“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“to talk of many things:
of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
of cabbages—and kings—
and why the sea is boiling hot—
and whether pigs have wings.”
“But wait a bit,” the Oysters cried,
“before we have our chat;
for some of us are out of breath,
and all of us are fat!”
“No hurry!” said the Carpenter.
they thanked him much for that.
“A loaf of bread,” the Walrus said,
“is what we chiefly need:
pepper and vinegar besides
are very good indeed—
now if you’re ready, Oysters dear,
we can begin to feed.”
“But not on us!” the Oysters cried,
turning a little blue.
“After such kindness, that would be
a dismal thing to do!”
“The night is fine,” the Walrus said.
“do you admire the view?
It was so kind of you to come!
and you are very nice!”
The Carpenter said nothing but
“Cut us another slice:
I wish you were not quite so deaf—
I’ve had to ask you twice!”
“It seems a shame,” the Walrus said,
“to play them such a trick,
after we’ve brought them out so far,
and made them trot so quick!”
The Carpenter said nothing but
“The butter’s spread too thick!”
“I weep for you,” the Walrus said:
“I deeply sympathize.”
With sobs and tears he sorted out
those of the largest size,
holding his pocket-handkerchief
before his streaming eyes.
“O Oysters,” said the Carpenter,
“You’ve had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?’
But answer came there none—
and this was scarcely odd, because
they’d eaten every one.
Thomas Hardy (1840 – 1928)
Channel firing1
That night your great guns, unawares,
shook all our coffins as we lay,
and broke the chancel window-squares,
we thought it was the Judgement-day
and sat upright. While drearisome
arose the howl of wakened hounds:
the mouse let fall the altar-crumb,
the worm drew back into the mounds,
the glebe cow drooled. Till God cried, “No;
it’s gunnery practice out at sea
just as before you went below;
the world is as it used to be:
all nations striving strong to make
red war yet redder. Mad as hatters
they do no more for Christés sake
than you who are helpless in such matters.
That this is not the judgment-hour
for some of them’s a blessed thing,
for if it were they’d have to scour
hell’s floor for so much threatening … .
Ha, ha. It will be warmer when
I blow the trumpet (if indeed
I ever do; for you are men,
and rest eternal sorely need).”
So down we lay again. “I wonder,
will the world ever saner be,”
said one, “than when He sent us under
in our indifferent century!”
And many a skeleton shook his head.
“Instead of preaching forty year,”
my neighbor Parson Thirdly said,
“I wish I had stuck to pipes and beer.”
Again the guns disturbed the hour,
roaring their readiness to avenge,
as far inland as Stourton Tower,
and Camelot, and starlit Stonehenge.
I look into my glass1
I look into my glass,
and view my wasting skin,
and say, “Would God it came to pass
my heart had shrunk as thin!”
For then, I, undistrest
by hearts grown cold to me,
could lonely wait my endless rest
with equanimity.
But Time, to make me grieve,
part steals, lets part abide;
and shakes this fragile frame at eve
with throbbings of noontide.
The oxen2
Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
“Now they are all on their knees,”
an elder said as we sat in a flock
by the embers in hearthside ease.
We pictured the meek mild creatures where
they dwelt in their strawy pen,
nor did it occur to one of us there
to doubt they were kneeling then.
So fair a fancy few would weave
in these years! Yet, I feel,
if someone said on Christmas Eve,
“Come; see the oxen kneel,
In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
our childhood used to know,”
I should go with him in the gloom,
hoping it might be so.
The Ruined Maid1
“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. One’s pretty lively when ruined,” 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,
cannot quite expect that. You ain’t ruined,” said she.
Sidney Lanier (1842 – 1881)
The Revenge of Hamish1
It was three slim does and a ten-tined buck
in the bracken lay;
and all of a sudden the sinister smell of a man,
awaft on a wind-shift, wavered and ran
down the hill-side and sifted along through the bracken
and passed that way.
Then Nan got a-tremble at nostril;
she was the daintiest doe;
in the print of her velvet flank on the velvet fern
she reared, and rounded her ears in turn.
