Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (980 page)

         ”Visible in the morning
      Stand they, when dawn drags in;
   Visible at night; yet hint or warning
Of these thin elbowers few of the inmates win.

         ”Babes new-brought-forth
      Obsess my rooms; straight-stretched
   Lank corpses, ere outborne to earth;
Yea, throng they as when first from the ‘Byss upfetched.

         ”Dancers and singers
      Throb in me now as once;
   Rich-noted throats and gossamered fingers
Of heels; the learned in love-lore and the dunce.

         ”Note here within
      The bridegroom and the bride,
   Who smile and greet their friends and kin,
And down my stairs depart for tracks untried.

         ”Where such inbe,
      A dwelling’s character
   Takes theirs, and a vague semblancy
To them in all its limbs, and light, and atmosphere.

         ”Yet the blind folk
      My tenants, who come and go
   In the flesh mid these, with souls unwoke,
Of such sylph-like surrounders do not know.”

         ” - Will the day come,”
      Said the new one, awestruck, faint,
   ”When I shall lodge shades dim and dumb -
And with such spectral guests become acquaint?”

         ” - That will it, boy;
      Such shades will people thee,
   Each in his misery, irk, or joy,
And print on thee their presences as on me.”

ON STINSFORD HILL AT MIDNIGHT

I glimpsed a woman’s muslined form
   Sing-songing airily
Against the moon; and still she sang,
   And took no heed of me.

Another trice, and I beheld
   What first I had not scanned,
That now and then she tapped and shook
   A timbrel in her hand.

So late the hour, so white her drape,
   So strange the look it lent
To that blank hill, I could not guess
   What phantastry it meant.

Then burst I forth: “Why such from you?
   Are you so happy now?”
Her voice swam on; nor did she show
   Thought of me anyhow.

I called again: “Come nearer; much
   That kind of note I need!”
The song kept softening, loudening on,
   In placid calm unheed.

“What home is yours now?” then I said;
   ”You seem to have no care.”
But the wild wavering tune went forth
   As if I had not been there.

“This world is dark, and where you are,”
   I said, “I cannot be!”
But still the happy one sang on,
   And had no heed of me.

THE FALLOW DEER AT THE LONELY HOUSE

One without looks in to-night
   Through the curtain-chink
From the sheet of glistening white;
One without looks in to-night
   As we sit and think
   By the fender-brink.

We do not discern those eyes
   Watching in the snow;
Lit by lamps of rosy dyes
We do not discern those eyes
   Wondering, aglow,
   Fourfooted, tiptoe.

THE SELFSAME SONG

A bird bills the selfsame song,
With never a fault in its flow,
That we listened to here those long
   Long years ago.

A pleasing marvel is how
A strain of such rapturous rote
Should have gone on thus till now
   Unchanged in a note!

- But it’s not the selfsame bird. -
No: perished to dust is he . . .
As also are those who heard
   That song with me.

THE WANDERER

There is nobody on the road
   But I,
And no beseeming abode
   I can try
For shelter, so abroad
   I must lie.

The stars feel not far up,
   And to be
The lights by which I sup
   Glimmeringly,
Set out in a hollow cup
   Over me.

They wag as though they were
   Panting for joy
Where they shine, above all care,
   And annoy,
And demons of despair -
   Life’s alloy.

Sometimes outside the fence
   Feet swing past,
Clock-like, and then go hence,
   Till at last
There is a silence, dense,
   Deep, and vast.

A wanderer, witch-drawn
   To and fro,
To-morrow, at the dawn,
   On I go,
And where I rest anon
   Do not know!

Yet it’s meet - this bed of hay
   And roofless plight;
For there’s a house of clay,
   My own, quite,
To roof me soon, all day
   And all night.

A WIFE COMES BACK

This is the story a man told me
   Of his life’s one day of dreamery.

