Her look was pinched and thin,
As if her soul had shrunk and died,
And left a waste within.
HER REPROACH
CON the dead page as ’twere live love: press on!
Cold wisdom’s words will ease thy track for thee;
Aye, go; cast off sweet ways, and leave me wan
To biting blasts that are intent on me.
But if thy object Fame’s far summits be,
Whose inclines many a skeleton o’erlies
That missed both dream and substance, stop and see
How absence wears these cheeks and dims these eyes!
It surely is far sweeter and more wise
To water love, than toil to leave anon
A name whose glory-gleam will but advise
Invidious minds to quench it with their own,
And over which the kindliest will but stay
A moment, musing, “He, too, had his day!”
WESTBOURNE PARK VILLAS,
1867.
THE INCONSISTENT
I SAY, “She was as good as fair,”
When standing by her mound;
“Such passing sweetness,” I declare,
“No longer treads the ground.”
I say, “What living Love can catch
Her bloom and bonhomie,
And what in newer maidens match
Her olden warmth to me!”
—There stands within yon vestry-nook
Where bonded lovers sign,
Her name upon a faded book
With one that is not mine.
To him she breathed the tender vow
She once had breathed to me,
But yet I say, “O love, even now
Would I had died for thee!”
A BROKEN APPOINTMENT
YOU did not come,
And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb.—
Yet less for loss of your dear presence there
Than that I thus found lacking in your make
That high compassion which can overbear
Reluctance for pure lovingkindness’ sake
Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum,
You did not come.
You love not me,
And love alone can lend you loyalty;
—I know and knew it. But, unto the store
Of human deeds divine in all but name,
Was it not worth a little hour or more
To add yet this: Once, you, a woman, came
To soothe a time-torn man; even though it be
You love not me?
“BETWEEN US NOW”
BETWEEN us now and here—
Two thrown together
Who are not wont to wear
Life’s flushest feather—
Who see the scenes slide past,
The daytimes dimming fast,
Let there be truth at last,
Even if despair.
So thoroughly and long
Have you now known me,
So real in faith and strong
Have I now shown me,
That nothing needs disguise
Further in any wise,
Or asks or justifies
A guarded tongue.
Face unto face, then, say,
Eyes mine own meeting,
Is your heart far away,
Or with mine beating?
When false things are brought low,
And swift things have grown slow,
Feigning like froth shall go,
Faith be for aye.
“HOW GREAT MY GRIEF”
(TRIOLET)
HOW great my grief, my joys how few,
Since first it was my fate to know thee!
—Have the slow years not brought to view
How great my grief, my joys how few,
Nor memory shaped old times anew,
Nor loving-kindness helped to show thee
How great my grief, my joys how few,
Since first it was my fate to know thee?
“I NEED NOT GO”
I NEED not go
Through sleet and snow
To where I know
She waits for me;
She will wait me there
Till I find it fair,
And have time to spare
From company.
When I’ve overgot
The world somewhat,
When things cost not
Such stress and strain,
Is soon enough
By cypress sough
To tell my Love
I am come again.
And if some day,
When none cries nay,
I still delay
To seek her side,
(Though ample measure
Of fitting leisure
Await my pleasure)
She will riot chide.
What—not upbraid me
That I delayed me,
Nor ask what stayed me
So long? Ah, no!—
New cares may claim me,
New loves inflame me,
She will not blame me,
But suffer it so.
THE COQUETTE, AND AFTER
(TRIOLETS)
I
FOR long the cruel wish I knew
That your free heart should ache for me
While mine should bear no ache for you;
For, long—the cruel wish!—I knew
How men can feel, and craved to view
My triumph—fated not to be
For long! . . . The cruel wish I knew
That your free heart should ache for me!
II
At last one pays the penalty—
The woman—women always do.
My farce, I found, was tragedy
At last!—One pays the penalty
With interest when one, fancy-free,
Learns love, learns shame . . . Of sinners two
At last _one_ pays the penalty—
The woman—women always do!
