Collected poems of Thomas Hardy With a portrait |
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TIME'S LAUGHINGSTOCKS |
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Collected poems of Thomas Hardy | ||
TIME'S LAUGHINGSTOCKS
THE REVISITATION
In an ancient country barrack known to ancient cannoneers,
And recalled the hopes that heralded each seeming brave and bright time
Of my primal purple years,
I had borne my bitterest loss—when One who went, came not again;
In a joyless hour of discord, in a joyless-hued July there—
A July just such as then.
With my faint eyes on the feeble square of wan-lit window frame,
A quick conviction sprung within me, grew, and grew yet stronger
That the month-night was the same,
On the rugged ridge of Waterstone, the peewits plaining round:
And a lapsing twenty years had ruled that—as it were to grieve me—
I should near the once-loved ground.
Chance had quartered here, I rose up and descended to the yard.
All was soundless, save the troopers' horses tossing at the manger,
And the sentry keeping guard.
Down the High Street and beyond the lamps, across the battered bridge,
Till the country darkness clasped me and the friendly shine forsook me,
And I bore towards the Ridge,
Saying softly: “Small my reason, now at midnight, to be here . . . .
Yet a sleepless swain of fifty with a brief romantic notion
May retrace a track so dear.”
Up the lane I knew so well, the grey, gaunt, lonely Lane of Slyre;
And at whiles behind me, far at sea, a sullen thunder muttered
As I mounted high and higher.
I adventured on the open drouthy downland thinly grassed,
While the spry white scuts of conies flashed before me, earthward flitting,
And an arid wind went past.
As before, in antique silence—immemorial funeral piles—
Where the sleek herds trampled daily the remains of flint-tipt arrows
Mid the thyme and chamomiles;
On whose breast we had sat and told the zephyrs many a tender vow,
Held the heat of yester sun, as sank thereon one fated mateless
From those far fond hours till now.
Rose the peewits, just as all those years back, wailing soft and loud,
And revealing their pale pinions like a fitful phosphorescence
Up against the cope of cloud,
Seemed the voicings of the self-same throats I had heard when life was green,
Though since that day uncounted frail forgotten generations
Of their kind had flecked the scene.—
In a past that lived no more, my eyes discerned there, suddenly,
That a figure broke the skyline—first in vague contour, then stronger,
And was crossing near to me.
Something wonted, struck me in the figure's pause to list and heed,
Till I fancied from its handling of its loosely wrapping vesture
That it might be She indeed.
In the vale, had been her home; the nook might hold her even yet,
And the downlands were her father's fief; she still might come and go there;—
So I rose, and said, “Agnette!”
She withdrew some steps; then letting intuition smother fear
In a place so long-accustomed, and as one whom thought enlightened,
She replied: “What—that voice?—here!”
Of our marching hither make you think I might walk where we two—”
“O, I often come,” she murmured with a moment's coy evasion,
“('Tis not far),—and—think of you.”
To the ancient people's stone whereon I had sat. There now sat we;
And together talked, until the first reluctant shyness fled her,
And she spoke confidingly.
Said she, brimming high with joy.—“And when, then, came you here, and why?”
“—Dear, I could not sleep for thinking of our trystings when twin-hearted.”
She responded, “Nor could I.
Than be wandering at this spirit-hour—lone-lived, my kindred dead—
On this wold of well-known feature I inherit from my father:
Night or day, I have no dread . . . .
Any heartstring bore a signal-thrill between us twain or no?—
Some such influence can, at times, they say, draw severed souls together.”
I said, “Dear, we'll dream it so.”
And a mutual forgiveness won, we sank to silent thought,
A large content in us that seemed our rended lives reclasping,
And contracting years to nought.
From the lateness, and a wayfaring so full of strain and stress
For one no longer buoyant, to a peak so steep and eery,
Sank to slow unconsciousness . . . .
But the brief warm summer night had slid when, to my swift surprise,
A red upedging sun, of glory chambered mortals view not,
Was blazing on my eyes,
All the spacious landscape lighting, and around about my feet
Flinging tall thin tapering shadows from the meanest mound and mole-hill,
And on trails the ewes had beat.
