Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (989 page)
Read Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) Online
Authors: Thomas Hardy
Where once we rowed, where once we sailed,
Gentlemen,
And damsels took the tiller, veiled
Against too strong a stare (God wot
Their fancy, then or anywhen!)
Upon that shore we are clean forgot,
Gentlemen!
We have lost somewhat, afar and near,
Gentlemen,
The thinning of our ranks each year
Affords a hint we are nigh undone,
That we shall not be ever again
The marked of many, loved of one,
Gentlemen.
In dance the polka hit our wish,
Gentlemen,
The paced quadrille, the spry schottische,
“Sir Roger.” - And in opera spheres
The “Girl” (the famed “Bohemian”),
And “Trovatore,” held the ears,
Gentlemen.
This season’s paintings do not please,
Gentlemen,
Like Etty, Mulready, Maclise;
Throbbing romance has waned and wanned;
No wizard wields the witching pen
Of Bulwer, Scott, Dumas, and Sand,
Gentlemen.
The bower we shrined to Tennyson,
Gentlemen,
Is roof-wrecked; damps there drip upon
Sagged seats, the creeper-nails are rust,
The spider is sole denizen;
Even she who read those rhymes is dust,
Gentlemen!
We who met sunrise sanguine-souled,
Gentlemen,
Are wearing weary. We are old;
These younger press; we feel our rout
Is imminent to Aïdes’ den, -
That evening’s shades are stretching out,
Gentlemen!
And yet, though ours be failing frames,
Gentlemen,
So were some others’ history names,
Who trode their track light-limbed and fast
As these youth, and not alien
From enterprise, to their long last,
Gentlemen.
Sophocles, Plato, Socrates,
Gentlemen,
Pythagoras, Thucydides,
Herodotus, and Homer, - yea,
Clement, Augustin, Origen,
Burnt brightlier towards their setting-day,
Gentlemen.
And ye, red-lipped and smooth-browed; list,
Gentlemen;
Much is there waits you we have missed;
Much lore we leave you worth the knowing,
Much, much has lain outside our ken:
Nay, rush not: time serves: we are going,
Gentlemen.
AFTER READING PSALMS
XXXIX., XL., ETC.
Simple was I and was young;
Kept no gallant tryst, I;
Even from good words held my tongue,
Quoniam Tu fecisti
!
Through my youth I stirred me not,
High adventure missed I,
Left the shining shrines unsought;
Yet -
me deduxisti
!
At my start by Helicon
Love-lore little wist I,
Worldly less; but footed on;
Why?
Me suscepisti
!
When I failed at fervid rhymes,
”Shall,” I said, “persist I?”
“
Dies
” (I would add at times)
”
Meos posuisti
!”
So I have fared through many suns;
Sadly little grist I
Bring my mill, or any one’s,
Domine, Tu scisti
!
And at dead of night I call:
”Though to prophets list I,
Which hath understood at all?
Yea:
Quem elegisti
?”
187-
SURVIEW
“Cogitavi vias meas”
A cry from the green-grained sticks of the fire
Made me gaze where it seemed to be:
‘Twas my own voice talking therefrom to me
On how I had walked when my sun was higher -
My heart in its arrogancy.
“
You held not to whatsoever was true
,”
Said my own voice talking to me:
“Whatsoever was just you were slack to see;
Kept not things lovely and pure in view
,”
Said my own voice talking to me.
“
You slighted her that endureth all
,”
Said my own voice talking to me;
“Vaunteth not, trusteth hopefully;
That suffereth long and is kind withal
,”
Said my own voice talking to me.
“
You taught not that which you set about
,”
Said my own voice talking to me;
“
That the greatest of things is Charity.
. . “
- And the sticks burnt low, and the fire went out,
And my voice ceased talking to me.
HUMAN SHOWS FAR PHANTASIES SONGS, AND TRIFLES
CONTENTS
A BIRD-SCENE AT A RURAL DWELLING
IN A FORMER RESORT AFTER MANY YEARS
A CATHEDRAL FAÇADE AT MIDNIGHT
COMING UP OXFORD STREET: EVENING
XENOPHANES, THE MONIST OF COLOPHON
LAST LOOK ROUND ST. MARTIN’S FAIR
ON THE PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN ABOUT TO BE HANGED
A BEAUTY’S SOLILOQUY DURING HER HONEYMOON
HE INADVERTENTLY CURES HIS LOVE-PAINS
INSCRIPTIONS FOR A PEAL OF EIGHT BELLS
A WATERING-PLACE LADY INVENTORIED
SHORTENING DAYS AT THE HOMESTEAD
Hardy with his beloved bicycle, c. 1890
WAITING BOTH
A star looks down at me,
And says: “Here I and you
Stand, each in our degree:
What do you mean to do, —
Mean to do?”
I say: “For all I know,
Wait, and let Time go by,
Till my change come.” — ”Just so,”
The star says: “So mean I: —
So mean I.”
A BIRD-SCENE AT A RURAL DWELLING
When the inmate stirs, the birds retire discreetly
From the window-ledge, whereon they whistled sweetly
And on the step of the door,
In the misty morning hoar;
But now the dweller is up they flee
To the crooked neighbouring codlin-tree;
And when he comes fully forth they seek the garden,
And call from the lofty costard, as pleading pardon
For shouting so near before
In their joy at being alive: —
Meanwhile the hammering clock within goes five.
I know a domicile of brown and green,
Where for a hundred summers there have been
Just such enactments, just such daybreaks seen.
ANY LITTLE OLD SONG
Any little old song
Will do for me,
Tell it of joys gone long,
Or joys to be,
Or friendly faces best
Loved to see.
Newest themes I want not
On subtle strings,
And for thrillings pant not
That new song brings:
I only need the homeliest
Of heartstirrings.
IN A FORMER RESORT AFTER MANY YEARS
Do I know these, slack-shaped and wan,
Whose substance, one time fresh and furrowless,
Is now a rag drawn over a skeleton,
As in El Greco’s canvases? —
Whose cheeks have slipped down, lips become indrawn,
And statures shrunk to dwarfishness?
Do they know me, whose former mind
Was like an open plain where no foot falls,
But now is as a gallery portrait-lined,
And scored with necrologic scrawls,
Where feeble voices rise, once full-defined,
From underground in curious calls?
A CATHEDRAL FAÇADE AT MIDNIGHT