Poems of the Past and the Present Read Online

Wind keen from north-east: sky a dull grey.

(Triolet)

Rook. – Throughout the field I find no grain;

The cruel frost encrusts the cornland!

Starling. – Aye: patient pecking now is vain

Throughout the field, I find ...

Rook. – No grain!

Pigeon. – Nor will be, comrade, till it rain,

Or genial thawings loose the lorn land

Throughout the field.

Rook. – I find no grain:

The cruel frost encrusts the cornland!

The Last Chrysanthemum

Why should this flower delay so long

To show its tremulous plumes?

Now is the time of plaintive robin-song,

When flowers are in their tombs.

Through the slow summer, when the sun

Called to each frond and whorl

That all he could for flowers was being done,

Why did it not uncurl?

It must have felt that fervid call

Although it took no heed,

Waking but now, when leaves like corpses fall,

And saps all retrocede.

Too late its beauty, lonely thing,

The season's shine is spent,

Nothing remains for it but shivering

In tempests turbulent.

Had it a reason for delay,

Dreaming in witlessness

That for a bloom so delicately gay

Winter would stay its stress?

– I talk as if the thing were born

With sense to work its mind;

Yet it is but one mask of many worn

By the Great Face behind.

The Darkling Thrush

I leant upon a coppice gate

When Frost was spectre-gray,

And Winter's dregs made desolate

The weakening eye of day.

The tangled bine-stems scored the sky

Like strings of broken lyres,

And all mankind that haunted nigh

Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be

The Century's corpse outleant,

His crypt the cloudy canopy,

The wind his death-lament.

The ancient pulse of germ and birth

Was shrunken hard and dry,

And every spirit upon earth

Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among

The bleak twigs overhead

In a full-hearted evensong

Of joy illimited;

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,

In blast-beruffled plume,

Had chosen thus to fling his soul

Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings

Of such ecstatic sound

Was written on terrestrial things

Afar or nigh around,

That I could think there trembled through

His happy good-night air

Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew

And I was unaware.

The Comet at Yell'ham

I

It bends far over Yell'ham Plain,

And we, from Yell'ham Height,

Stand and regard its fiery train,

So soon to swim from sight.

II

It will return long years hence, when

As now its strange swift shine

Will fall on Yell'ham; but not then

On that sweet form of thine.

Mad Judy

When the hamlet hailed a birth

Judy used to cry:

When she heard our christening mirth

She would kneel and sigh.

She was crazed, we knew, and we

Humoured her infirmity.

When the daughters and the sons

Gathered them to wed,

And we like-intending ones

Danced till dawn was red,

She would rock and mutter, »More

Comers to this stony shore!«

When old Headsman Death laid hands

On a babe or twain,

She would feast, and by her brands

Sing her songs again.

What she liked we let her do,

Judy was insane, we knew.

A Wasted Illness

Through vaults of pain,

Enribbed and wrought with groins of ghastliness,

I passed, and garish spectres moved my brain

To dire distress.

And hammerings,

And quakes, and shoots, and stifling hotness, blent

With webby waxing things and waning things

As on I went.

»Where lies the end

To this foul way?« I asked with weakening breath.

Thereon ahead I saw a door extend –

The door to Death.

It loomed more clear:

»At last!« I cried. »The all-delivering door!«

And then, I knew not how, it grew less near

Than theretofore.

And back slid I

Along the galleries by which I came,

And tediously the day returned, and sky,

And life – the same.

And all was well:

Old circumstance resumed its former show,

And on my head the dews of comfort fell

As ere my woe.

I roam anew,

Scarce conscious of my late distress. ... And yet

Those backward steps to strength I cannot view

Without regret.

For that dire train

Of waxing shapes and waning, passed before,

And those grim chambers, must be ranged again

To reach that door.

A Man

(In Memory of H. of M.)

I

In Casterbridge there stood a noble pile,

Wrought with pilaster, bay, and balustrade

In tactful times when shrewd Eliza swayed. –

On burgher, squire, and clown

It smiled the long street down for near a mile.

II

But evil days beset that domicile;

The stately beauties of its roof and wall

Passed into sordid hands. Condemned to fall

Were cornice, quoin, and cove,

And all that art had wove in antique style.

III

Among the hired dismantlers entered there

One till the moment of his task untold.

When charged therewith he gazed, and answered bold:

»Be needy I or no,

I will not help lay low a house so fair!

IV

Hunger is hard. But since the terms be such –

No wage, or labour stained with the disgrace

Of wrecking what our age cannot replace

To save its tasteless soul –

I'll do without your dole. Life is not much!«

V

Dismissed with sneers he backed his tools and went,

And wandered workless; for it seemed unwise

To close with one who dared to criticize

And carp on points of taste:

Rude men should work where placed, and be content.

VI

Years whiled. He aged, sank, sickened; and was not:

And it was said, »A man intractable

And curst is gone.« None sighed to hear his knell,

None sought his churchyard-place;

His name, his rugged face, were soon forgot.