Dozing likewise; and I turned to her, to take her hanging hand;
When, the more regarding, that which like a spectre shook and tried me
In her image then I scanned;
Had been tooling night and day for twenty years, and tooled too well,
In its rendering of crease where curve was, where was raven, grizzle—
Pits, where peonies once did dwell.
(I surmise) my sigh and shock, my quite involuntary dismay,
Up she started, and—her wasted figure all throughout it heaving—
Said, “Ah, yes: I am thus by day!
That the sunlight should reveal you such a thing of skin and bone,
As if unaware a Death's-head must of need lie not far under
Flesh whose years out-count your own?
Of the worth of man's devotion!—Yes, Sir, I am old,” said she,
“And the thing which should increase love turns it quickly into scorning—
And your new-won heart from me!”
With the too proud temper ruling that had parted us before,
And I saw her form descend the slopes, and smaller grow and smaller,
Till I caught its course no more . . . .
—But it may be (though I know not) that this trick on us of Time
Disconcerted and confused me.—Soon I bent my footsteps townward,
Like to one who had watched a crime.
Well I know it still. I cherished her reproach like physic-wine,
For I saw in that emaciate shape of bitterness and bleakness
A nobler soul than mine.
Did we meet again?—mend all?—Alas, what greyhead perseveres!—
Soon I got the Route elsewhither.—Since that hour I have seen her never:
Love is lame at fifty years.
A TRAMPWOMAN'S TRAGEDY
(182*)
I
From Wynyard's Gap the livelong day.The livelong day,
We beat afoot the northward way
We had travelled times before.
The sun-blaze burning on our backs,
Our shoulders sticking to our packs,
By fosseway, fields, and turnpike tracks
We skirted sad Sedge-Moor.
II
Full twenty miles we jaunted on,We jaunted on,—
My fancy-man, and jeering John,
And Mother Lee, and I.
And, as the sun drew down to west,
We climbed the toilsome Poldon crest,
And saw, of landskip sights the best,
The inn that beamed thereby.
III
For months we had padded side by side,Ay, side by side
Through the Great Forest, Blackmoor wide,
And where the Parret ran.
We'd faced the gusts on Mendip ridge,
Had crossed the Yeo unhelped by bridge,
Been stung by every Marshwood midge,
I and my fancy-man.
IV
Lone inns we loved, my man and I,My man and I;
“King's Stag,” “Windwhistle”
The highness and dryness of Windwhistle Inn was impressed upon the writer two or three years ago, when, after climbing on a hot afternoon to the beautiful spot near which it stands and entering the inn for tea, he was informed by the landlady that none could be had, unless he would fetch water from a valley half a mile off, the house containing not a drop, owing to its situation. However, a tantalizing row of full barrels behind her back testified to a wetness of a certain sort, which was not at that time desired.
“The Horse” on Hintock Green,
“The Hut” renowned on Bredy Knap,
And many another wayside tap
Where folk might sit unseen.
V
Now as we trudged—O deadly day,O deadly day!—
I teased my fancy-man in play
And wanton idleness.
I walked alongside jeering John,
I laid his hand my waist upon;
I would not bend my glances on
My lover's dark distress.
VI
Thus Poldon top at last we won,At last we won,
And gained the inn at sink of sun
Far-famed as “Marshal's Elm.”
Beneath us figured tor and lea,
From Mendip to the western sea—
I doubt if finer sight there be
Within this royal realm.
VII
Inside the settle all a-row—All four a-row
We sat, I next to John, to show
That he had wooed and won.
And then he took me on his knee,
And swore it was his turn to be
My favoured mate, and Mother Lee
Passed to my former one.
VIII
Then in a voice I had never heard,I had never heard,
My only Love to me: “One word,
My lady, if you please!
His? After all my months o' care?”
God knows 'twas not! But, O despair!
I nodded—still to tease.
IX
Then up he sprung, and with his knife—And with his knife
He let out jeering Johnny's life,
Yes; there, at set of sun.
The slant ray through the window nigh
Gilded John's blood and glazing eye,
Ere scarcely Mother Lee and I
Knew that the deed was done.
