Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (970 page)

AT MADAME TUSSAUD’S IN VICTORIAN YEARS

“That same first fiddler who leads the orchestra to-night
   Here fiddled four decades of years ago;
He bears the same babe-like smile of self-centred delight,
Same trinket on watch-chain, same ring on the hand with the bow.

“But his face, if regarded, is woefully wanner, and drier,
   And his once dark beard has grown straggling and gray;
Yet a blissful existence he seems to have led with his lyre,
In a trance of his own, where no wearing or tearing had sway.

“Mid these wax figures, who nothing can do, it may seem
   That to do but a little thing counts a great deal;
To be watched by kings, councillors, queens, may be flattering to him
-
With their glass eyes longing they too could wake notes that appeal.”

* * *

Ah, but he played staunchly — that fiddler — whoever he was,
   With the innocent heart and the soul-touching string:
May he find the Fair Haven! For did he not smile with good cause?
Yes; gamuts that graced forty years’-flight were not a small thing!

THE BALLET

They crush together — a rustling heap of flesh -
Of more than flesh, a heap of souls; and then
      They part, enmesh,
   And crush together again,
Like the pink petals of a too sanguine rose
   Frightened shut just when it blows.

Though all alike in their tinsel livery,
And indistinguishable at a sweeping glance,
      They muster, maybe,
   As lives wide in irrelevance;
A world of her own has each one underneath,
   Detached as a sword from its sheath.

Daughters, wives, mistresses; honest or false, sold, bought;
Hearts of all sizes; gay, fond, gushing, or penned,
      Various in thought
      Of lover, rival, friend;
Links in a one-pulsed chain, all showing one smile,
   Yet severed so many a mile!

THE FIVE STUDENTS

      The sparrow dips in his wheel-rut bath,
         The sun grows passionate-eyed,
   And boils the dew to smoke by the paddock-path;
         As strenuously we stride, -
Five of us; dark He, fair He, dark She, fair She, I,
            All beating by.

      The air is shaken, the high-road hot,
         Shadowless swoons the day,
   The greens are sobered and cattle at rest; but not
         We on our urgent way, -
Four of us; fair She, dark She, fair He, I, are there,
            But one — elsewhere.

      Autumn moulds the hard fruit mellow,
         And forward still we press
   Through moors, briar-meshed plantations, clay-pits yellow,
         As in the spring hours — yes,
Three of us: fair He, fair She, I, as heretofore,
            But — fallen one more.

      The leaf drops: earthworms draw it in
         At night-time noiselessly,
   The fingers of birch and beech are skeleton-thin,
            And yet on the beat are we, -
Two of us; fair She, I. But no more left to go
               The track we know.

      Icicles tag the church-aisle leads,
         The flag-rope gibbers hoarse,
   The home-bound foot-folk wrap their snow-flaked heads,
            Yet I still stalk the course, -
One of us . . . Dark and fair He, dark and fair She, gone:
               The rest — anon.

THE WIND’S PROPHECY

I travel on by barren farms,
And gulls glint out like silver flecks
Against a cloud that speaks of wrecks,
And bellies down with black alarms.
I say: “Thus from my lady’s arms
I go; those arms I love the best!”
The wind replies from dip and rise,
“Nay; toward her arms thou journeyest.”

A distant verge morosely gray
Appears, while clots of flying foam
Break from its muddy monochrome,
And a light blinks up far away.
I sigh: “My eyes now as all day
Behold her ebon loops of hair!”
Like bursting bonds the wind responds,
“Nay, wait for tresses flashing fair!”

From tides the lofty coastlands screen
Come smitings like the slam of doors,
Or hammerings on hollow floors,
As the swell cleaves through caves unseen.
Say I: “Though broad this wild terrene,
Her city home is matched of none!”
From the hoarse skies the wind replies:
“Thou shouldst have said her sea-bord one.”