VII

The stones of that fair hall lie far and wide,

And but a few recall its ancient mould;

Yet when I pass the spot I long to hold

As truth what fancy saith:

»His protest lives where deathless things abide!«

The Dame of Athelhall

I

»Dear! Shall I see thy face,« she said,

»In one brief hour?

And away with thee from a loveless bed

To a far-off sun, to a vine-wrapt bower,

And be thine own unseparated,

And challenge the world's white glower?«

II

She quickened her feet, and met him where

They had predesigned:

And they clasped, and mounted, and cleft the air

Upon whirling wheels; till the will to bind

Her life with his made the moments there

Efface the years behind.

III

Miles slid, and the port uprose to view

As they sped on;

When slipping its bond the bracelet flew

From her fondled arm. Replaced anon,

Its cameo of the abjured one drew

Her musings thereupon.

IV

The gaud with his image once had been

A gift from him:

And so it was that its carving keen

Refurbished memories wearing dim,

Which set in her soul a twinge of teen,

And a tear on her lashes' brim.

V

»I may not go!« she at length outspake,

»Thoughts call me back –

I would still lose all for your dear, true sake;

My heart is thine, friend! But my track

Home, home to Athelhall I must take

To hinder household wrack!«

VI

He was wroth. And they parted, weak and wan;

And he left the shore;

His ship diminished, was low, was gone;

And she heard in the waves as the daytide wore,

And read in the leer of the sun that shone,

That they parted for evermore.

VII

She homed as she came, at the dip of eve

On Athel Coomb

Regaining the Hall she had sworn to leave.

The house was soundless as a tomb,

And she stole to her chamber, there to grieve

Lone, kneeling, in the gloom.

VIII

From the lawn without rose her husband's voice

To one his friend:

»Another her Love, another my choice,

Her going is good. Our conditions mend;

In a change of mates we shall both rejoice;

I hoped that it thus might end!

IX

A quick divorce; she will make him hers,

And I wed mine.

So Time rights all things in long, long years –

Or rather she, by her bold design!

I admire a woman no balk deters:

She has blessed my life, in fine.

X

I shall build new rooms for my new true bride,

Let the bygone be:

By now, no doubt, she has crossed the tide

With the man to her mind. Far happier she

In some warm vineland by his side

Than ever she was with me.«

The Seasons of Her Year

I

Winter is white on turf and tree,

And birds are fled;

But summer songsters pipe to me,

And petals spread,

For what I dreamt of secretly

His lips have said!

II

O 'tis a fine May morn, they say,

And blooms have blown;

But wild and wintry is my day,

My song-birds moan;

For he who vowed leaves me to pay

Alone – alone!

The Milkmaid

Under a daisied bank

There stands a rich red ruminating cow,

And hard against her flank

A cotton-hooded milkmaid bends her brow.

The flowery river-ooze

Upheaves and falls; the milk purrs in the pail;

Few pilgrims but would choose

The peace of such a life in such a vale.

The maid breathes words – to vent,

It seems, her sense of Nature's scenery,

Of whose life, sentiment,

And essence, very part itself is she.

She bends a glance of pain,

And, at a moment, lets escape a tear;

Is it that passing train,

Whose alien whirr offends her country ear? –

Nay! Phyllis does not dwell

On visual and familiar things like these;

What moves her is the spell

Of inner themes and inner poetries:

Could but by Sunday morn

Her gay new gown come, meads might dry to dun,

Trains shriek till cars were torn,

If Fred would not prefer that Other One.

The Levelled Churchyard

»O Passenger, pray list and catch

Our sighs and piteous groans,

Half stifled in this jumbled patch

Of wrenched memorial stones!

We late-lamented, resting here,

Are mixed to human jam,

And each to each exclaims in fear,

›I know not which I am!‹

The wicked people have annexed

The verses on the good;

A roaring drunkard sports the text

Teetotal Tommy should!

Where we are huddled none can trace,

And if our names remain,

They pave some path or porch or place

Where we have never lain!

Here's not a modest maiden elf

But dreads the final Trumpet,

Lest half of her should rise herself,

And half some sturdy strumpet!

From restorations of Thy fane,

From smoothings of Thy sward,

From zealous Churchmen's pick and plane

Deliver us O Lord! Amen!«

The Ruined Maid

»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.

Westbourne Park Villas, 1866

The Respectable Burgher

On »The Higher Criticism«

Since Reverend Doctors now declare

That clerks and people must prepare

To doubt if Adam ever were;

To hold the flood a local scare;

To argue, though the stolid stare,

That everything had happened ere

The prophets to its happening sware;

That David was no giant-slayer,

Nor one to call a God-obeyer

In certain details we could spare,

But rather was a debonair

Shrewd bandit, skilled as banjo-player:

That Solomon sang the fleshly Fair,

And gave the Church no thought whate'er,

That Esther with her royal wear,

And Mordecai, the son of Jair,

And Joshua's triumphs, Job's despair,

And Balaam's ass's bitter blare;

Nebuchadnezzar's furnace-flare,

And Daniel and the den affair,

And other stories rich and rare,

Were writ to make old doctrine wear

Something of a romantic air:

That the Nain widow's only heir,

And Lazarus with cadaverous glare

(As done in oils by Piombo's care)

Did not return from Sheol's lair:

That Jael set a fiendish snare,

That Pontius Pilate acted square,

That never a sword cut Malchus' ear;

And (but for shame I must forbear)

That –– did not reappear! ...