X
The taverns tell the gloomy tale,The gloomy tale,
How that at Ivel-chester jail
My Love, my sweetheart swung;
Though stained till now by no misdeed
Save one horse ta'en in time o' need;
(Blue Jimmy
“Blue Jimmy” was a notorious horse-stealer of Wessex in those days, who appropriated more than a hundred horses before he was caught, among others one belonging to a neighbour of the writer's grandfather. He was hanged at the now demolished Ivel-chester or Ilchester jail above mentioned—that building formerly of so many sinister associations in the minds of the local peasantry, and the continual haunt of fever, which at last led to its condemnation. Its site is now an innocent-looking green meadow.
Ere his last fling he flung.)
XI
Thereaft I walked the world alone,Alone, alone!
On his death-day I gave my groan
And dropt his dead-born child.
'Twas nigh the jail, beneath a tree,
None tending me; for Mother Lee
Had died at Glaston, leaving me
Unfriended on the wild.
XII
And in the night as I lay weak,As I lay weak,
The leaves a-falling on my cheek,
The red moon low declined—
Rose up and said: “Ah, tell me this!
Was the child mine, or was it his?
Speak, that I rest may find!”
XIII
O doubt not but I told him then,I told him then,
That I had kept me from all men
Since we joined lips and swore.
Whereat he smiled, and thinned away
As the wind stirred to call up day . . .
—'Tis past! And here alone I stray
Haunting the Western Moor.
THE TWO ROSALINDS
I
The dubious daylight ended,And I walked the Town alone, unminding whither bound and why,
As from each gaunt street and gaping square a mist of light ascended
And dispersed upon the sky.
II
Files of evanescent facesPassed each other without heeding, in their travail, teen, or joy,
Some in void unvisioned listlessness inwrought with pallid traces
Of keen penury's annoy.
III
Nebulous flames in crystal cagesLeered as if with discontent at city movement, murk, and grime,
And as waiting some procession of great ghosts from bygone ages
To exalt the ignoble time.
IV
In a colonnade high-lighted,By a thoroughfare where stern utilitarian traffic dinned,
On a red and white emblazonment of players and parts, I sighted
The name of “Rosalind,”
V
And her famous mates of “Arden,”,Who observed no stricter customs than “the seasons' difference” bade,
Who lived with running brooks for books in Nature's wildwood garden,
And called idleness their trade . . . .
VI
Now the poster stirred an emberStill remaining from my ardours of some forty years before,
When the self-same portal on an eve it thrilled me to remember
A like announcement bore;
VII
And expectantly I had entered,And had first beheld in human mould a Rosalind woo and plead,
On whose transcendent figuring my speedy soul had centred
As it had been she indeed . . . .
VIII
So; all other plans discarding,I resolved on entrance, bent on seeing what I once had seen,
The tract of time between.
IX
“The words, sir?” cried a creatureHovering mid the shine and shade as 'twixt the live world and the tomb;
But the well-known numbers needed not for me a text or teacher
To revive and re-illume.
X
Then the play. . . . But how unfittedWas this Rosalind!—a mammet quite to me, in memories nurst,
And with chilling disappointment soon I sought the street I had quitted,
To re-ponder on the first.
XI
The hag still hawked,—I met herJust without the colonnade. “So you don't like her, sir?” said she.
“Ah—I was once that Rosalind!—I acted her—none better—
Yes—in eighteen sixty-three.
XII
“Thus I won Orlando to meIn my then triumphant days when I had charm and maidenhood,
Now some forty years ago.—I used to say, Come woo me, woo me!”
And she struck the attitude.
XIII
It was when I had gone there nightly;And the voice—though raucous now—was yet the old one.—Clear as noon
My Rosalind was here . . . . Thereon the band withinside lightly
Beat up a merry tune.
A SUNDAY MORNING TRAGEDY
(circa 186*)
In Pydel Vale, alas for me;
I joyed to mother one so rare,
But dead and gone I now would be.
And she was won, alas for me;
She told me nothing, but I knew,
And saw that sorrow was to be.
A thrall to him, alas for me;
And then, at last, she told me all,
And wondered what her end would be.
Had loved too well, unhappy she,
And bore a secret time would tell,
Though in her shroud she'd sooner be.
