
The selfsame words
As the lesson decreed,
To the gathered few
From the hamlets near -
Folk of flocks and herds
Sitting half aswoon,
Who listened thereto
As women and men
Not overmuch
Concerned at such -
So, like them then,
I did not see
What drought might be
With me, with her,
As the Kalendar
Moved on, and Time
Devoured our prime.

III

But now, at last,
When our glory has passed,
And there is no smile
From her in the aisle,
But where it once shone
A marble, men say,
With her name thereon
Is discerned to-day;
And spiritless
In the wilderness
I shrink from sight
And desire the night,
(Though, as in old wise,
I might still arise,
Go forth, and stand
And prophesy in the land),
I feel the shake
Of wind and earthquake,
And consuming fire
Nigher and nigher,
And the voice catch clear,
“What doest thou here?”

The Spectator 1916. During the War.

ON A MIDSUMMER EVE

I idly cut a parsley stalk,
And blew therein towards the moon;
I had not thought what ghosts would walk
With shivering footsteps to my tune.

I went, and knelt, and scooped my hand
As if to drink, into the brook,
And a faint figure seemed to stand
Above me, with the bygone look.

I lipped rough rhymes of chance, not choice,
I thought not what my words might be;
There came into my ear a voice
That turned a tenderer verse for me.

TIMING HER

(Written to an old folk-tune)

Lalage’s coming:
Where is she now, O?
Turning to bow, O,
And smile, is she,
Just at parting,
Parting, parting,
As she is starting
To come to me?

Where is she now, O,
Now, and now, O,
Shadowing a bough, O,
Of hedge or tree
As she is rushing,
Rushing, rushing,
Gossamers brushing
To come to me?

Lalage’s coming;
Where is she now, O;
Climbing the brow, O,
Of hills I see?
Yes, she is nearing,
Nearing, nearing,
Weather unfearing
To come to me.

Near is she now, O,
Now, and now, O;
Milk the rich cow, O,
Forward the tea;
Shake the down bed for her,
Linen sheets spread for her,
Drape round the head for her
Coming to me.

Lalage’s coming,
She’s nearer now, O,
End anyhow, O,
To-day’s husbandry!
Would a gilt chair were mine,
Slippers of vair were mine,
Brushes for hair were mine
Of ivory!

What will she think, O,
She who’s so comely,
Viewing how homely
A sort are we!
Nothing resplendent,
No prompt attendant,
Not one dependent
Pertaining to me!

Lalage’s coming;
Where is she now, O?
Fain I’d avow, O,
Full honestly
Nought here’s enough for her,
All is too rough for her,
Even my love for her
Poor in degree.

She’s nearer now, O,
Still nearer now, O,
She ‘tis, I vow, O,
Passing the lea.
Rush down to meet her there,
Call out and greet her there,
Never a sweeter there
Crossed to me!

Lalage’s come; aye,
Come is she now, O! . . .
Does Heaven allow, O,
A meeting to be?
Yes, she is here now,
Here now, here now,
Nothing to fear now,
Here’s Lalage!

BEFORE KNOWLEDGE

When I walked roseless tracks and wide,
Ere dawned your date for meeting me,
O why did you not cry Halloo
Across the stretch between, and say:

“We move, while years as yet divide,
On closing lines which — though it be
You know me not nor I know you -
Will intersect and join some day!”

   Then well I had borne
   Each scraping thorn;
   But the winters froze,
   And grew no rose;
   No bridge bestrode
   The gap at all;
   No shape you showed,
   And I heard no call!

THE BLINDED BIRD

So zestfully canst thou sing?
And all this indignity,
With God’s consent, on thee!
Blinded ere yet a-wing
By the red-hot needle thou,
I stand and wonder how
So zestfully thou canst sing!

Resenting not such wrong,
Thy grievous pain forgot,
Eternal dark thy lot,
Groping thy whole life long;
After that stab of fire;
Enjailed in pitiless wire;
Resenting not such wrong!

Who hath charity? This bird.
Who suffereth long and is kind,
Is not provoked, though blind
And alive ensepulchred?
Who hopeth, endureth all things?
Who thinketh no evil, but sings?
Who is divine? This bird.

THE WIND BLEW WORDS

The wind blew words along the skies,
   And these it blew to me
Through the wide dusk: “Lift up your eyes,
   Behold this troubled tree,
Complaining as it sways and plies;
   It is a limb of thee.

“Yea, too, the creatures sheltering round -
   Dumb figures, wild and tame,
Yea, too, thy fellows who abound -
   Either of speech the same
Or far and strange — black, dwarfed, and browned,
   They are stuff of thy own frame.”

I moved on in a surging awe
   Of inarticulateness
At the pathetic Me I saw
   In all his huge distress,
Making self-slaughter of the law
   To kill, break, or suppress.

THE FADED FACE

How was this I did not see
Such a look as here was shown
Ere its womanhood had blown
Past its first felicity? -
That I did not know you young,
   Faded Face,
      Know you young!

Why did Time so ill bestead
That I heard no voice of yours
Hail from out the curved contours
Of those lips when rosy red;
Weeted not the songs they sung,
   Faded Face,
      Songs they sung!

By these blanchings, blooms of old,
And the relics of your voice -
Leavings rare of rich and choice
From your early tone and mould -
Let me mourn, — aye, sorrow-wrung,
   Faded Face,
      Sorrow-wrung!