A SPOT
IN years defaced and lost,
Two sat here, transport-tossed,
Lit by a living love
The wilted world knew nothing of:
Scared momently
By gaingivings,
Then hoping things
That could not be.
Of love and us no trace
Abides upon the place;
The sun and shadows wheel,
Season and season sereward steal;
Foul days and fair
Here, too, prevail,
And gust and gale
As everywhere.
But lonely shepherd souls
Who bask amid these knolls
May catch a faery sound
On sleepy noontides from the ground:
“O not again
Till Earth outwears
Shall love like theirs
Suffuse this glen!”
LONG PLIGHTED
IS it worth while, dear, now,
To call for bells, and sally forth arrayed
For marriage-rites—discussed, decried, delayed
So many years?
Is it worth while, dear, now,
To stir desire for old fond purposings,
By feints that Time still serves for dallyings,
Though quittance nears?
Is it worth while, dear, when
The day being so far spent, so low the sun,
The undone thing will soon be as the done,
And smiles as tears?
Is it worth while, dear, when
Our cheeks are worn, our early brown is gray;
When, meet or part we, none says yea or nay,
Or heeds, or cares?
Is it worth while, dear, since
We still can climb old Yell’ham’s wooded mounds
Together, as each season steals its rounds
And disappears?
Is it worth while, dear, since
As mates in Mellstock churchyard we can lie,
Till the last crash of all things low and high
Shall end the spheres?
THE WIDOW
BY Mellstock Lodge and Avenue
Towards her door I went,
And sunset on her window-panes
Reflected our intent.
The creeper on the gable nigh
Was fired to more than red
And when I came to halt thereby
“Bright as my joy!” I said.
Of late days it had been her aim
To meet me in the hall;
Now at my footsteps no one came;
And no one to my call.
Again I knocked; and tardily
An inner step was heard,
And I was shown her presence then
With scarce an answering word.
She met me, and but barely took
My proffered warm embrace;
Preoccupation weighed her look,
And hardened her sweet face.
“To-morrow—could you—would you call?
Make brief your present stay?
My child is ill—my one, my all!—
And can’t be left to-day.”
And then she turns, and gives commands
As I were out of sound,
Or were no more to her and hers
Than any neighbour round . . .
—As maid I wooed her; but one came
And coaxed her heart away,
And when in time he wedded her
I deemed her gone for aye.
He won, I lost her; and my loss
I bore I know not how;
But I do think I suffered then
Less wretchedness than now.
For Time, in taking him, had oped
An unexpected door
Of bliss for me, which grew to seem
Far surer than before . . .
Her word is steadfast, and I know
That plighted firm are we:
But she has caught new love-calls since
She smiled as maid on me!
AT A HASTY WEDDING
(TRIOLET)
IF hours be years the twain are blest,
For now they solace swift desire
By bonds of every bond the best,
If hours be years. The twain are blest
Do eastern stars slope never west,
Nor pallid ashes follow fire:
If hours be years the twain are blest,
For now they solace swift desire.
THE DREAM-FOLLOWER
A DREAM of mine flew over the mead
To the halls where my old Love reigns;
And it drew me on to follow its lead:
And I stood at her window-panes;
And I saw but a thing of flesh and bone
Speeding on to its cleft in the clay;
And my dream was scared, and expired on a moan,
And I whitely hastened away.
HIS IMMORTALITY
I
I SAW a dead man’s finer part
Shining within each faithful heart
Of those bereft. Then said I: “This must be
His immortality.”
II
I looked there as the seasons wore,
And still his soul continuously upbore
Its life in theirs. But less its shine excelled
Than when I first beheld.
III
His fellow-yearsmen passed, and then
In later hearts I looked for him again;
And found him—shrunk, alas! into a thin
And spectral mannikin.
IV
Lastly I ask—now old and chill—
If aught of him remain unperished still;
And find, in me alone, a feeble spark,
Dying amid the dark.