In Pydel Vale, alas for me:
I pleaded with him, pleaded sore,
To save her from her misery.
Seven times he swore it could not be;
“Poverty's worse than shame,” he said,
Till all my hope went out of me.
Roughly he spake, alas did he—
“Wessex beholds me not again,
'Tis worse than any jail would be!”
A subtle man, alas for me:
Though better I had ceased to be.
And gave him hint, alas for me,
Of how she found her in the plight
That is so scorned in Christendie.
Yes, thus I asked him desperately.
“—There is,” he said; “a certain one. . . .”
Would he had sworn that none knew he!
He hinted low, alas for me.—
Fieldwards I gazed throughout next day;
Now fields I never more would see!
As curfew strook beyond the lea,
Lit his white smock and gleaming crook,
While slowly he drew near to me.
The herb I sought, my curse to be—
“At times I use it in my flock,”
He said, and hope waxed strong in me.
(Ill-motherings! Why should they be?)—
“If not, would God have sent such things?”
So spoke the shepherd unto me.
With bended back and hand on knee:
I stirred it till the dawnlight grew,
And the wind whiffled wailfully.
“That lours upon her innocency:
I'll give all whispering tongues the lie;”—
But worse than whispers was to be.
I said to her, alas for me,
Early that morn in fond salute;
And in my grave I now would be.
In Pydel Vale, alas for me:
I went into her room betimes;
No more may such a Sunday be!
She faintly breathed, alas for me,
“I feel as I were like to die,
And underground soon, soon should be.”
In twos and threes, alas for me,
Showed their new raiment—smiled and talked,
Though sackcloth-clad I longed to be.
And cheerly cried, alas for me,
“Right glad are we he makes amends,
For never a sweeter bride can be.”
Dried at their words, alas for me:
More and more neighbours crowded in,
(O why should mothers ever be!)
Yes—so they laughed, alas for me.
“Whose banns were called in church to-day?”—
Christ, how I wished my soul could flee!
Still bantered they, alas for me,
“To keep a wedding close as this . . . .”
Ay, Fortune worked thus wantonly!
They archly asked, alas for me,
While coffined clay I wished to be.
(They spoke quite lightly in their glee)
“Done by him as a fond surprise?”
I thought their words would madden me.
My bird—my flower—my picotee?
First time of asking, soon the third!”
Ah, in my grave I well may be.
So spoke he then, alas for me—
“I've felt for her, and righted all.”
—I think of it to agony.
Thus did I lie, alas for me. . . .
I called her at her chamber door
As one who scarce had strength to be.
O women! scourged the worst are we. . . .
I shrieked. The others hastened in
And saw the stroke there dealt on me.
Stone dead she lay—wronged, sinless she!—
Ghost-white the cheeks once rosy-red:
Death had took her. Death took not me.
I kissed her corpse—the bride to be!—
My punishment I cannot bear,
But pray God not to pity me.
THE HOUSE OF HOSPITALITIES
Pushed up the charred log-ends;
Here we sang the Christmas carol,
And called in friends.
When the folk now dead were young
Since the viands were outset here
And quaint songs sung.
That used to lead the tune,
Rust eaten out the dial
That struck night's noon.
And the New Year comes unlit;
Where we sang the mole now labours,
And spiders knit.
When the moon sheets wall and tree,
I see forms of old time talking,
Who smile on me.
BEREFT
No light will be struck near my eyes
While the clock in the stairway is warning
For five, when he used to rise.
Leave the door unbarred,
The clock unwound.
Make my lone bed hard—
Would 'twere underground!
And the appletree-tops seem alight,
Call out that the morning is bright?
No form will cross Durnover Lea
In the gathering darkness, to hark at
Grey's Bridge for the pit-pat o' me.
And the time is the time of his tread,
I shall sit by the fire and wait dreaming
In a silence as of the dead.
Leave the door unbarred,
The clock unwound,
Make my lone bed hard—
Would 'twere underground!
JOHN AND JANE
I
He sees the world as a boisterous placeWhere all things bear a laughing face,
And humorous scenes go hourly on,
Does John.
II
They find the world a pleasant placeWhere all is ecstasy and grace,
Where a light has risen that cannot wane,
Do John and Jane.
