Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated)

by Thomas Hardy

  I thought, was wantoned with

  By a man of levity:

  And I lay in wait all day,

  All day did I wait for him,

  And dogged him to Bollard Head

  When twilight dwindled dim,

  And hurled him over the edge

  And heard him fall below:

  O would I were lying with him,

  For the truth I did not know!

  “O where’s my husband?” she asked,

  As evening wore away:

  “Best you had one, forsooth,

  But never had you!” I say.

  “Yes, but I have!” says she,

  “My Love made it up with me,

  And we churched it yesterday

  And mean to live happily.”

  And now I go in haste

  To the Head, before she’s aware,

  To join him in death for the wrong

  I’ve done them both out there!

  WE FIELD-WOMEN

  How it rained

  When we worked at Flintcomb-Ash,

  And could not stand upon the hill

  Trimming swedes for the slicing-mill.

  The wet washed through us — plash, plash, plash:

  How it rained!

  How it snowed

  When we crossed from Flintcomb-Ash

  To the Great Barn for drawing reed,

  Since we could nowise chop a swede. —

  Flakes in each doorway and casement-sash:

  How it snowed!

  How it shone

  When we went from Flintcomb-Ash

  To start at dairywork once more

  In the laughing meads, with cows three-score,

  And pails, and songs, and love — too rash:

  How it shone!

  A PRACTICAL WOMAN

  “O who’ll get me a healthy child: —

  I should prefer a son —

  Seven have I had in thirteen years,

  Sickly every one!

  “Three mope about as feeble shapes;

  Weak; white; they’ll be no good.

  One came deformed; an idiot next;

  And two are crass as wood.

  “I purpose one not only sound

  In flesh, but bright in mind:

  And duly for producing him

  A means I’ve now to find.”

  She went away. She disappeared,

  Years, years. Then back she came:

  In her hand was a blooming boy

  Mentally and in frame.

  “I found a father at last who’d suit

  The purpose in my head,

  And used him till he’d done his job,”

  Was all thereon she said.

  SQUIRE HOOPER

  Hooper was ninety. One September dawn

  He sent a messenger

  For his physician, who asked thereupon

  What ailed the sufferer

  Which he might circumvent, and promptly bid begone.

  “Doctor, I summoned you,” the squire replied —

  “Pooh-pooh me though you may —

  To ask what’s happened to me — burst inside,

  It seems — not much, I’d say —

  But awkward with a house-full here for a shoot to-day.”

  And he described the symptoms. With bent head

  The listener looked grave.

  “H’m. . . . You’re a dead man in six hours,” he said. —

  “I speak out, since you are brave —

  And best ‘tis you should know, that last things may be sped.”

  “Right,” said the squire. “And now comes — what to do?

  One thing: on no account

  Must I now spoil the sport I’ve asked them to —

  My guests are paramount —

  They must scour scrub and stubble; and big bags bring as due.”

  He downed to breakfast, and bespoke his guests: —

  “I find I have to go

  An unexpected journey, and it rests

  With you, my friends, to show

  The shoot can go off gaily, whether I’m there or no.”

  Thus blandly spoke he; and to the fields they went,

  And Hooper up the stair.

  They had a glorious day; and stiff and spent

  Returned as dusk drew near. —

  “Gentlemen,” said the doctor, “he’s not back as meant,

  To his deep regret!” — So they took leave, each guest

  Observing: “I dare say

  Business detains him in the town: ‘tis best

  We should no longer stay

  Just now. We’ll come again anon”; and they went their way.

  Meeting two men in the obscurity

  Shouldering a box a thin

  Cloth-covering wrapt, one sportsman cried: “Damn me,

  I thought them carrying in,

  At first, a coffin; till I knew it could not be.”

  A GENTLEMAN’S SECOND-HAND SUIT

  Here it is hanging in the sun

  By the pawn-shop door,

  A dress-suit — all its revels done

  Of heretofore.

  Long drilled to the waltzers’ swing and sway,

  As its tokens show:

  What it has seen, what it could say

  If it did but know!

  The sleeve bears still a print of powder

  Rubbed from her arms

  When she warmed up as the notes swelled louder

  And livened her charms —

  Or rather theirs, for beauties many

  Leant there, no doubt,

  Leaving these tell-tale traces when he

  Spun them about.

  Its cut seems rather in bygone style

  On looking close,

  So it mayn’t have bent it for some while

  To the dancing pose:

  Anyhow, often within its clasp

  Fair partners hung,

  Assenting to the wearer’s grasp

  With soft sweet tongue.