_February_ 1899.
THE TO-BE-FORGOTTEN
I
I HEARD a small sad sound,
And stood awhile amid the tombs around:
“Wherefore, old friends,” said I, “are ye distrest,
Now, screened from life’s unrest?”
II
—“O not at being here;
But that our future second death is drear;
When, with the living, memory of us numbs,
And blank oblivion comes!
III
“Those who our grandsires be
Lie here embraced by deeper death than we;
Nor shape nor thought of theirs canst thou descry
With keenest backward eye.
IV
“They bide as quite forgot;
They are as men who have existed not;
Theirs is a loss past loss of fitful breath;
It is the second death.
V
“We here, as yet, each day
Are blest with dear recall; as yet, alway
In some soul hold a loved continuance
Of shape and voice and glance.
VI
“But what has been will be—
First memory, then oblivion’s turbid sea;
Like men foregone, shall we merge into those
Whose story no one knows.
VII
“For which of us could hope
To show in life that world-awakening scope
Granted the few whose memory none lets die,
But all men magnify?
VIII
“We were but Fortune’s sport;
Things true, things lovely, things of good report
We neither shunned nor sought . . . We see our bourne,
And seeing it we mourn.”
WIVES IN THE SERE
I
NEVER a careworn wife but shows,
If a joy suffuse her,
Something beautiful to those
Patient to peruse her,
Some one charm the world unknows
Precious to a muser,
Haply what, ere years were foes,
Moved her mate to choose her.
II
But, be it a hint of rose
That an instant hues her,
Or some early light or pose
Wherewith thought renews her—
Seen by him at full, ere woes
Practised to abuse her—
Sparely comes it, swiftly goes,
Time again subdues her.
THE SUPERSEDED
I
AS newer comers crowd the fore,
We drop behind.
—We who have laboured long and sore
Times out of mind,
And keen are yet, must not regret
To drop behind.
II
Yet there are of us some who grieve
To go behind;
Staunch, strenuous souls who scarce believe
Their fires declined,
And know none cares, remembers, spares
Who go behind.
III
’Tis not that we have unforetold
The drop behind;
We feel the new must oust the old
In every kind;
But yet we think, must we, must _we_,
Too, drop behind?
AN AUGUST MIDNIGHT
I
A SHADED lamp and a waving blind,
And the beat of a clock from a distant floor:
On this scene enter—winged, horned, and spined—
A longlegs, a moth, and a dumbledore;
While ’mid my page there idly stands
A sleepy fly, that rubs its hands . . .
II
Thus meet we five, in this still place,
At this point of time, at this point in space.
—My guests parade my new-penned ink,
Or bang at the lamp-glass, whirl, and sink.
“God’s humblest, they!” I muse. Yet why?
They know Earth-secrets that know not I.
MAX GATE, 1899.
THE CAGED THRUSH FREED AND HOME AGAIN
(VILLANELLE)
“MEN know but little more than we,
Who count us least of things terrene,
How happy days are made to be!
“Of such strange tidings what think ye,
O birds in brown that peck and preen?
Men know but little more than we!
“When I was borne from yonder tree
In bonds to them, I hoped to glean
How happy days are made to be,
“And want and wailing turned to glee;
Alas, despite their mighty mien
Men know but little more than we!
“They cannot change the Frost’s decree,
They cannot keep the skies serene;
How happy days are made to be
“Eludes great Man’s sagacity
No less than ours, O tribes in treen!
Men know but little more than we
How happy days are made to be.”
BIRDS AT WINTER NIGHTFALL
(TRIOLET)
AROUND the house the flakes fly faster,
And all the berries now are gone
From holly and cotoneaster
Around the house. The flakes fly!—faster
Shutting indoors that crumb-outcaster
We used to see upon the lawn
Around the house. The flakes fly faster,
And all the berries now are gone!
MAX GATE.
