by Thomas Hardy
Had she not eastward sped!
“For know, old lover, dull of eyes,
That woman, I am she:
This skeleton that Time so tries
Your rose of rareness used to be;
Yes, sweetheart, I am she.”
NOT KNOWN
They know the wilings of the world,
The latest flippancy;
They know each jest at hazard hurled,
But know not me.
They know a phasm they name as me,
In whom I should not find
A single self-held quality
Of body or mind.
THE BOY’S DREAM
Provincial town-boy he, — frail, lame,
His face a waning lily-white,
A court the home of his wry, wrenched frame,
Where noontide shed no warmth or light.
Over his temples — flat and wan,
Where bluest veins were patterned keen,
The skin appeared so thinly drawn
The skull beneath was almost seen.
Always a wishful, absent look
Expressed it in his face and eye;
At the strong shape this longing took
One guessed what wish must underlie.
But no. That wish was not for strength,
For other boys’ agility,
To race with ease the field’s far length,
Now hopped across so painfully.
He minded not his lameness much,
To shine at feats he did not long,
Nor to be best at goal and touch,
Nor at assaults to stand up strong.
But sometimes he would let be known
What the wish was: — to have, next spring,
A real green linnet — his very own —
Like that one he had late heard sing.
And as he breathed the cherished dream
To those whose secrecy was sworn,
His face was beautified by the theme,
And wore the radiance of the morn.
THE GAP IN THE WHITE
(178*)
Something had cracked in her mouth as she slept,
Having danced with the Prince long, and sipped his gold tass;
And she woke in alarm, and quick, breathlessly, leapt
Out of bed to the glass.
And there, in the blue dawn, her mouth now displayed
To her woe, in the white
Level line of her teeth, a black gap she had made
In a dream’s nervous bite.
“O how can I meet him to-morrow!” she said.
“I’d won him — yes, yes! Now, alas, he is lost!”
(That age knew no remedy.) Duly her dread
Proved the truth, to her cost.
And if you could go and examine her grave
You’d find the gap there,
But not understand, now that science can save,
Her unbounded despair.
FAMILY PORTRAITS
Three picture-drawn people stepped out of their frames —
The blast, how it blew!
And the white-shrouded candles flapped smoke-headed flames;
— Three picture-drawn people came down from their frames,
And dumbly in lippings they told me their names,
Full well though I knew.
The first was a maiden of mild wistful tone,
Gone silent for years,
The next a dark woman in former time known;
But the first one, the maiden of mild wistful tone,
So wondering, unpractised, so vague and alone,
Nigh moved me to tears.
The third was a sad man — a man of much gloom;
And before me they passed
In the shade of the night, at the back of the room,
The dark and fair woman, the man of much gloom,
Three persons, in far-off years forceful, but whom
Death now fettered fast.
They set about acting some drama, obscure,
The women and he,
With puppet-like movements of mute strange allure;
Yea, set about acting some drama, obscure,
Till I saw ‘twas their own lifetime’s tragic amour,
Whose course begot me;
Yea — a mystery, ancestral, long hid from my reach
In the perished years past,
That had mounted to dark doings each against each
In those ancestors’ days, and long hid from my reach;
Which their restless enghostings, it seemed, were to teach
Me in full, at this last.
But fear fell upon me like frost, of some hurt
If they entered anew
On the orbits they smartly had swept when expert
In the law-lacking passions of life, — of some hurt
To their souls — and thus mine — which I fain would avert
So, in sweat cold as dew,
“Why wake up all this?” I cried out. “Now, so late!
Let old ghosts be laid!”
And they stiffened, drew back to their frames and numb state,
Gibbering: “Thus are your own ways to shape, know too late!”
Then I grieved that I’d not had the courage to wait
And see the play played.
I have grieved ever since: to have balked future pain,
My blood’s tendance foreknown,
Had been triumph. Nights long stretched awake I have lain
Perplexed in endeavours to balk future pain
By uncovering the drift of their drama. In vain,
Though therein lay my own.
THE CATCHING BALLET OF THE WEDDING CLOTHES
(Temp. Guliel IV.)
“A gentleman’s coming
To court me, they say;
The ringers are told,
And the band is to play.
