Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (990 page)

Along the sculptures of the western wall
I watched the moonlight creeping:
It moved as if it hardly moved at all
Inch by inch thinly peeping

Round on the pious figures of freestone, brought
And poised there when the Universe was wrought
To serve its centre, Earth, in mankind’s thought.

The lunar look skimmed scantly toe, breast, arm,
Then edged on slowly, slightly,
To shoulder, hand, face; till each austere form
Was blanched its whole length brightly
Of prophet, king, queen, cardinal in state,
That dead men’s tools had striven to simulate;
And the stiff images stood irradiate.

A frail moan from the martyred saints there set
Mid others of the erection
Against the breeze, seemed sighings of regret
At the ancient faith’s rejection
Under the sure, unhasting, steady stress
Of Reason’s movement, making meaningless
The coded creeds of old-time godliness.

THE TURNIP-HOER

Of tides that toss the souls of men
Some are foreseen, and weathered warefully;
More burst at flood, none witting why or when,
And are called Destiny.

— Years past there was a turnip-hoer,
Who loved his wife and child, and worked amain
In the turnip-time from dawn till day out-wore
And night bedimmed the plain.

The thronging plants of blueish green
Would fall in lanes before his skilful blade,
Which, as by sleight, would deftly slip between
Those spared and those low-laid.

‘Twas afternoon: he hoed his best,
Unlifting head or eye, when, through the fence,
He heard a gallop dropping from the crest
Of the hill above him, whence,

Descending at a crashing pace,
An open carriage came, horsed by a pair:
A lady sat therein, with lilywhite face
And wildly windblown hair.

The man sprang over, and horse and horse
Faced in the highway as the pair ondrew;
Like Terminus stood he there, and barred their course,
And almost ere he knew

The lady was limp within his arms,
And, half-unconscious, clutched his hair and beard;
And so he held her, till from neighbouring farms
Came hinds, and soon appeared

Footman and coachman on the way: —
The steeds were guided back, now breath-bespent,
And the hoer was rewarded with good pay: —
So passed the accident.

“She was the Duchess of Southernshire,
They tell me,” said the second hoe, next day:
“She’s come a-visiting not far from here;
This week will end her stay.”

The hoer’s wife that evening set
Her hand to a crusted stew in the three-legged pot,
And he sat looking on in silence; yet
The cooking saw he not,

But a woman, with her arms around him,
Glove-handed, clasping his neck and clutching his blouse,
And ere he went to bed that night he found him
Outside a manor-house.

A page there smoking answered him:
“Her Grace’s room is where you see that light;
By now she’s up there slipping off her trim:
The Dook’s is on the right.”

She was, indeed, just saying through the door,
“That dauntless fellow saved me from collapse:

I’d not much with me, or ‘d have given him more:
‘Twas not enough, perhaps!”

Up till she left, before he slept,
He walked, though tired, to where her window shined,
And mused till it went dark; but close he kept
All that was in his mind.

“What is it, Ike?” inquired his wife;
“You are not so nice now as you used to be.
What have I done? You seem quite tired of life!”
“Nothing at all,” said he.

In the next shire this lady of rank,
So ‘twas made known, would open a bazaar:
He took his money from the savings-bank
To go there, for ‘twas far.

And reached her stall, and sighted, clad
In her ripe beauty and the goodliest guise,
His Vision of late. He straight spent all he had,
But not once caught her eyes.

Next week he heard, with heart of clay,
That London held her for three months or so:
Fearing to tell his wife he went for a day,
Pawning his watch to go;

And scanned the Square of her abode,
And timed her moves, as well as he could guess,
That he might glimpse her; till afoot by road
He came home penniless. . . .

— The Duke in Wessex once again,
Glanced at the Wessex paper, where he read
Of a man, late taken to drink, killed by a train
At a crossing, so it said.

“Why — he who saved your life, I think?”
 — ”O no,” said she. “It cannot be the same:
He was sweet-breath’d, without a taint of drink;
Yet it is like his name.”

THE CARRIER

There’s a seat, I see, still empty?”
Cried the hailer from the road;
“No, there is not!” said the carrier,
Quickening his horse and load.

“ — They say you are in the grave, Jane;
But still you ride with me!”
And he looked towards the vacant space
He had kept beside his knee.

And the passengers murmured: “‘Tis where his wife
In journeys to and fro
Used always to sit; but nobody does
Since those long years ago.”

Rumble-mumble went the van
Past Sidwell Church and wall,
Till Exon Towers were out of scan,
And night lay over all.

LOVER TO MISTRESS

(SONG)

Beckon to me to come
With handkerchief or hand,
Or finger mere or thumb;
Let forecasts be but rough,
Parents more bleak than bland,
‘Twill be enough,
Maid mine,
‘Twill be enough!

Two fields, a wood, a tree,
Nothing now more malign
Lies between you and me;
But were they bysm, or bluff,
Or snarling sea, one sign
Would be enough,
Maid mine,
Would be enough!

From an old copy.

THE MONUMENT-MAKER

I chiselled her monument
To my mind’s content,
Took it to the church by night,
When her planet was at its height,
And set it where I had figured the place in the daytime.
Having niched it there
I stepped back, cheered, and thought its outlines fair,
And its marbles rare.

Then laughed she over my shoulder as in our Maytime:
“It spells not me!” she said:
“Tells nothing about my beauty, wit, or gay time
With all those, quick and dead,
Of high or lowlihead,
That hovered near,
Including you, who carve there your devotion;
But you felt none, my dear!”

And then she vanished. Checkless sprang my emotion
And forced a tear
At seeing I’d not been truly known by her,
And never prized! — that my memorial here,
To consecrate her sepulchre,
Was scorned, almost,
By her sweet ghost:
Yet I hoped not quite, in her very innermost!