THE PUZZLED GAME-BIRDS
(TRIOLET)
THEY are not those who used to feed us
When we were young—they cannot be—
These shapes that now bereave and bleed us?
They are not those who used to feed us,—
For would they not fair terms concede us?
—If hearts can house such treachery
They are not those who used to feed us
When we were young—they cannot be!
WINTER IN DURNOVER FIELD
SCENE.—A wide stretch of fallow ground recently sown with wheat, and
frozen to iron hardness. Three large birds walking about thereon, and
wistfully eyeing the surface. Wind keen from north-east: sky a dull
grey.
(TRIOLET)
_Rook_.—Throughout the field I find no grain;
The cruel frost encrusts the cornland!
_Starling_.—Aye: patient pecking now is vain
Throughout the field, I find . . .
_Rook_.—No grain!
_Pigeon_.—Nor will be, comrade, till it rain,
Or genial thawings loose the lorn land
Throughout the field.
_Rook_.—I find no grain:
The cruel frost encrusts the cornland!
THE LAST CHRYSANTHEMUM
WHY should this flower delay so long
To show its tremulous plumes?
Now is the time of plaintive robin-song,
When flowers are in their tombs.
Through the slow summer, when the sun
Called to each frond and whorl
That all he could for flowers was being done,
Why did it not uncurl?
It must have felt that fervid call
Although it took no heed,
Waking but now, when leaves like corpses fall,
And saps all retrocede.
Too late its beauty, lonely thing,
The season’s shine is spent,
Nothing remains for it but shivering
In tempests turbulent.
Had it a reason for delay,
Dreaming in witlessness
That for a bloom so delicately gay
Winter would stay its stress?
—I talk as if the thing were born
With sense to work its mind;
Yet it is but one mask of many worn
By the Great Face behind.
THE DARKLING THRUSH
I LEANT upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings from broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
The land’s sharp features seemed to be
The Century’s corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.
At once a voice outburst among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.
So little cause for carollings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.
_December_ 1900.
THE COMET AT YALBURY OR YELL’HAM
I
IT bends far over Yell’ham Plain,
And we, from Yell’ham Height,
Stand and regard its fiery train,
So soon to swim from sight.
II
It will return long years hence, when
As now its strange swift shine
Will fall on Yell’ham; but not then
On that sweet form of thine.
MAD JUDY
WHEN the hamlet hailed a birth
Judy used to cry:
When she heard our christening mirth
She would kneel and sigh.
She was crazed, we knew, and we
Humoured her infirmity.
When the daughters and the sons
Gathered them to wed,
And we like-intending ones
Danced till dawn was red,
She would rock and mutter, “More
Comers to this stony shore!”
When old Headsman Death laid hands
On a babe or twain,
She would feast, and by her brands
Sing her songs again.
What she liked we let her do,
Judy was insane, we knew.
A WASTED ILLNESS
THROUGH vaults of pain,
Enribbed and wrought with groins of ghastliness,
I passed, and garish spectres moved my brain
To dire distress.
And hammerings,
And quakes, and shoots, and stifling hotness, blent
With webby waxing things and waning things
As on I went.
“Where lies the end
To this foul way?” I asked with weakening breath.
Thereon ahead I saw a door extend—
The door to death.
It loomed more clear:
“At last!” I cried. “The all-delivering door!”
And then, I knew not how, it grew less near
Than theretofore.
And back slid I
Along the galleries by which I came,
And tediously the day returned, and sky,
And life—the same.
And all was well:
Old circumstance resumed its former show,
And on my head the dews of comfort fell
As ere my woe.
I roam anew,
Scarce conscious of my late distress . . . And yet
Those backward steps through pain I cannot view
Without regret.
For that dire train
Of waxing shapes and waning, passed before,
And those grim aisles, must be traversed again
To reach that door.
A MAN
(IN MEMORY OF H. OF M.)