O why should he do it
Now poor Jack’s away?
I surely shall rue it:
Come, white witch, and say!”
“The gentleman’s coming
To marry you, dear;
They tell at the turnpikes
That he has been here!
He rode here in secret,
To gain eye of you: —
Throw over the sailor,
Is what I should do!”
“I will not throw over
Poor Jack: no, indeed,
For a new unknown lover
Who loves at such speed,
And writes to the ringers,
And orders the band,
As if I could only
Obey his command!
“La! now here is something
Close packed in a box,
And strapped up and corded,
And held with two locks!”
“Dear, that’s from him, surely,
As we may suppose?
Ay, through the chink shining
I spy wedding clothes!”
“Yes — here’s a drawn bonnet,
And tortoiseshell combs,
And a silk gown, silk stockings,
And scents of rare blooms;
And shoes, too, of satin,
Quite past all my pride:
O, how will it end, witch;
I can’t be his bride!”
“Don’t waste you in weeping:
Not worth it is man!
Beshrew me, my deary,
I’ve shaped a new plan.
Wear the clothes of the rich one,
Since he will not see,
But marry the poor one
You love faithfully.”
“Here’s a last packet. . . . Never!
It knocks me to bits —
The ring! ‘Just to try on,
To see if it fits.”
O I cannot!” . . . But Jack said,
Quite cool, when he came,
“Well, it will save money,
And be just the same.”
The marriage took plac
e,
Yes; as vowed, she was true
To her dear sailor Jack
Ere the gentleman knew;
But she wore the rich clothing,
Much joyed at such guise,
Yet fearing and trembling
With tears in her eyes.
And at midnight, between her
And him she had wed,
The gentleman’s figure
Arose up and said:
“My too-cruel darling,
In spite of your oaths,
You have married the man
Of the ring and the clothes!”
Thence on, would confront her,
When sleep had grown slack,
His face on the pillow
Between her and Jack;
And he nightly kept whispering:
“You surely must see,
Though your tongue-tip took him, Love,
Your body took me.”
Till she sighed: “Yes, my word,
It must be confessed o’ me,
Jack has; but this man
Can claim all the rest o’ me!
And off to go with him
Bewitched am I now:
I’d fain not be two men’s,
And won’t, anyhow!”
So she pleaded and pleaded
From daybreak till dark,
Converting the parish
(Save parson and clerk).
She then wrote to Jack thus:
“I’m torn with mind-strife:
She who wears a man’s bride-clothes
Must be the man’s wife!”
And still she kept plaining,
Till Jack he wrote: “Aye!”
And the villagers gathered,
And on a fixed day,
They went out alertly
And stood in a row,
Quite blithe with excitement
To see John’s wife go.
Some were facing her dwelling,
And some on the bridge,
And some at the corner,
And some by the ridge.
With a nod and a word
The coach stopped at her door,
And she upped like a bird,
And they saw her no more.
‘Twas told that, years after,
When autumn winds wave,
A wealthy old lady
Stood long at Jack’s grave,
And while her coach waited: —
She mused there; and then
She stepped in, and never
Came thither again.
1919.
A WINSOME WOMAN
SONG
There’s no winsome woman so winsome as she;
Some are flower-like in mouth,
Some have fire in the eyes,
Some feed a soul’s drouth
Trilling words music-wise;
But where are these gifts all in one found to be
Save in her known to me?
What her thoughts are I read not, but this much I know,
That she, too, will pass
From the sun and the air
To her cave under grass;
And the world will declare,
“No such woman as his passioned utterances show
Walked this planet, we trow!”
THE BALLAD OF LOVE’S SKELETON
(179*)
“Come, let’s to Culliford Hill and Wood,
And watch the squirrels climb,
And look in sunny places there
For shepherds’ thyme.”
— ”Can I have heart for Culliford Wood,
And hill and bank and tree,
Who know and ponder over all
Things done by me!”
— ”Then, Dear, don hat, and come along:
We’ll strut the Royal strand;
King George has just arrived, his Court,
His guards, and band.”
— ”You are a Baron of the King’s Court
From Hanover lately come,
And can forget in song and dance
What chills me numb.