The all-prevailing clouds exclude
The one quick timorous transient star;
The waves outside where breakers are
Huzza like a mad multitude.
“Where the sun ups it, mist-imbued,”
I cry, “there reigns the star for me!”
The wind outshrieks from points and peaks:
“Here, westward, where it downs, mean ye!”

Yonder the headland, vulturine,
Snores like old Skrymer in his sleep,
And every chasm and every steep
Blackens as wakes each pharos-shine.
“I roam, but one is safely mine,”
I say. “God grant she stay my own!”
Low laughs the wind as if it grinned:
“Thy Love is one thou’st not yet known.”

Rewritten from an old copy.

DURING WIND AND RAIN

   They sing their dearest songs -
   He, she, all of them — yea,
   Treble and tenor and bass,
      And one to play;
   With the candles mooning each face . . .
      Ah, no; the years O!
How the sick leaves reel down in throngs!

   They clear the creeping moss -
   Elders and juniors — aye,
   Making the pathways neat
      And the garden gay;
   And they build a shady seat . . .
      Ah, no; the years, the years;
See, the white storm-birds wing across!

   They are blithely breakfasting all -
   Men and maidens — yea,
   Under the summer tree,
      With a glimpse of the bay,
   While pet fowl come to the knee . . .
      Ah, no; the years O!
And the rotten rose is ript from the wall.

   They change to a high new house,
   He, she, all of them — aye,
   Clocks and carpets and chairs
      On the lawn all day,
   And brightest things that are theirs . . .
      Ah, no; the years, the years;
Down their carved names the rain-drop ploughs.

HE PREFERS HER EARTHLY

This after-sunset is a sight for seeing,
Cliff-heads of craggy cloud surrounding it.
  — And dwell you in that glory-show?
You may; for there are strange strange things in being,
      Stranger than I know.

Yet if that chasm of splendour claim your presence
Which glows between the ash cloud and the dun,
   How changed must be your mortal mould!
Changed to a firmament-riding earthless essence
      From what you were of old:

All too unlike the fond and fragile creature
Then known to me . . . Well, shall I say it plain?
   I would not have you thus and there,
But still would grieve on, missing you, still feature
      You as the one you were.

THE DOLLS

“Whenever you dress me dolls, mammy,
   Why do you dress them so,
And make them gallant soldiers,
   When never a one I know;
And not as gentle ladies
   With frills and frocks and curls,
As people dress the dollies
   Of other little girls?”

Ah — why did she not answer:-
   ”Because your mammy’s heed
Is always gallant soldiers,
   As well may be, indeed.
One of them was your daddy,
   His name I must not tell;
He’s not the dad who lives here,
   But one I love too well.”

MOLLY GONE

   No more summer for Molly and me;
      There is snow on the tree,
   And the blackbirds plump large as the rooks are, almost,
      And the water is hard
Where they used to dip bills at the dawn ere her figure was lost
      To these coasts, now my prison close-barred.

   No more planting by Molly and me
      Where the beds used to be
   Of sweet-william; no training the clambering rose
      By the framework of fir
Now bowering the pathway, whereon it swings gaily and blows
      As if calling commendment from her.

   No more jauntings by Molly and me
      To the town by the sea,
   Or along over Whitesheet to Wynyard’s green Gap,
      Catching Montacute Crest
To the right against Sedgmoor, and Corton-Hill’s far-distant cap,
      And Pilsdon and Lewsdon to west.

   No more singing by Molly to me
      In the evenings when she
   Was in mood and in voice, and the candles were lit,
      And past the porch-quoin
The rays would spring out on the laurels; and dumbledores hit
      On the pane, as if wishing to join.

   Where, then, is Molly, who’s no more with me?
     — As I stand on this lea,
   Thinking thus, there’s a many-flamed star in the air,
      That tosses a sign
That her glance is regarding its face from her home, so that there
      Her eyes may have meetings with mine.

