Time's Laughingstocks and Other verses Read Online

»Where's my bird? –

My bird – my flower – my picotee?

First time of asking, soon the third!«

Ah, in my grave I well may be.

To me he whispered: »Since your call –«

So spoke he then, alas for me –

»I've felt for her, and righted all«.

– I think of it to agony.

»She's faint to-day – tired – nothing more –«

Thus did I lie, alas for me. ...

I called her at her chamber door

As one who scarce had strength to be.

No voice replied. I went within –

O women! scourged the worst are we. ...

I shrieked. The others hastened in

And saw the stroke there dealt on me.

There she lay – silent, breathless, dead,

Stone dead she lay – wronged, sinless she! –

Ghost-white the cheeks once rosy-red:

Death had took her. Death took not me.

I kissed her colding face and hair,

I kissed her corpse – the bride to be! –

My punishment I cannot bear,

But pray God not to pity me.

The House of Hospitalities

Here we broached the Christmas barrel,

Pushed up the charred log-ends;

Here we sang the Christmas carol,

And called in friends.

Time has tired me since we met here

When the folk now dead were young,

Since the viands were outset here

And quaint songs sung.

And the worm has bored the viol

That used to lead the tune,

Rust eaten out the dial

That struck night's noon.

Now no Christmas brings in neighbours,

And the New Year comes unlit;

Where we sang the mole now labours,

And spiders knit.

Yet at midnight if here walking,

When the moon sheets wall and tree,

I see forms of old time talking,

Who smile on me.

Bereft

In the black winter morning

No light will be struck near my eyes

While the clock in the stairway is warning

For five, when he used to rise.

Leave the door unbarred,

The clock unwound,

Make my lone bed hard –

Would 'twere underground!

When the summer dawns clearly,

And the appletree-tops seem alight,

Who will undraw the curtain and cheerly

Call out that the morning is bright?

When I tarry at market

No form will cross Durnover Lea

In the gathering darkness, to hark at

Grey's Bridge for the pit-pat o' me.

When the supper crock's steaming,

And the time is the time of his tread,

I shall sit by the fire and wait dreaming

In a silence as of the dead.

Leave the door unbarred,

The clock unwound,

Make my lone bed hard –

Would 'twere underground!

John and Jane

I

He sees the world as a boisterous place

Where all things bear a laughing face,

And humorous scenes go hourly on,

Does John.

II

They find the world a pleasant place

Where all is ecstasy and grace,

Where a light has risen that cannot wane,

Do John and Jane.

III

They see as a palace their cottage-place,

Containing a pearl of the human race,

A hero, maybe, hereafter styled,

Do John and Jane with a baby-child.

IV

They rate the world as a gruesome place,

Where fair looks fade to a skull's grimace, –

As a pilgrimage they would fain get done –

Do John and Jane with their worthless son.

The Curate's Kindness

A Workhouse Irony

I

I thought they'd be strangers aroun' me,

But she's to be there!

Let me jump out o' waggon and go back and drown me

At Pummery or Ten-Hatches Weir.

II

I thought: »Well, I've come to the Union –

The workhouse at last –

After honest hard work all the week, and Communion

O' Zundays, these fifty years past.

III

'Tis hard; but,« I thought, »never mind it:

There's gain in the end:

And when I get used to the place I shall find it

A home, and may find there a friend.

IV

Life there will be better than t'other,

For peace is assured.

The men in one wing and their wives in another

Is strictly the rule of the Board.«

V

Just then one young Pa'son arriving

Steps up out of breath

To the side o' the waggon wherein we were driving

To Union; and calls out and saith:

VI

»Old folks, that harsh order is altered,

Be not sick of heart!

The Guardians they poohed and they pished and they paltered

When urged not to keep you apart.

VII

›It is wrong,‹ I maintained, ›to divide them,

Near forty years wed.‹

›Very well, sir. We promise, then, they shall abide them

In one wing together,‹ they said.«

VIII

Then I sank – knew 'twas quite a foredone thing

That misery should be

To the end! ... To get freed of her there was the one thing

Had made the change welcome to me.

IX

To go there was ending but badly;

'Twas shame and 'twas pain;

»But anyhow,« thought I, »thereby I shall gladly

Get free of this forty years' chain.«

X

I thought they'd be strangers aroun' me,

But she's to be there!

Let me jump out o' waggon and go back and drown me

At Pummery or Ten-Hatches Weir.

The Flirt's Tragedy

(17––)

Here alone by the logs in my chamber,

Deserted, decrepit –

Spent flames limning ghosts on the wainscot

Of friends I once knew –

My drama and hers begins weirdly

Its dumb re-enactment,

Each scene, sigh, and circumstance passing

In spectral review.