   A woman came into his room
Between the dawn and the creeping day:
She was the years-wed wife from whom
He had parted, and who lived far away,
      As if strangers they.

   He wondered, and as she stood
She put on youth in her look and air,
And more was he wonderstruck as he viewed
Her form and flesh bloom yet more fair
      While he watched her there;

   Till she freshed to the pink and brown
That were hers on the night when first they met,
When she was the charm of the idle town
And he the pick of the club-fire set . . .
      His eyes grew wet,

   And he stretched his arms: “Stay - rest! - “
He cried.  “Abide with me so, my own!”
But his arms closed in on his hard bare breast;
She had vanished with all he had looked upon
      Of her beauty: gone.

   He clothed, and drew downstairs,
But she was not in the house, he found;
And he passed out under the leafy pairs
Of the avenue elms, and searched around
      To the park-pale bound.

   He mounted, and rode till night
To the city to which she had long withdrawn,
The vision he bore all day in his sight
Being her young self as pondered on
      In the dim of dawn.

   ” - The lady here long ago -
Is she now here? - young - or such age as she is?”
“ - She is still here.” - “Thank God.  Let her know;
She’ll pardon a comer so late as this
   Whom she’d fain not miss.”

   She received him - an ancient dame,
Who hemmed, with features frozen and numb,
“How strange! - I’d almost forgotten your name! -
A call just now - is troublesome;
      Why did you come?”

A YOUNG MAN’S EXHORTATION

   Call off your eyes from care
By some determined deftness; put forth joys
Dear as excess without the core that cloys,
   And charm Life’s lourings fair.

   Exalt and crown the hour
That girdles us, and fill it full with glee,
Blind glee, excelling aught could ever be
   Were heedfulness in power.

   Send up such touching strains
That limitless recruits from Fancy’s pack
Shall rush upon your tongue, and tender back
   All that your soul contains.

   For what do we know best?
That a fresh love-leaf crumpled soon will dry,
And that men moment after moment die,
   Of all scope dispossest.

   If I have seen one thing
It is the passing preciousness of dreams;
That aspects are within us; and who seems
   Most kingly is the King.

1867: WESTBOURNE PARK VILLAS.

AT LULWORTH COVE A CENTURY BACK

Had I but lived a hundred years ago
I might have gone, as I have gone this year,
By Warmwell Cross on to a Cove I know,
And Time have placed his finger on me there:

“
You see that man
?” - I might have looked, and said,
“O yes: I see him.  One that boat has brought
Which dropped down Channel round Saint Alban’s Head.
So commonplace a youth calls not my thought.”

“
You see that man
?” - “Why yes; I told you; yes:
Of an idling town-sort; thin; hair brown in hue;
And as the evening light scants less and less
He looks up at a star, as many do.”

“
You see that man
?” - “Nay, leave me!” then I plead,
“I have fifteen miles to vamp across the lea,
And it grows dark, and I am weary-kneed:
I have said the third time; yes, that man I see!

“Good.  That man goes to Rome - to death, despair;
And no one notes him now but you and I:
A hundred years, and the world will follow him there,
And bend with reverence where his ashes lie.”

September
1920.

Note. - In September 1820 Keats, on his way to Rome, landed one day on the Dorset coast, and composed the sonnet, “Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art.”  The spot of his landing is judged to have been Lulworth Cove.

A BYGONE OCCASION

(SONG)
 

   That night, that night,
   That song, that song!
Will such again be evened quite
   Through lifetimes long?

   No mirth was shown
   To outer seers,
But mood to match has not been known
   In modern years.

   O eyes that smiled,
   O lips that lured;
That such would last was one beguiled
   To think ensured!

   That night, that night,
   That song, that song;
O drink to its recalled delight,
   Though tears may throng!

TWO SERENADES

I -
On Christmas Eve

Late on Christmas Eve, in the street alone,
Outside a house, on the pavement-stone,
I sang to her, as we’d sung together
On former eves ere I felt her tether. -
Above the door of green by me
Was she, her casement seen by me;
   But she would not heed
   What I melodied
   In my soul’s sore need -
   She would not heed.