A BACKWARD SPRING

The trees are afraid to put forth buds,
And there is timidity in the grass;
The plots lie gray where gouged by spuds,
   And whether next week will pass
Free of sly sour winds is the fret of each bush
   Of barberry waiting to bloom.

Yet the snowdrop’s face betrays no gloom,
And the primrose pants in its heedless push,
Though the myrtle asks if it’s worth the fight
   This year with frost and rime
   To venture one more time
On delicate leaves and buttons of white
From the selfsame bough as at last year’s prime,
And never to ruminate on or remember
What happened to it in mid-December.

April 1917.

LOOKING ACROSS

I

It is dark in the sky,
And silence is where
Our laughs rang high;
And recall do I
That One is out there.

II

The dawn is not nigh,
And the trees are bare,
And the waterways sigh
That a year has drawn by,
And Two are out there.

III

The wind drops to die
Like the phantom of Care
Too frail for a cry,
And heart brings to eye
That Three are out there.

IV

This Life runs dry
That once ran rare
And rosy in dye,
And fleet the days fly,
And Four are out there.

V

Tired, tired am I
Of this earthly air,
And my wraith asks: Why,
Since these calm lie,
Are not Five out there?

December 1915.

AT A SEASIDE TOWN IN 1869

(Young Lover’s Reverie)

I went and stood outside myself,
   Spelled the dark sky
   And ship-lights nigh,
And grumbling winds that passed thereby.

Then next inside myself I looked,
   And there, above
   All, shone my Love,
That nothing matched the image of.

Beyond myself again I ranged;
   And saw the free
   Life by the sea,
And folk indifferent to me.

O ‘twas a charm to draw within
   Thereafter, where
   But she was; care
For one thing only, her hid there!

But so it chanced, without myself
   I had to look,
   And then I took
More heed of what I had long forsook:

The boats, the sands, the esplanade,
   The laughing crowd;
   Light-hearted, loud
Greetings from some not ill-endowed;

The evening sunlit cliffs, the talk,
   Hailings and halts,
   The keen sea-salts,
The band, the Morgenblatter Waltz.

Still, when at night I drew inside
   Forward she came,
   Sad, but the same
As when I first had known her name.

Then rose a time when, as by force,
   Outwardly wooed
   By contacts crude,
Her image in abeyance stood . . .

At last I said: This outside life
   Shall not endure;
   I’ll seek the pure
Thought-world, and bask in her allure.

Myself again I crept within,
   Scanned with keen care
   The temple where
She’d shone, but could not find her there.

I sought and sought. But O her soul
   Has not since thrown
   Upon my own
One beam! Yea, she is gone, is gone.

From an old note.

THE GLIMPSE

She sped through the door
And, following in haste,
And stirred to the core,
I entered hot-faced;
But I could not find her,
No sign was behind her.
“Where is she?” I said:
- “Who?” they asked that sat there;
“Not a soul’s come in sight.”
- “A maid with red hair.”
- “Ah.” They paled. “She is dead.
People see her at night,
But you are the first
On whom she has burst
In the keen common light.”

It was ages ago,
When I was quite strong:
I have waited since, — O,
I have waited so long!
- Yea, I set me to own
The house, where now lone
I dwell in void rooms
Booming hollow as tombs!
But I never come near her,
Though nightly I hear her.
And my cheek has grown thin
And my hair has grown gray
With this waiting therein;
But she still keeps away!

THE PEDESTRIAN AN INCIDENT OF 1883

“Sir, will you let me give you a ride?
Nox Venit, and the heath is wide.”
- My phaeton-lantern shone on one
   Young, fair, even fresh,
   But burdened with flesh:
A leathern satchel at his side,
His breathings short, his coat undone.

‘Twas as if his corpulent figure slopped
With the shake of his walking when he stopped,
And, though the night’s pinch grew acute,
   He wore but a thin
   Wind-thridded suit,
Yet well-shaped shoes for walking in,
Artistic beaver, cane gold-topped.