  Where is, alas, the gentleman

  Who wore this suit?

  And where are his ladies? Tell none can:

  Gossip is mute.

  Some of them may forget him quite

  Who smudged his sleeve,

  Some think of a wild and whirling night

  With him, and grieve.

  WE SAY WE SHALL NOT MEET

  We say we shall not meet

  Again beneath this sky,

  And turn with leaden feet,

  Murmuring “Good-bye!”

  But laugh at how we rued

  Our former time’s adieu

  When those who went for good

  Are met anew.

  We talk in lightest vein

  On trifles talked before,

  And part to meet again,

  But meet no more.

  SEEING THE MOON RISE

  We used to go to Froom-hill Barrow

  To see the round moon rise

  Into the heath-rimmed skies,

  Trudging thither by plough and harrow

  Up the pathway, steep and narrow,

  Singing a song.

  Now we do not go there. Why?

  Zest burns not so high!

  Latterly we’ve only conned her

  With a passing glance

  From window or door by chance,

  Hoping to go again, high yonder,

  As we used, and gaze, and ponder,

  Singing a song.

  Thitherward we do not go:

  Feet once quick are slow!

  August 1927

  SONG TO AURORE

  We’ll not begin again to love,

  It only leads to pain;

  The fire we now are master of

  Has seared us not in vain.

  Any new step of yours I’m fain

  To hear of from afar,

  And even in such may find a gain

  While lodged not where you are.

  No: that must not be done anew
<
br />   Which has been done before;

  I scarce could bear to seek, or view,

  Or clasp you any more!

  Life is a labour, death is sore,

  And lonely living wrings;

  But go your courses, Sweet Aurore,

  Kisses are caresome things!

  HE NEVER EXPECTED MUCH

  [or] A CONSIDERATION

  [A reflection] ON MY EIGHTY-SIXTH BIRTHDAY

  Well, World, you have kept faith with me,

  Kept faith with me;

  Upon the whole you have proved to be

  Much as you said you were.

  Since as a child I used to lie

  Upon the leaze and watch the sky,

  Never, I own, expected I

  That life would all be fair.

  ‘Twas then you said, and since have said,

  Times since have said,

  In that mysterious voice you shed

  From clouds and hills around:

  “Many have loved me desperately,

  Many with smooth serenity,

  While some have shown contempt of me

  Till they dropped underground.

  “I do not promise overmuch,

  Child; overmuch;

  Just neutral-tinted haps and such,”

  You said to minds like mine.

  Wise warning for your credit’s sake!

  Which I for one failed not to take,

  And hence could stem such strain and ache

  As each year might assign.

  STANDING BY THE MANTELPIECE

  (H. M. M., 1873)

  This candle-wax is shaping to a shroud

  To-night. (They call it that, as you may know) —

  By touching it the claimant is avowed,

  And hence I press it with my finger — so.

  To-night. To me twice night, that should have been

  The radiance of the midmost tick of noon,

  And close around me wintertime is seen

  That might have shone the veriest day of June!

  But since all’s lost, and nothing really lies

  Above but shade, and shadier shade below,

  Let me make clear, before one of us dies,

  My mind to yours, just now embittered so.

  Since you agreed, unurged and full-advised,

  And let warmth grow without discouragement,

  Why do you bear you now as if surprised,

  When what has come was clearly consequent?

  Since you have spoken, and finality

  Closes around, and my last movements loom,

  I say no more: the rest must wait till we

  Are face to face again, yonside the tomb.

  And let the candle-wax thus mould a shape

  Whose meaning now, if hid before, you know,

  And how by touch one present claims its drape,

  And that it’s I who press my finger — so.

  BOYS THEN AND NOW

  “More than one cuckoo?”

  And the little boy

  Seemed to lose something

  Of his spring joy.

  When he’d grown up

  He told his son

  He’d used to think

  There was only one,

  Who came each year

  With the trees’ new trim

  On purpose to please

  England and him:

  And his son — old already

  In life and its ways —

  Said yawning: “How foolish

  Boys were in those days!”

  THAT KISS IN THE DARK

  Recall it you? —

  Say you do! —

  When you went out into the night,

  In an impatience that would not wait,

  From that lone house in the woodland spot,

  And when I, thinking you had gone

  For ever and ever from my sight,

  Came after, printing a kiss upon

  Black air

  In my despair,

  And my two lips lit on your cheek

  As you leant silent against a gate,

  Making my woman’s face flush hot

  At what I had done in the dark, unware

  You lingered for me but would not speak:

  Yes, kissed you, thinking you were not there!