– Since thus they hint, nor turn a hair,

All churchgoing will I forswear,

And sit on Sundays in my chair,

And read that moderate man Voltaire.

Architectural Masks

I

There is a house with ivied walls,

And mullioned windows worn and old,

And the long dwellers in those halls

Have souls that know but sordid calls,

And daily dote on gold.

II

In blazing brick and plated show

Not far away a ›villa‹ gleams,

And here a family few may know,

With book and pencil, viol and bow,

Lead inner lives of dreams.

III

The philosophic passers say,

»See that old mansion mossed and fair,

Poetic souls therein are they:

And O that gaudy box! Away,

You vulgar people there.«

The Tenant-for-Life

The sun said, watching my watering-pot:

»Some morn you'll pass away;

These flowers and plants I parch up hot –

Who'll water them that day?

Those banks and beds whose shape your eye

Has planned in line so true,

New hands will change, unreasoning why

Such shape seemed best to you.

Within your house will strangers sit,

And wonder how first it came;

They'll talk of their schemes for improving it,

And will not mention your name.

They'll care not how, or when, or at what

You sighed, laughed, suffered here,

Though you feel more in an hour of the spot

Than they will feel in a year.

As I look on at you here, now,

Shall I look on at these;

But as to our old times, avow

No knowledge – hold my peace! ...

O friend, it matters not, I say;

Bethink ye, I have shined

On nobler ones than you, and they

Are dead men out of mind!«

The King's Experiment

It was a wet wan hour in spring,

And Nature met King Doom beside a lane,

Wherein Hodge tramped, all blithely ballading

The Mother's smiling reign.

»Why warbles he that skies are fair

And coombs alight,« she cried, »and fallows gay,

When I have placed no sunshine in the air

Or glow on earth to-day?«

»'Tis in the comedy of things

That such should be,« returned the one of Doom;

»Charge now the scene with brightest blazonings,

And he shall call them gloom.«

She gave the word: the sunbeams broke,

All Froomside shone, the hedgebirds raised a strain;

And later Hodge, upon the midday stroke,

Returned along the lane,

Low murmuring: »O this bitter scene,

And thrice accurst horizon hung with gloom!

How deadly like this sky, these fields, these treen,

To trappings of the tomb!«

The Beldame then: »The fool and blind!

Such mad perverseness who may apprehend?« –

»Nay; there's no madness in it; thou shalt find

Thy law there,« said her friend.

»When Hodge went forth 'twas to his Love,

To make her, ere this eve, his wedded prize,

And Earth, despite the heaviness above,

Was bright as Paradise.

But I sent on my messenger,

With cunning arrows poisonous and keen,

To take forthwith her laughing life from her,

And dull her little een,

And white her cheek, and still her breath,

Ere her too buoyant Hodge had reached her side;

So, when he came, he clasped her but in death,

And never as his bride.

And there's the humour, as I said;

Thy dreary dawn he saw as gleaming gold,

And in thy glistening green and radiant red

Funereal gloom and cold.«

The Tree

An Old Man's Story

I

Its roots are bristling in the air

Like some mad Earth-god's spiny hair;

The loud south-wester's swell and yell

Smote it at midnight, and it fell.

Thus ends the tree

Where Some One sat with me.

II

Its boughs, which none but darers trod,

A child may step on from the sod,

And twigs that earliest met the dawn

Are lit the last upon the lawn.

Cart off the tree

Beneath whose trunk sat we!

III

Yes, there we sat: she cooed content,

And bats ringed round, and daylight went;

The gnarl, our seat, is wrenched and sunk,

Prone that queer pocket in the trunk

Where lay the key

To her pale mystery.

IV

»Years back, within this pocket-hole

I found, my Love, a hurried scrawl

Meant not for me,« at length said I;

»I glanced thereat, and let it lie:

The words were three –

›Beloved, I agree.‹

V

Who placed it here; to what request

It gave assent, I never guessed.

Some prayer of some hot heart, no doubt,

To some coy maiden hereabout,

Just as, maybe,

With you, Sweet Heart, and me.«

VI

She waited, till with quickened breath

She spoke, as one who banisheth

Reserves that lovecraft heeds so well,

To ease some mighty wish to tell:

»'Twas I,« said she,

»Who wrote thus clinchingly.

VII

My lover's wife – aye, wife – knew nought

Of what we felt, and bore, and thought. ...

He'd said: ›I wed with thee or die:

She stands between, 'tis true. But why?

Do thou agree,

And – she shall cease to be.‹

VIII

How I held back, how love supreme

Involved me madly in his scheme

Why should I say? ... I wrote assent

(You found it hid) to his intent. ...

She – died. ... But he

Came not to wed with me.

IX

O shrink not, Love! – Had these eyes seen

But once thine own, such had not been!

But we were strangers. ... Thus the plot

Cleared passion's path.