1916.

CIRCUS-RIDER TO RINGMASTER

When I am riding round the ring no longer,
Tell a tale of me;
Say, no steed-borne woman’s nerve was stronger
Than used mine to be.
Let your whole soul say it; do:
O it will be true!

Should I soon no more be mistress found in
Feats I’ve made my own,

Trace the tan-laid track you’d whip me round in
On the cantering roan:
There may cross your eyes again
My lithe look as then.

Show how I, when clay becomes my cover,
Took the high-hoop leap
Into your arms, who coaxed and grew my lover, —
Ah, to make me weep
Since those claspings cared for so
Ever so long ago!

Though not now as when you freshly knew me,
But a fading form,
Shape the kiss you’d briskly blow up to me
While our love was warm,
And my cheek unstained by tears,
As in these last years!

LAST WEEK IN OCTOBER

The trees are undressing, and fling in many places —
On the gray road, the roof, the window-sill —
Their radiant robes and ribbons and yellow laces;
A leaf each second so is flung at will,
Here, there, another and another, still and still.

A spider’s web has caught one while downcoming,
That stays there dangling when the rest pass on;
Like a suspended criminal hangs he, mumming
In golden garb, while one yet green, high yon,
Trembles, as fearing such a fate for himself anon.

COME NOT; YET COME!

(SONG)

In my sage moments I can say,
Come not near,
But far in foreign regions stay,
So that here
A mind may grow again serene and clear.

But the thought withers. Why should I
Have fear to earn me
Fame from your nearness, though thereby
Old fires new burn me,
And lastly, maybe, tear and overturn me!

So I say, Come: deign again shine
Upon this place,
Even if unslackened smart be mine
From that sweet face,
And I faint to a phantom past all trace.

THE LATER AUTUMN

Gone are the lovers, under the bush
Stretched at their ease;
Gone the bees,
Tangling themselves in your hair as they rush
On the line of your track,
Leg-laden, back
With a dip to their hive
In a prepossessed dive.

Toadsmeat is mangy, frosted, and sere;
Apples in grass
Crunch as we pass,
And rot ere the men who make cyder appear.
Couch-fires abound
On fallows around,
And shades far extend
Like lives soon to end.

Spinning leaves join the remains shrunk and brown
Of last year’s display
That lie wasting away,
On whose corpses they earlier as scorners gazed down
From their aery green height:
Now in the same plight
They huddle; while yon
A robin looks on.

LET ME BELIEVE

(SONG)

Let me believe it, dearest,
Let it be
As just a dream — the merest —
Haunting me,
That a frank full-souled sweetness
Warmed your smile
And voice, to indiscreetness
Once, awhile!

And I will fondly ponder
Till I lie
Earthed up with others yonder
Past a sigh,
That you may name at stray times
With regret
One whom through green and gray times
You forget!

AT A FASHIONABLE DINNER

We sat with the banqueting-party
By the table-end —
Unmarked, — no diners out
Were we: scarce a friend
Of our own mind’s trend
Was there, though the welcome was hearty.
Then we noticed a shade extend
By a distant screen,
And I said: “What to you does it seem to mean,
Lavine?”

“ — It is like my own body lying
Beyond the door
Where the servants glide in and about
The carpeted floor;
And it means my death hour! — ”

“ — What a fancy! Who feels like dying
While these smart sallies pour,
With laughter between!
To me it is more like satin sheen,
Lavine.”

“ — That means your new bride, when you win her:
Yes, so it must be!
It’s her satin dress, no doubt —
That shine you see —
My own corpse to me!”
And a gloom came over the dinner,
Where almost strangers were we,
As the spirit of the scene
Forsook her — the fairest of the whole thirteen —
Lavine!

GREEN SLATES

(PENPETHY

)

It happened once, before the duller
Loomings of life defined them,
I searched for slates of greenish colour
A quarry where men mined them;

And saw, the while I peered around there,
In the quarry standing
A form against the slate background there,
Of fairness eye-commanding.

And now, though fifty years have flown me,
With all their dreams and duties,
And strange-pipped dice my hand has thrown me,
And dust are all her beauties,

Green slates — seen high on roofs, or lower
In waggon, truck, or lorry —
Cry out: “Our home was where you saw her
Standing in the quarry!”

AN EAST-END CURATE

A small blind street off East Commercial Road;
Window, door; window, door;
Every house like the one before,
Is where the curate, Mr. Dowle, has found a pinched abode.
Spectacled, pale, moustache straw-coloured, and with a long thin face,
Day or dark his lodgings’ narrow doorstep does he pace.

A bleached pianoforte, with its drawn silk plaitings faded,
Stands in his room, its keys much yellowed, cyphering, and abraded,
“Novello’s Anthems” lie at hand, and also a few glees,
And “Laws of Heaven for Earth” in a frame upon the wall one sees.

He goes through his neighbours’ houses as his own, and none regards,
And opens their back-doors off-hand, to look for them in their yards:
A man is threatening his wife on the other side of the wall,
But the curate lets it pass as knowing the history of it all.

Freely within his hearing the children skip and laugh and say:
“There’s Mister Dow-well! There’s Mister Dow-well!” in their play;
And the long, pallid, devoted face notes not,
But stoops along abstractedly, for good, or in vain, God wot!

AT RUSHY-POND

On the frigid face of the heath-hemmed pond
There shaped the half-grown moon:
Winged whiffs from the north with a husky croon
Blew over and beyond.

And the wind flapped the moon in its float on the pool,
And stretched it to oval form;
Then corkscrewed it like a wriggling worm;
Then wanned it weariful.

And I cared not for conning the sky above
Where hung the substant thing,
For my thought was earthward sojourning
On the scene I had vision of.