Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated)
Page 773
”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
WAITING BOTH
A BIRD-SCENE AT A RURAL DWELLING
ANY LITTLE OLD SONG
IN A FORMER RESORT AFTER MANY YEARS
A CATHEDRAL FAÇADE AT MIDNIGHT
THE TURNIP-HOER
THE CARRIER
LOVER TO MISTRESS
THE MONUMENT-MAKER
CIRCUS-RIDER TO RINGMASTER
LAST WEEK IN OCTOBER
COME NOT; YET COME!
THE LATER AUTUMN
LET ME BELIEVE
AT A FASHIONABLE DINNER
GREEN SLATES
AN EAST-END CURATE
AT RUSHY-POND
FOUR IN THE MORNING
ON THE ESPLANADE
IN ST. PAUL’S A WHILE AGO
COMING UP OXFORD STREET: EVENING
A LAST JOURNEY
SINGING LOVERS
THE MONTH’S CALENDAR
A SPELLBOUND PALACE
WHEN DEAD
SINE PROLE
TEN YEARS SINCE
EVERY ARTEMISIA
THE BEST SHE COULD
THE GRAVEYARD OF DEAD CREEDS
THERE SEEMED A STRANGENESS
A NIGHT OF QUESTIONINGS
XENOPHANES, THE MONIST OF COLOPHON
LIFE AND DEATH AT SUNRISE
NIGHT-TIME IN MID-FALL
A SHEEP FAIR
POSTSCRIPT
SNOW IN THE SUBURBS
A LIGHT SNOW-FALL AFTER FROST
WINTER NIGHT IN WOODLAND
ICE ON THE HIGHWAY
MUSIC IN A SNOWY STREET
THE FROZEN GREENHOUSE
TWO LIPS
NO BUYERS
ONE WHO MARRIED ABOVE HIM
THE NEW TOY
QUEEN CAROLINE TO HER GUESTS
PLENA TIMORIS
THE WEARY WALKER
LAST LOVE-WORD
NOBODY COMES
IN THE STREET
THE LAST LEAF
AT WYNYARD’S GAP
AT SHAG’S HEATH
A SECOND ATTEMPT
FREED THE FRET OF THINKING
THE ABSOLUTE EXPLAINS
SO, TIME
AN INQUIRY
THE FAITHFUL SWALLOW
IN SHERBORNE ABBEY
THE PAIR HE SAW PASS
THE MOCK WIFE
THE FIGHT ON DURNOVER MOOR
LAST LOOK ROUND ST. MARTIN’S FAIR
THE CARICATURE
A LEADER OF FASHION
MIDNIGHT ON BEECHEN, 187*
THE AËROLITE
THE PROSPECT
GENITRIX LAESA
THE FADING ROSE
WHEN OATS WERE REAPED
LOUIE
SHE OPENED THE DOOR
WHAT’S THERE TO TELL?
THE HARBOUR BRIDGE
VAGRANT’S SONG
FARMER DUNMAN’S FUNERAL
THE SEXTON AT LONGPUDDLE
THE HARVEST-SUPPER
AT A PAUSE IN A COUNTRY DANCE
ON THE PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN ABOUT TO BE HANGED
THE CHURCH AND THE WEDDING
THE SHIVER
NOT ONLY I
SHE SAW HIM, SHE SAID
ONCE AT SWANAGE
THE FLOWER’S TRAGEDY
AT THE AQUATIC SPORTS
A WATCHER’S REGRET
HORSES ABOARD
THE HISTORY OF AN HOUR
THE MISSED TRAIN
UNDER HIGH-STOY HILL
AT THE MILL
ALIKE AND UNLIKE
THE THING UNPLANNED
THE SHEEP-BOY
RETTY’S PHASES
A POOR MAN AND A LADY
AN EXPOSTULATION
TO A SEA-CLIFF
THE ECHO-ELF ANSWERS
CYNIC’S EPITAPH
A BEAUTY’S SOLILOQUY DURING HER HONEYMOON
DONAGHADEE
HE INADVERTENTLY CURES HIS LOVE-PAINS
THE PEACE PEAL
LADY VI
A POPULAR PERSONAGE AT HOME
INSCRIPTIONS FOR A PEAL OF EIGHT BELLS
A REFUSAL
EPITAPH ON A PESSIMIST
THE PROTEAN MAIDEN
A WATERING-PLACE LADY INVENTORIED
THE SEA FIGHT
PARADOX
THE ROVER COME HOME
KNOWN HAD I
THE PAT OF BUTTER
BAGS OF MEAT
THE SUNDIAL ON A WET DAY
HER HAUNTING-GROUND
A PARTING-SCENE
SHORTENING DAYS AT THE HOMESTEAD
DAYS TO RECOLLECT
TO C. F. H.
THE HIGH-SCHOOL LAWN
THE FORBIDDEN BANNS
THE PAPHIAN BALL
ON MARTOCK MOOR
THAT MOMENT
PREMONITIONS
THIS SUMMER AND LAST
NOTHING MATTERS MUCH
IN THE EVENING
THE SIX BOARDS
BEFORE MY FRIEND ARRIVED
COMPASSION
WHY SHE MOVED HOUSE
TRAGEDIAN TO TRAGEDIENNE
THE LADY OF FOREBODINGS
THE BIRD-CATCHER’S BOY
A HURRIED MEETING
DISCOURAGEMENT
A LEAVING
SONG TO AN OLD BURDEN
WHY DO I?
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,
&
nbsp; 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
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,
‘T
will 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