“Well be the royal scenes for you,
And band beyond compare,
But how is she who hates her crime
To frolic there?
“O why did you so urge and say
‘Twould soil your noble name! —
I should have prized a little child,
And faced the shame.
“I see the child — that should have been,
But was not, born alive;
With such a deed in a woman’s life
A year seems five.
“I asked not for the wifely rank,
Nor maiden honour saved;
To call a nestling thing my own
Was all I craved.
“For what’s the hurt of shame to one
Of no more note than me?
Can littlest life beneath the sun
More littled be?”
— ”Nay, never grieve. The day is bright,
Just as it was ere then:
In the Assembly Rooms to-night
Let’s joy again!
“The new Quick-Step is the sweetest dance
For lively toes and heels;
And when we tire of that we’ll prance
Bewitching reels.
“Dear, never grieve! As once we whirled
So let us whirl to-night,
Forgetting all things save ourselves
Till dawning light.
“The King and Queen, Princesses three,
Have promised to meet there
The mayor and townsfolk. I’ve my card
And One to spare.
“The Court will dance at the upper end;
Only a cord between
Them and the burgher-throng below;
A brilliant scene!”
— ”I’ll go. You’ve still my heart in thrall:
Save you, all’s dark to me.
And God knows what, when love is all,
The end will be!”
A PRIVATE MAN ON PUBLIC MEN
When my contemporaries were driving
Their coach through Life with strain and striving,
And raking riches into heaps,
And ably pleading in the Courts
With smart rejoinders and retorts,
Or where the Senate nightly keeps
Its vigils, till their fames were fanned
By rumour’s tongue throughout the land,
I lived in quiet, screened, unknown,
Pondering upon some stick or stone,
Or news of some rare book or bird
Latterly bought, or seen, or heard,
Not wishing ever to set eyes on
The surging crowd beyond the horizon,
Tasting years of moderate gladness
Mellowed by sundry days of sadness,
Shut from the noise of the world without,
Hearing but dimly its rush and rout,
Unenvying those amid its roar,
Little endowed, not wanting more.
CHRISTMAS IN THE ELGIN ROOM
BRITISH MUSEUM: EARLY LAST CENTURY
“What is the noise that shakes the night,
And seems to soar to the Pole-star height?”
— ”Christmas bells,
The watchman tells
Who walks this hall that blears us captives with its blight.”
“And what, then, mean such clangs, so clear?”
“ — ’Tis said to have been a day of cheer,
And source of grace
To the human race
Long ere their woven sails winged us to exile here.
“We are those whom Christmas overthrew
Some centuries after Pheidias knew
How to shape us
And bedrape us
And to set us in Athena’s temple for men’s view.
“O it is sad now we are sold —
We gods! for Borean people’s gold,
<
br /> And brought to the gloom
Of this gaunt room
Which sunlight shuns, and sweet Aurore but enters cold.
“For all these bells, would I were still
Radiant as on Athenai’s Hill.”
— ”And I, and I!”
The others sigh,
“Before this Christ was known, and we had men’s good will.”
Thereat old Helios could but nod,
Throbbed, too, the Ilissus River-god,
And the torsos there
Of deities fair,
Whose limbs were shards beneath some Acropolitan clod:
Demeter too, Poseidon hoar,
Persephone, and many more
Of Zeus’ high breed, —
All loth to heed
What the bells sang that night which shook them to the core.
1905 and 1926.
WE ARE GETTING TO THE END
We are getting to the end of visioning
The impossible within this universe,
Such as that better whiles may follow worse,
And that our race may mend by reasoning.
We know that even as larks in cages sing
Unthoughtful of deliverance from the curse
That holds them lifelong in a latticed hearse,
We ply spasmodically our pleasuring.
And that when nations set them to lay waste
Their neighbours’ heritage by foot and horse,
And hack their pleasant plains in festering seams,
They may again, — not warely, or from taste,
But tickled mad by some demonic force. —
Yes. We are getting to the end of dreams!
HE RESOLVES TO SAY NO MORE
O my soul, keep the rest unknown!
It is too like a sound of moan
When the charnel-eyed
Pale Horse has nighed:
Yea, none shall gather what I hide!