Cassiopeia overhead,
And the Seven of the Wain, heard what I said
As I bent me there, and voiced, and fingered
Upon the strings. . . . Long, long I lingered:
Only the curtains hid from her
One whom caprice had bid from her;
   But she did not come,
   And my heart grew numb
   And dull my strum;
   She did not come.

II -
A Year Later

I skimmed the strings; I sang quite low;
I hoped she would not come or know
That the house next door was the one now dittied,
Not hers, as when I had played unpitied;
- Next door, where dwelt a heart fresh stirred,
My new Love, of good will to me,
Unlike my old Love chill to me,
Who had not cared for my notes when heard:
   Yet that old Love came
   To the other’s name
   As hers were the claim;
   Yea, the old Love came

My viol sank mute, my tongue stood still,
I tried to sing on, but vain my will:
I prayed she would guess of the later, and leave me;
She stayed, as though, were she slain by the smart,
She would bear love’s burn for a newer heart.
The tense-drawn moment wrought to bereave me
Of voice, and I turned in a dumb despair
At her finding I’d come to another there.
   Sick I withdrew
   At love’s grim hue
   Ere my last Love knew;
   Sick I withdrew.

From an old copy.

THE WEDDING MORNING

   Tabitha dressed for her wedding:-
   ”Tabby, why look so sad?”
“ - O I feel a great gloominess spreading, spreading,
   Instead of supremely glad! . . .

   ”I called on Carry last night,
   And he came whilst I was there,
Not knowing I’d called.  So I kept out of sight,
   And I heard what he said to her:

   ”‘ - Ah, I’d far liefer marry
   
You,
Dear, to-morrow!’ he said,
‘But that cannot be.’ - O I’d give him to Carry,
   And willingly see them wed,

   ”But how can I do it when
   His baby will soon be born?
After that I hope I may die.  And then
   She can have him.  I shall not mourn!’

END OF THE YEAR 1912

You were here at his young beginning,
   You are not here at his agèd end;
Off he coaxed you from Life’s mad spinning,
   Lest you should see his form extend
      Shivering, sighing,
      Slowly dying,
   And a tear on him expend.

So it comes that we stand lonely
   In the star-lit avenue,
Dropping broken lipwords only,
   For we hear no songs from you,
      Such as flew here
      For the new year
   Once, while six bells swung thereto.

THE CHIMES PLAY LIFE’S A BUMPER!

“Awake!  I’m off to cities far away,”
I said; and rose, on peradventures bent.
The chimes played “Life’s a Bumper!” on that day
To the measure of my walking as I went:
Their sweetness frisked and floated on the lea,
As they played out “Life’s a Bumper!” there to me.

“Awake!” I said.  “I go to take a bride!”
 - The sun arose behind me ruby-red
As I journeyed townwards from the countryside,
The chiming bells saluting near ahead.
Their sweetness swelled in tripping tings of glee
As they played out “Life’s a Bumper!” there to me.

“Again arise.”  I seek a turfy slope,
And go forth slowly on an autumn noon,
And there I lay her who has been my hope,
And think, “O may I follow hither soon!”
While on the wind the chimes come cheerily,
Playing out “Life’s a Bumper!” there to me.

1913.

I WORKED NO WILE TO MEET YOU

(SONG)

I worked no wile to meet you,
   My sight was set elsewhere,
I sheered about to shun you,
   And lent your life no care.
I was unprimed to greet you
   At such a date and place,
Constraint alone had won you
   Vision of my strange face!

You did not seek to see me
   Then or at all, you said,
 - Meant passing when you neared me,
   But stumblingblocks forbade.
You even had thought to flee me,
   By other mindings moved;
No influent star endeared me,
   Unknown, unrecked, unproved!