– Wealth was mine beyond wish when I met her –

The pride of the lowland –

Embowered in Tintinhull Valley

By laurel and yew;

And love lit my soul, notwithstanding

My features' ill favour,

Too obvious beside her perfections

Of line and of hue.

But it pleased her to play on my passion,

And whet me to pleadings

That won from her mirthful negations

And scornings undue.

Then I fled her disdains and derisions

To cities of pleasure,

And made me the crony of idlers

In every purlieu.

Of those who lent ear to my story,

A needy Adonis

Gave hint how to grizzle her garden

From roses to rue,

Could his price but be paid for so purging

My scorner of scornings:

Thus tempted, the lust to avenge me

Germed inly and grew.

I clothed him in sumptuous apparel,

Consigned to him coursers,

Meet equipage, liveried attendants

In full retinue.

So dowered, with letters of credit

He wayfared to England,

And spied out the manor she goddessed,

And handy thereto,

Set to hire him a tenantless mansion

As coign-stone of vantage

For testing what gross adulation

Of beauty could do.

He laboured through mornings and evens,

On new moons and sabbaths,

By wiles to enmesh her attention

In park, path, and pew;

And having afar played upon her,

Advanced his lines nearer,

And boldly outleaping conventions,

Bent briskly to woo.

His gay godlike face, his rare seeming

Anon worked to win her,

And later, at noontides and night-tides

They held rendezvous.

His tarriance full spent, he departed

And met me in Venice,

And lines from her told that my jilter

Was stooping to sue.

Not long could be further concealment,

She pled to him humbly:

»By our love and our sin, O protect me;

I fly unto you!«

A mighty remorse overgat me,

I heard her low anguish,

And there in the gloom of the calle

My steel ran him through.

A swift push engulphed his hot carrion

Within the canal there –

That still street of waters dividing

The city in two.

– I wandered awhile all unable

To smother my torment,

My brain racked by yells as from Tophet

Of Satan's whole crew.

A month of unrest brought me hovering

At home in her precincts,

To whose hiding-hole local story

Afforded a clue.

Exposed, and expelled by her people,

Afar off in London

I found her alone, in a sombre

And soul-stifling mew.

Still burning to make reparation

I pleaded to wive her,

And father her child, and thus faintly

My mischief undo.

She yielded, and spells of calm weather

Succeeded the tempest;

And one sprung of him stood as scion

Of my bone and thew. ...

But Time unveils sorrows and secrets,

And so it befell now:

By inches the curtain was twitched at,

And slowly undrew.

As we lay, she and I, in the night-time,

We heard the boy moaning:

»O misery mine! My false father

Has murdered my true!«

She gasped: yea, she heard; understood it.

Next day the child fled us;

And nevermore sighted was even

A print of his shoe.

Thenceforward she shunned me, and languished;

Till one day the park-pool

Embraced her fair form, and extinguished

Her eyes' living blue.

– So; ask not what blast may account for

This aspect of pallor,

These bones that just prison within them

Life's poor residue;

But pass by, and leave unregarded

A Cain to his suffering,

For vengeance too dark on the woman

Whose lover he slew.

The Rejected Member's Wife

We shall see her no more

On the balcony,

Smiling, while hurt, at the roar

As of surging sea

From the stormy sturdy band

Who have doomed her lord's cause,

Though she waves her little hand

As it were applause.

Here will be candidates yet,

And candidates' wives,

Fervid with zeal to set

Their ideals on our lives:

Here will come market-men

On the market-days,

Here will clash now and then

More such party assays.

And the balcony will fill

When such times are renewed,

And the throng in the street will thrill

With to-day's mettled mood;

But she will no more stand

In the sunshine there,

With that wave of her white-gloved hand,

And that chestnut hair.

The Farm-Woman's Winter

I

If seasons all were summers,

And leaves would never fall,

And hopping casement-comers

Were foodless not at all,

And fragile folk might be here

That white winds bid depart;

Then one I used to see here

Would warm my wasted heart!

II

One frail, who, bravely tilling

Long hours in gripping gusts,

Was mastered by their chilling,

And now his ploughshare rusts.

So savage winter catches

The breath of limber things,

And what I love he snatches,

And what I love not, brings.

Autumn in King's Hintock Park

Here by the baring bough

Raking up leaves,

Often I ponder how

Springtime deceives, –

I, an old woman now,

Raking up leaves.

Here in the avenue

Raking up leaves,

Lords' ladies pass in view,

Until one heaves

Sighs at life's russet hue,

Raking up leaves!