Then the buck leapt up, and his head
as a king’s to a crown did go
full high in the breeze,
and he stood as if Death had the form of a deer;
and the two slim does long lazily stretching arose,
for their day-dream slowlier came to a close,
till they woke and were still,
breath-bound with waiting and wonder and fear.
Then Alan the huntsman
&nb
sp; sprang over the hillock, the hounds shot by,
the does and the ten-tined buck
made a marvelous bound,
the hounds swept after with never a sound,
but Alan loud winded his horn in sign
that the quarry was nigh.
For at dawn of that day proud Maclean of Lochbuy
to the hunt had waxed wild,
and he cursed at old Alan
till Alan fared off with the hounds
for to drive him the deer to the lower glen-grounds:
“I will kill a red deer,” quoth Maclean,
“in the sight of the wife and the child.”
So gaily he paced with the wife and the child
to his chosen stand;
but he hurried tall Hamish the henchman ahead:
“Go turn,”—Cried Maclean—
“if the deer seek to cross to the burn,
do thou turn them to me:
nor fail, lest thy back be red as thy hand.”
Now hard-fortuned Hamish,
half blown of his breath with the height of the hill,
was white in the face
when the ten-tined buck and the does
drew leaping to burn-ward; huskily rose
his shouts, and his nether lip twitched,
and his legs were o’er-weak for his will.
So the deer darted lightly by Hamish
and bounded away to the burn.
But Maclean never bating
his watch tarried waiting below
still Hamish hung heavy with fear for to go
all the space of an hour; then he went,
and his face was greenish and stern,
and his eye sat back in the socket,
and shrunken the eyeballs shone,
as withdrawn from a vision
of deeds it were shame to see.
“Now, now, grim henchman, what is’t with thee?”
Brake Maclean, and his wrath rose red as a beacon
the wind hath upblown.
“Three does and a ten-tined buck made out,”
spoke Hamish, full mild,
“and I ran for to turn,
but my breath it was blown, and they passed;
I was weak, for ye called ere I broke me my fast.”
Cried Maclean: “Now a ten-tined buck
in the sight of the wife and the child
I had killed if the gluttonous kern
had not wrought me a snail’s own wrong!”
Then he sounded,
and down came kinsmen and clansmen all:
“Ten blows, for ten tine, on his back let fall,
and reckon no stroke if the blood follow not
at the bite of thong!”
So Hamish made bare, and took him his strokes;
at the last he smiled.
“Now I’ll to the burn,” quoth Maclean, “for it still may be,
if a slimmer-paunched henchman will hurry with me,
I shall kill me the ten-tined buck
for a gift to the wife and the child!”
Then the clansmen departed, by this path and that;
and over the hill
sped Maclean with an outward wrath
for an inward shame;
and that place of the lashing full Quiet became;
and the wife and the child stood sad;
and bloody-backed Hamish sat still.
But look! red Hamish has risen;
quick about and about turns he.
“There is none betwixt me and the crag-top!”
he screams under breath.
Then, livid as Lazarus lately from death,
he snatches the child from the mother,
and clambers the crag toward the sea.
Now the mother drops breath; she is dumb,
and her heart goes dead for a space,
till the motherhood, mistress of death,
shrieks, shrieks through the glen,
and that place of the lashing is live with men,
and Maclean, and the gillie that told him,
dash up in a desperate race.
Not a breath’s time for asking; an eye-glance reveals
all the tale untold.
They follow mad Hamish
afar up the crag toward the sea,
and the lady cries: “Clansmen, run for a fee!—
yon castle and lands to the two first hands
that shall hook him and hold
fast Hamish back from the brink!”—
and ever she flies up the steep,
and the clansmen pant, and they sweat,
and they jostle and strain.
But, mother, ’tis vain; but, father, ’tis vain;
stern Hamish stands bold on the brink,
and dangles the child o’er the deep.
Now a faintness falls on the men that run,
and they all stand still.
And the wife prays Hamish as if he were God,
on her knees,
crying: “Hamish! O Hamish! but please, but please
for to spare him!” and Hamish
still dangles the child, with a wavering will.