I
IN Casterbridge there stood a noble pile,
Wrought with pilaster, bay, and balustrade
In tactful times when shrewd Eliza swayed.—
On burgher, squire, and clown
It smiled the long street down for near a mile
II
But evil days beset that domicile;
The stately beauties of its roof and wall
Passed into sordid hands. Condemned to fall
Were cornice, quoin, and cove,
And all that art had wove in antique style.
III
Among the hired dismantlers entered there
One till the moment of his task untold.
When charged therewith he gazed, and answered bold:
“Be needy I or no,
I will not help lay low a house so fair!
IV
“Hunger is hard. But since the terms be such—
No wage, or labour stained with the disgrace
Of wrecking what our age cannot replace
To save its tasteless soul—
I’ll do without your dole. Life is not much!”
V
Dismissed with sneers he backed his tools and went,
And wandered workless; for it seemed unwise
To close with one who dared to criticize
And carp on points of taste:
To work where they were placed rude men were meant.
VI
Years whiled. He aged, sank, sickened, and was not:
And it was said, “A man intractable
And curst is gone.” None sighed to hear his knell,
None sought his churchyard-place;
His name, his rugged face, were soon forgot.
VII
The stones of that fair hall lie far and wide,
And but a few recall its ancient mould;
Yet when I pass the spot I long to hold
As truth what fancy saith:
“His protest lives where deathless things abide!”
THE DAME OF ATHELHALL
I
“SOUL! Shall I see thy face,” she said,
“In one brief hour?
And away with thee from a loveless bed
To a far-off sun, to a vine-wrapt bower,
And be thine own unseparated,
And challenge the world’s white glower?”
II
She quickened her feet, and met him where
They had predesigned:
And they clasped, and mounted, and cleft the air
Upon whirling wheels; till the will to bind
Her life with his made the moments there
Efface the years behind.
III
Miles slid, and the sight of the port upgrew
As they sped on;
When slipping its bond the bracelet flew
From her fondled arm. Replaced anon,
Its cameo of the abjured one drew
Her musings thereupon.
IV
The gaud with his image once had been
A gift from him:
And so it was that its carving keen
Refurbished memories wearing dim,
Which set in her soul a throe of teen,
And a tear on her lashes’ brim.
V
“I may not go!” she at length upspake,
“Thoughts call me back—
I would still lose all for your dear, dear sake;
My heart is thine, friend! But my track
I home to Athelhall must take
To hinder household wrack!”
VI
He appealed. But they parted, weak and wan:
And he left the shore;
His ship diminished, was low, was gone;
And she heard in the waves as the daytide wore,
And read in the leer of the sun that shone,
That they parted for evermore.
VII
She homed as she came, at the dip of eve
On Athel Coomb
Regaining the Hall she had sworn to leave . . .
The house was soundless as a tomb,
And she entered her chamber, there to grieve
Lone, kneeling, in the gloom.
VIII
From the lawn without rose her husband’s voice
To one his friend:
“Another her Love, another my choice,
Her going is good. Our conditions mend;
In a change of mates we shall both rejoice;
I hoped that it thus might end!
IX
“A quick divorce; she will make him hers,
And I wed mine.
So Time rights all things in long, long years—
Or rather she, by her bold design!
I admire a woman no balk deters:
She has blessed my life, in fine.
X
“I shall build new rooms for my new true bride,
Let the bygone be:
By now, no doubt, she has crossed the tide
With the man to her mind. Far happier she
In some warm vineland by his side
Than ever she was with me.”
THE SEASONS OF HER YEAR
I
WINTER is white on turf and tree,
And birds are fled;
But summer songsters pipe to me,
And petals spread,
For what I dreamt of secretly
His lips have said!
II
O ’tis a fine May morn, they say,
And blooms have blown;
But wild and wintry is my day,
My birds make moan;
For he who vowed leaves me to pay
Alone—alone!
THE MILKMAID
UNDER a daisied bank
There stands a rich red ruminating cow,
And hard against her flank
A cotton-hooded milkmaid bends her brow.