Just as my shape you see

Raking up leaves,

I saw, when fresh and free,

Those memory weaves

Into grey ghosts by me,

Raking up leaves.

Yet, Dear, though one may sigh,

Raking up leaves,

New leaves will dance on high –

Earth never grieves! –

Will not, when missed am I

Raking up leaves.

Shut Out That Moon

Close up the casement, draw the blind,

Shut out that stealing moon,

She wears too much the guise she wore

Before our lutes were strewn

With years-deep dust, and names we read

On a white stone were hewn.

Step not forth on the dew-dashed lawn

To view the Lady's Chair,

Immense Orion's glittering form,

The Less and Greater Bear:

Stay in; to such sights we were drawn

When faded ones were fair.

Brush not the bough for midnight scents

That come forth lingeringly,

And wake the same sweet sentiments

They breathed to you and me

When living seemed a laugh, and love

All it was said to be.

Within the common lamp-lit room

Prison my eyes and thought;

Let dingy details crudely loom,

Mechanic speech be wrought:

Too fragrant was Life's early bloom,

Too tart the fruit it brought!

Reminiscences of a Dancing Man

I

Who now remembers Almack's balls –

Willis's sometime named –

In those two smooth-floored upper halls

For faded ones so famed?

Where as we trod to trilling sound

The fancied phantoms stood around,

Or joined us in the maze,

Of the powdered Dears from Georgian years,

Whose dust lay in sightless sealed-up biers,

The fairest of former days.

II

Who now remembers gay Cremorne,

And all its jaunty jills,

And those wild whirling figures born

Of Jullien's grand quadrilles?

With hats on head and morning coats

There footed to his prancing notes

Our partner-girls and we;

And the gas-jets winked, and the lustres clinked,

And the platform throbbed as with arms enlinked

We moved to the minstrelsy.

III

Who now recalls those crowded rooms

Of old yclept »The Argyle«,

Where to the deep Drum-polka's booms

We hopped in standard style?

Whither have danced those damsels now!

Is Death the partner who doth moue

Their wormy chaps and bare?

Do their spectres spin like sparks within

The smoky halls of the Prince of Sin

To a thunderous Jullien air?

The Dead Man Walking

They hail me as one living,

But don't they know

That I have died of late years,

Untombed although?

I am but a shape that stands here,

A pulseless mould,

A pale past picture, screening

Ashes gone cold.

Not at a minute's warning,

Not in a loud hour,

For me ceased Time's enchantments

In hall and bower.

There was no tragic transit,

No catch of breath,

When silent seasons inched me

On to this death. ...

– A Troubadour-youth I rambled

With Life for lyre,

The beats of being raging

In me like fire.

But when I practised eyeing

The goal of men,

It iced me, and I perished

A little then.

When passed my friend, my kinsfolk,

Through the Last Door,

And left me standing bleakly,

I died yet more;

And when my Love's heart kindled

In hate of me,

Wherefore I knew not, died I

One more degree.

And if when I died fully

I cannot say,

And changed into the corpse-thing

I am to-day;

Yet is it that, though whiling

The time somehow

In walking, talking, smiling,

I live not now.

More love lyrics

1967

In five-score summers! All new eyes,

New minds, new modes, new fools, new wise;

New woes to weep, new joys to prize;

With nothing left of me and you

In that live century's vivid view

Beyond a pinch of dust or two;

A century which, if not sublime,

Will show, I doubt not, at its prime,

A scope above this blinkered time.

– Yet what to me how far above?

For I would only ask thereof

That thy worm should be my worm, Love!

16 Westbourne Park Villas, 1867

Her Definition

I lingered through the night to break of day,

Nor once did sleep extend a wing to me,

Intently busied with a vast array

Of epithets that should outfigure thee.

Full-featured terms – all fitless – hastened by,

And this sole speech remained: »That maiden mine!« –

Debarred from due description then did I

Perceive the indefinite phrase could yet define.

As common chests encasing wares of price

Are borne with tenderness through halls of state,

For what they cover, so the poor device

Of homely wording I could tolerate,

Knowing its unadornment held as freight

The sweetest image outside Paradise.

W.P.V., Summer: 1866

The Division

Rain on the windows, creaking doors,

With blasts that besom the green,

And I am here, and you are there,

And a hundred miles between!

O were it but the weather, Dear,

O were it but the miles

That summed up all our severance,

There might be room for smiles.

But that thwart thing betwixt us twain,

Which nothing cleaves or clears,

Is more than distance, Dear, or rain,

And longer than the years!