  Recall it you? —

  Say you do!

  A NECESSITARIAN’S EPITAPH

  A world I did not wish to enter

  Took me and poised me on my centre,

  Made me grimace, and foot, and prance,

  As cats on hot bricks have to dance

  Strange jigs to keep them from the floor,

  Till they sink down and feel no more.

  BURNING THE HOLLY

  O you are sad on Twelfth Night,

  I notice: sad on Twelfth Night;

  You are as sad on Twelfth Night

  As any that I know.

  “Yes: I am sad on that night,

  Doubtless I’m sad on that night:

  Yes; I am sad on that night,

  For we all loved her so!”

  Why are you sad on Twelfth Night,

  Especially on Twelfth Night?

  Why are you sad on Twelfth Night

  When wit and laughter flow?

  — ”She’d been a famous dancer,

  Much lured of men; a dancer.

  She’d been a famous dancer,

  Facile in heel and toe. . . .

  “And we were burning the holly

  On Twelfth Night; the holly,

  As people do: the holly,

  Ivy, and mistletoe.

  “And while it popped and crackled,

  (She being our lodger), crackled;

  And while it popped and crackled,

  Her face caught by the glow,

  “In he walked and said to her,

  In a slow voice he said to her;

  Yes, walking in he said to her,

  ‘We sail before cock-crow.’

  “‘Why did you not come on to me,

  As promised? Yes, come on to me?

  Why did you not come on to me,

  Since you had sworn to go?’

  “His eyes were deep and flashing,

  As flashed the holm-flames: flashing;

  His eyes were deep, and flashing

  In their quick, keen upthrow.

  “As if she had been ready,

  Had furtively been ready;

  As if she had been ready

  For his insistence — lo! —

  “She clasped his arm and went with him

  As his entirely: went with him.

  She clasped his arm and went with him

  Into the sprinkling snow.

  “We saw the prickly leaves waste

  To ashes: saw the leaves waste;

  The burnt-up prickly leaves waste. . . .

  The pair had gone also.

  — ”On Twelfth Night, two years after —

  Yes, Twelfth Night, two years after;

  On Twelfth Night, two years after,

  We sat — our spirits low —

  “Musing, when back the door swung

  Without a knock. The door swung;

  Thought flew to her. The door swung,

  And in she came, pale, slow;

  “Against her breast a child clasped;

  Close to her breast a child clasped;

  She stood there with the child clasped,

  Swaying it to and fro.

  “Her look alone the tale told;

  Quite wordless was the tale told;

  Her careworn eyes the tale told

  As larger they seemed to grow. . . .

  “One day next spring she disappeared,

  The second time she disappeared.

  And that time, when she’d disappeared

  Came back no more. Ah, no!

  “But we still burn the holly

  On Twelfth Night; burn the holly

  As people do: the holly,

  Ivy, and mi
stletoe.”

  SUSPENSE

  A clamminess hangs over all like a clout,

  The fields are a water-colour washed out,

  The sky at its rim leaves a chink of light,

  Like the lid of a pot that will not close tight.

  She is away by the groaning sea,

  Strained at the heart, and waiting for me:

  Between us our foe from a hid retreat

  Is watching, to wither us if we meet. . . .

  But it matters little, however we fare —

  Whether we meet, or I get not there;

  The sky will look the same thereupon,

  And the wind and the sea go groaning on.

  THE SECOND VISIT

  Clack, clack, clack, went the mill-wheel as I came,

  And she was on the bridge with the thin hand-rail,

  And the miller at the door, and the ducks at mill-tail;

  I come again years after, and all there seems the same.

  And so indeed it is: the apple-tree’d old house,

  And the deep mill-pond, and the wet wheel clacking,

  And a woman on the bridge, and white ducks quacking,

  And the miller at the door, powdered pale from boots to brows.

  But it’s not the same miller whom long ago I knew,

  Nor are they the same apples, nor the same drops that dash

  Over the wet wheel, nor the ducks below that splash,

  Nor the woman who to fond plaints replied, “You know I do!”

  OUR OLD FRIEND DUALISM

  All hail to him, the Protean! A tough old chap is he:

  Spinoza and the Monists cannot make him cease to be.

  We pound him with our “Truth, Sir, please!” and quite appear to still him:

  He laughs; holds Bergson up, and James; and swears we cannot kill him.