The flowery river-ooze
Upheaves and falls; the milk purrs in the pail;
Few pilgrims but would choose
The peace of such a life in such a vale.
The maid breathes words—to vent,
It seems, her sense of Nature’s scenery,
Of whose life, sentiment,
And essence, very part itself is she.
She bends a glance of pain,
And, at a moment, lets escape a tear;
Is it that passing train,
Whose alien whirr offends her country ear?—
Nay! Phyllis does not dwell
On visual and familiar things like these;
What moves her is the spell
Of inner themes and inner poetries:
Could but by Sunday morn
Her gay new gown come, meads might dry to dun,
Trains shriek till ears were torn,
If Fred would not prefer that Other One.
THE LEVELLED CHURCHYARD
“O PASSENGER, pray list and catch
Our sighs and piteous groans,
Half stifled in this jumbled patch
Of wrenched memorial stones!
“We late-lamented, resting here,
Are mixed to human jam,
And each to each exclaims in fear,
‘I know not which I am!’
“The wicked people have annexed
The verses on the good;
A roaring drunkard sports the text
Teetotal Tommy should!
“Where we are huddled none can trace,
And if our names remain,
They pave some path or p-ing place
Where we have never lain!
“There’s not a modest maiden elf
But dreads the final Trumpet,
Lest half of her should rise herself,
And half some local strumpet!
“From restorations of Thy fane,
From smoothings of Thy sward,
From zealous Churchmen’s pick and plane
Deliver us O Lord! Amen!”
1882.
THE RUINED MAID
“O ’Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!
Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?
And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?”—
“O didn’t you know I’d been ruined?” said she.
—“You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,
Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;
And now you’ve gay bracelets and bright feathers three!”—
“Yes: that’s how we dress when we’re ruined,” said she.
—“At home in the barton you said ‘thee’ and ‘thou,’
And ‘thik oon,’ and ‘theäs oon,’ and ‘t’other’; but now
Your talking quite fits ’ee for high compa-ny!”—
“Some polish is gained with one’s ruin,” said she.
—“Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak,
But now I’m bewitched by your delicate cheek,
And your little gloves fit as on any la-dy!”—
“We never do work when we’re ruined,” said she.
—“You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream,
And you’d sigh, and you’d sock; but at present you seem
To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!”—
“True. There’s an advantage in ruin,” said she.
—“I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown,
And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!”—
“My dear—a raw country girl, such as you be,
Isn’t equal to that. You ain’t ruined,” said she.
WESTBOURNE PARK VILLAS, 1866.
THE RESPECTABLE BURGHER
ON “THE HIGHER CRITICISM”
SINCE Reverend Doctors now declare
That clerks and people must prepare
To doubt if Adam ever were;
To hold the flood a local scare;
To argue, though the stolid stare,
That everything had happened ere
The prophets to its happening sware;
That David was no giant-slayer,
Nor one to call a God-obeyer
In certain details we could spare,
But rather was a debonair
Shrewd bandit, skilled as banjo-player:
That Solomon sang the fleshly Fair,
And gave the Church no thought whate’er;
That Esther with her royal wear,
And Mordecai, the son of Jair,
And Joshua’s triumphs, Job’s despair,
And Balaam’s ass’s bitter blare;
Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace-flare,
And Daniel and the den affair,
And other stories rich and rare,
Were writ to make old doctrine wear
Something of a romantic air:
That the Nain widow’s only heir,
And Lazarus with cadaverous glare
(As done in oils by Piombo’s care)
Did not return from Sheol’s lair:
That Jael set a fiendish snare,
That Pontius Pilate acted square,
That never a sword cut Malchus’ ear
And (but for shame I must forbear)
That — — did not reappear! . . .
—Since thus they hint, nor turn a hair,
All churchgoing will I forswear,
And sit on Sundays in my chair,
And read that moderate man Voltaire.
ARCHITECTURAL MASKS
I