On the Departure Platform

We kissed at the barrier; and passing through

She left me, and moment by moment got

Smaller and smaller, until to my view

She was but a spot;

A wee white spot of muslin fluff

That down the diminishing platform bore

Through hustling crowds of gentle and rough

To the carriage door.

Under the lamplight's fitful glowers,

Behind dark groups from far and near,

Whose interests were apart from ours,

She would disappear,

Then show again, till I ceased to see

That flexible form, that nebulous white;

And she who was more than my life to me

Had vanished quite. ...

We have penned new plans since that fair fond day,

And in season she will appear again –

Perhaps in the same soft white array –

But never as then!

– »And why, young man, must eternally fly

A joy you'll repeat, if you love her well?«

– O friend, nought happens twice thus; why,

I cannot tell!

In a Cathedral City

These people have not heard your name;

No loungers in this placid place

Have helped to bruit your beauty's fame.

The grey Cathedral, towards whose face

Bend eyes untold, has met not yours;

Your shade has never swept its base,

Your form has never darked its doors,

Nor have your faultless feet once thrown

A pensive pit-pat on its floors.

Along the street to maids well known

Blithe lovers hum their tender airs,

But in your praise voice not a tone. ...

– Since nought bespeaks you here, or bears,

As I, your imprint through and through,

Here might I rest, till my heart shares

The spot's unconsciousness of you!

Salisbury

I Say, »I'll Seek Her«

I say, »I'll seek her side

Ere hindrance interposes;«

But eve in midnight closes,

And here I still abide.

When darkness wears I see

Her sad eyes in a vision;

They ask, »What indecision

Detains you, Love, from me? –

The creaking hinge is oiled,

I have unbarred the backway,

But you tread not the trackway;

And shall the thing be spoiled?

Far cockcrows echo shrill,

The shadows are abating,

And I am waiting, waiting;

But O, you tarry still!«

Her Father

I met her, as we had privily planned,

Where passing feet beat busily:

She whispered: »Father is at hand!

He wished to walk with me.«

His presence as he joined us there

Banished our words of warmth away;

We felt, with cloudings of despair,

What Love must lose that day.

Her crimson lips remained unkissed,

Our fingers kept no tender hold,

His lack of feeling made the tryst

Embarrassed, stiff, and cold.

A cynic ghost then rose and said,

»But is his love for her so small

That, nigh to yours, it may be read

As of no worth at all?

You love her for her pink and white;

But what when their fresh splendours close?

His love will last her in despite

Of Time, and wrack, and foes.«

Weymouth

At Waking

When night was lifting,

And dawn had crept under its shade,

Amid cold clouds drifting

Dead-white as a corpse outlaid,

With a sudden scare

I seemed to behold

My Love in bare

Hard lines unfold.

Yea, in a moment,

An insight that would not die

Killed her old endowment

Of charm that had capped all nigh,

Which vanished to none

Like the gilt of a cloud,

And showed her but one

Of the common crowd.

She seemed but a sample

Of earth's poor average kind,

Lit up by no ample

Enrichments of mien or mind.

I covered my eyes

As to cover the thought,

And unrecognize

What the morn had taught.

O vision appalling

When the one believed-in thing

Is seen falling, falling,

With all to which hope can cling.

Off: it is not true;

For it cannot be

That the prize I drew

Is a blank to me!

Weymouth, 1869

Four Footprints

Here are the tracks upon the sand

Where stood last evening she and I –

Pressed heart to heart and hand to hand;

The morning sun has baked them dry.

I kissed her wet face – wet with rain,

For arid grief had burnt up tears,

While reached us as in sleeping pain

The distant gurgling of the weirs.

»I have married him – yes; feel that ring;

'Tis a week ago that he put it on. ...

A dutiful daughter does this thing,

And resignation succeeds anon!

But that I body and soul was yours

Ere he'd possession, he'll never know.

He's a confident man. ›The husband scores,‹

He says, ›in the long run‹ ... Now, Dear, go!«

I went. And to-day I pass the spot;

It is only a smart the more to endure;

And she whom I held is as though she were not,

For they have resumed their honeymoon tour.

In the Vaulted Way

In the vaulted way, where the passage turned

To the shadowy corner that none could see,

You paused for our parting, – plaintively;

Though overnight had come words that burned

My fond frail happiness out of me.

And then I kissed you, – despite my thought

That our spell must end when reflection came

On what you had deemed me, whose one long aim

Had been to serve you; that what I sought

Lay not in a heart that could breathe such blame.

But yet I kissed you; whereon you again

As of old kissed me. Why, why was it so?

Do you cleave to me after that light-tongued blow?

If you scorned me at eventide, how love then?