III
They see as a palace their cottage-place,Containing a pearl of the human race,
A hero, maybe, hereafter styled,
Do John and Jane with a baby-child.
IV
They rate the world as a gruesome place,Where fair looks fade to a skull's grimace,—
As a pilgrimage they would fain get done—
Do John and Jane with their worthless son.
THE CURATE'S KINDNESS
A WORKHOUSE IRONY
I
I thought they'd be strangers aroun' me,But she's to be there!
Let me jump out o' waggon and go back and drown me
At Pummery or Ten-Hatches Weir.
II
I thought: “Well, I've come to the Union—The workhouse at last—
After honest hard work all the week, and Communion
O' Zundays, these fifty years past.
III
“'Tis hard; but,” I thought, “never mind it:There's gain in the end:
And when I get used to the place I shall find it
A home, and may find there a friend.
IV
“Life there will be better than t'other,For peace is assured.
The men in one wing and their wives in another
Is strictly the rule of the Board.”
V
Just then one young Pa'son arrivingSteps up out of breath
To the side o' the waggon wherein we were driving
To Union; and calls out and saith:
VI
“Old folks, that harsh order is altered,Be not sick of heart!
The Guardians they poohed and they pished and they paltered
When urged not to keep you apart.
VII
“‘It is wrong,’ I maintained, ‘to divide them,Near forty years wed.’
‘Very well, sir. We promise, then, they shall abide them
In one wing together,’ they said.”
VIII
Then I sank—knew 'twas quite a foredone thingThat misery should be
To the end! . . . To get freed of her there was the one thing
Had made the change welcome to me.
IX
To go there was ending but badly;'Twas shame and 'twas pain;
“But anyhow,” thought I, “thereby I shall gladly
Get free of this forty years' chain.”
X
I thought they'd be strangers aroun' me,But she's to be there!
Let me jump out o' waggon and go back and drown me
At Pummery or Ten-Hatches Weir.
THE FLIRT'S TRAGEDY
(17**)
Deserted, decrepit—
Spent flames limning ghosts on the wainscot
Of friends I once knew—
Its dumb re-enactment,
Each scene, sigh, and circumstance passing
In spectral review.
The pride of the lowland—
Embowered in Tintinhull Valley
By laurel and yew;
My features' ill favour,
Too obvious beside her perfections
Of line and of hue.
And whet me to pleadings
That won from her mirthful negations
And scornings undue.
To cities of pleasure,
And made me the crony of idlers
In every purlieu.
A needy Adonis
Gave hint how to grizzle her garden
From roses to rue,
My scorner of scornings:
Thus tempted, the lust to avenge me
Germed inly and grew.
Consigned to him coursers,
Meet equipage, liveried attendants
In full retinue.
He wayfared to England,
And spied out the manor she goddessed,
And handy thereto,
As coign-stone of vantage
For testing what gross adulation
Of beauty could do.
On new moons and sabbaths,
By wiles to enmesh her attention
In park, path, and pew;
Advanced his lines nearer,
And boldly outleaping conventions,
Bent briskly to woo.
Anon worked to win her,
And later, at noontides and night-tides
They held rendezvous.
And met me in Venice,
And lines from her told that my jilter
Was stooping to sue.
She pled to him humbly:
“By our love and our sin, O protect me;
I fly unto you!”
I heard her low anguish,
And there in the gloom of the calle
My steel ran him through.
Within the canal there—
That still street of waters dividing
The city in two.
To smother my torment,
My brain racked by yells as from Tophet
Of Satan's whole crew.
At home in her precincts,
To whose hiding-hole local story
Afforded a clue.
Afar off in London
I found her alone, in a sombre
And soul-stifling mew.
I pleaded to wive her,
And father her child, and thus faintly
My mischief undo.
Succeeded the tempest;
And one sprung of him stood as scion
Of my bone and thew. . . .
And so it befell now:
By inches the curtain was twitched at,
And slowly undrew.
We heard the boy moaning:
“O misery mine! My false father
Has murdered my true!”
Next day the child fled us;
And nevermore sighted was even
A print of his shoe.
Till one day the park-pool
Embraced her fair form, and extinguished
Her eyes' living blue.