On a sudden he turns; with a sea-hawk scream,
and a gibe, and a song,
cries: “So; I will spare ye the child if, in sight of ye all,
ten blows on Maclean’s bare back shall fall,
and ye reckon no stroke if the blood follow not
at the bite of the thong!”
Then Maclean he set hardly his tooth to his lip
that his tooth was red,
breathed short for a space,
said: “Nay, but it never shall be!
Let me hurl off the damnable hound in the sea!”
But the wife: “Can Hamish go fish
us the child from the sea, if dead?
Say yea!—Let them lash ME, Hamish?”—“Nay!”—
“Husband, the lashing will heal;
but, oh, who will heal me
the bonny sweet bairn in his grave?
Could ye cure me my heart with the death of a knave?
Quick! Love! I will bare thee—so—kneel!”
Then Maclean ’gan slowly to kneel
with never a word, till presently downward
he jerked to the earth.
Then the henchman—he that smote Hamish—
would tremble and lag;
“Strike, hard!” quoth Hamish, full stern, from the crag;
then he struck him, and “One!” sang Hamish,
and danced with the child in his mirth.
And no man spake beside Hamish;
he counted each stroke with a song.
When the last stroke fell, then he moved him a pace
down the height,
and he held forth the child in the heartaching sight
of the mother, and looked all pitiful grave,
as repenting a wrong.
And there as the motherly arms stretched out
with the thanksgiving prayer—
and there as the mother crept up
with a fearful swift pace,
till her finger nigh felt of the bairnie’s face—
in a flash fierce Hamish turned round
and lifted the child in the air,
and sprang with the child in his arms
from the horrible height in the sea,
shrill screeching, “Revenge!” in the wind-rush;
and pallid Maclean,
age-feeble with anger and impotent pain,
crawled up on the crag, and lay flat,
and locked hold of dead roots of a tree—
and gazed hungrily o’er, and the blood from his back
drip-dripped in the brine,
and a sea-hawk flung down a skeleton fish as he flew,
and the mother stared white on the waste of blue,
and the wind drove a cloud to seaward,
and the sun began to shine.
The W
aving of the Corn1
Ploughman, whose gnarly hand yet kindly wheeled
thy plough to ring this solitary tree
with clover, whose round plat, reserved a-field,
in cool green radius twice my length may be—
scanting the corn thy furrows else might yield,
to pleasure August, bees, fair thoughts, and me,
that here come oft together—daily I,
stretched prone in summer’s mortal ecstasy,
do stir with thanks to thee, as stirs this morn
with waving of the corn.
Unseen, the farmer’s boy from round the hill
whistles a snatch that seeks his soul unsought,
and fills some time with tune, howbeit shrill;
the cricket tells straight on his simple thought—
nay, ’tis the cricket’s way of being still;
the peddler bee drones in, and gossips naught;
far down the wood, a one-desiring dove
times me the beating of the heart of love:
and these be all the sounds that mix, each morn,
with waving of the corn.
From here to where the louder passions dwell,
green leagues of hilly separation roll:
trade ends where yon far clover ridges swell.
Ye terrible Towns, ne’er claim the trembling soul
that, craftless all to buy or hoard or sell,
from out your deadly complex quarrel stole
to company with large amiable trees,
suck honey summer with unjealous bees,
and take Time’s strokes as softly as this morn
takes waving of the corn.
To Nannette Falk-Auerbach1
Oft as I hear thee, wrapt in heavenly art,
the massive message of Beethoven tell
with thy ten fingers to the people’s heart
as if ten tongues told news of heaven and hell,—
gazing on thee, I mark that not alone,
ah, not alone, thou sittest: there, by thee,
beethoven’s self, dear living lord of tone,
doth stand and smile upon thy mastery.
Full fain and fatherly his great eyes glow:
he says, “From Heaven, my child, I heard thee call
(for, where an artist plays, the sky is low):
yea, since my lonesome life did lack love’s all,
in death, God gives me thee: thus, quit of pain,
daughter, Nannette! in thee I live again.”
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 – 1889)
Binsey Poplars2
felled 1879
My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,
quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
all felled, felled, are all felled;
The Giant Book of Poetry (2006) Page 21