This aspect of pallor,
These bones that just prison within them
Life's poor residue;
A Cain to his suffering,
For vengeance too dark on the woman
Whose lover he slew.
THE REJECTED MEMBER'S WIFE
On the balcony,
Smiling, while hurt, at the roar
As of surging sea
From the stormy sturdy band
Who have doomed her lord's cause,
Though she waves her little hand
As it were applause.
And candidates' wives,
Fervid with zeal to set
Their ideals on our lives:
Here will come market-men
On the market-days,
Here will clash now and then
More such party assays.
When such times are renewed,
And the throng in the street will thrill
With to-day's mettled mood;
But she will no more stand
In the sunshine there,
With that wave of her white-gloved hand,
And that chestnut hair.
THE FARM-WOMAN'S WINTER
I
If seasons all were summers,And leaves would never fall,
And hopping casement-comers
Were foodless not at all,
And fragile folk might be here
That white winds bid depart;
Then one I used to see here
Would warm my wasted heart!
II
One frail, who, bravely tillingLong hours in gripping gusts,
Was mastered by their chilling,
And now his ploughshare rusts.
So savage winter catches
The breath of limber things,
And what I love he snatches,
And what I love not, brings.
AUTUMN IN KING'S HINTOCK PARK
Raking up leaves,
Often I ponder how
Springtime deceives,—
I, an old woman now,
Raking up leaves.
Raking up leaves,
Lords' ladies pass in view,
Until one heaves
Sighs at life's russet hue,
Raking up leaves!
Raking up leaves,
I saw, when fresh and free,
Those memory weaves
Into grey ghosts by me,
Raking up leaves.
Raking up leaves,
New leaves will dance on high—
Earth never grieves!—
Will not, when missed am I
Raking up leaves.
SHUT OUT THAT MOON
Shut out that stealing moon,
She wears too much the guise she wore
Before our lutes were strewn
With years-deep dust, and names we read
On a white stone were hewn.
To view the Lady's Chair,
Immense Orion's glittering form,
The Less and Greater Bear:
Stay in; to such sights we were drawn
When faded ones were fair.
That come forth lingeringly,
And wake the same sweet sentiments
They breathed to you and me
When living seemed a laugh, and love
All it was said to be.
Prison my eyes and thought;
Let dingy details crudely loom,
Mechanic speech be wrought:
Too fragrant was Life's early bloom,
Too tart the fruit it brought!
REMINISCENCES OF A DANCING MAN
I
Who now remembers Almack's balls—Willis's sometime named—
In those two smooth-floored upper halls
For faded ones so famed?
Where as we trod to trilling sound
The fancied phantoms stood around,
Of the powdered Dears from Georgian years,
Whose dust lay in sightless sealed-up biers,
The fairest of former days.
II
Who now remembers gay Cremorne,And all its jaunty jills,
And those wild whirling figures born
Of Jullien's grand quadrilles?
With hats on head and morning coats
There footed to his prancing notes
Our partner-girls and we;
And the gas-jets winked, and the lustres clinked,
And the platform throbbed as with arms enlinked
We moved to the minstrelsy.
III
Who now recalls those crowded roomsOf old yclept “The Argyle,”
Where to the deep Drum-polka's booms
We hopped in standard style?
Whither have danced those damsels now!
Is Death the partner who doth moue
Their wormy chaps and bare?
Do their spectres spin like sparks within
The smoky halls of the Prince of Sin
To a thunderous Jullien air?
THE DEAD MAN WALKING
But don't they know
That I have died of late years,
Untombed although?
A pulseless mould,
A pale past picture, screening
Ashes gone cold.
Not in a loud hour,
For me ceased Time's enchantments
In hall and bower.
No catch of breath,
When silent seasons inched me
On to this death. . . .
With Life for lyre,
The beats of being raging
In me like fire.
The goal of men,
It iced me, and I perished
A little then.
Through the Last Door,
And left me standing bleakly,
I died yet more;
In hate of me,
Wherefore I knew not, died I
One more degree.
I cannot say,
And changed into the corpse-thing
I am to-day,
The time somehow
In walking, talking, smiling,
I live not now.
Collected poems of Thomas Hardy | ||