The thing is dark, Dear. I do not know.

In the Mind's Eye

That was once her casement,

And the taper nigh,

Shining from within there,

Beckoned, »Here am I!«

Now, as then, I see her

Moving at the pane;

Ah; 'tis but her phantom

Borne within my brain! –

Foremost in my vision

Everywhere goes she;

Change dissolves the landscapes,

She abides with me.

Shape so sweet and shy, Dear,

Who can say thee nay?

Never once do I, Dear,

Wish thy ghost away.

The End of the Episode

Indulge no more may we

In this sweet-bitter pastime:

The love-light shines the last time

Between you, Dear, and me.

There shall remain no trace

Of what so closely tied us,

And blank as ere love eyed us

Will be our meeting-place.

The flowers and thymy air,

Will they now miss our coming?

The dumbles thin their humming

To find we haunt not there?

Though fervent was our vow,

Though ruddily ran our pleasure,

Bliss has fulfilled its measure,

And sees its sentence now.

Ache deep; but make no moans:

Smile out; but stilly suffer:

The paths of love are rougher

Than thoroughfares of stones.

The Sigh

Little head against my shoulder,

Shy at first, then somewhat bolder,

And up-eyed;

Till she, with a timid quaver,

Yielded to the kiss I gave her;

But, she sighed.

That there mingled with her feeling

Some sad thought she was concealing

It implied.

– Not that she had ceased to love me,

None on earth she set above me;

But she sighed.

She could not disguise a passion,

Dread, or doubt, in weakest fashion

If she tried:

Nothing seemed to hold us sundered,

Hearts were victors; so I wondered

Why she sighed.

Afterwards I knew her throughly,

And she loved me staunchly, truly,

Till she died;

But she never made confession

Why, at that first sweet concession,

She had sighed.

It was in our May, remember;

And though now I near November,

And abide

Till my appointed change, unfretting,

Sometimes I sit half regretting

That she sighed.

In the Night She Came

I told her when I left one day

That whatsoever weight of care

Might strain our love, Time's mere assault

Would work no changes there.

And in the night she came to me,

Toothless, and wan, and old,

With leaden concaves round her eyes,

And wrinkles manifold.

I tremblingly exclaimed to her,

»O wherefore do you ghost me thus!

I have said that dull defacing Time

Will bring no dreads to us.«

»And is that true of you?« she cried

In voice of troubled tune.

I faltered: »Well ... I did not think

You would test me quite so soon!«

She vanished with a curious smile,

Which told me, plainlier than by word,

That my staunch pledge could scarce beguile

The fear she had averred.

Her doubts then wrought their shape in me,

And when next day I paid

My due caress, we seemed to be

Divided by some shade.

The Conformers

Yes; we'll wed, my little fay,

And you shall write you mine,

And in a villa chastely gray

We'll house, and sleep, and dine.

But those night-screened, divine,

Stolen trysts of heretofore,

We of choice ecstasies and fine

Shall know no more.

The formal faced cohue

Will then no more upbraid

With smiting smiles and whisperings two

Who have thrown less loves in shade.

We shall no more evade

The searching light of the sun,

Our game of passion will be played,

Our dreaming done.

We shall not go in stealth

To rendezvous unknown,

But friends will ask me of your health,

And you about my own.

When we abide alone,

No leapings each to each,

But syllables in frigid tone

Of household speech.

When down to dust we glide

Men will not say askance,

As now: »How all the country side

Rings with their mad romance!«

But as they graveward glance

Remark: »In them we lose

A worthy pair, who helped advance

Sound parish views.«

The Dawn after the Dance

Here is your parents' dwelling with its curtained windows telling

Of no thought of us within it or of our arrival here;

Their slumbers have been normal after one day more of formal

Matrimonial commonplace and household life's mechanic gear.

I would be candid willingly, but dawn draws on so chillingly

As to render further cheerlessness intolerable now,

So I will not stand endeavouring to declare a day for severing,

But will clasp you just as always – just the olden love avow.

Through serene and surly weather we have walked the ways together,

And this long night's dance this year's end eve now finishes the spell;

Yet we dreamt us but beginning a sweet sempiternal spinning

Of a cord we have spun to breaking – too intemperately, too well.

Yes; last night we danced I know, Dear, as we did that year ago, Dear,

When a new strange bond between our days was formed, and felt, and heard;

Would that dancing were the worst thing from the latest to the first thing

That the faded year can charge us with; but what avails a word!

That which makes man's love the lighter and the woman's burn no brighter

Came to pass with us inevitably while slipped the shortening year. ...

And there stands your father's dwelling with its blind bleak windows telling

That the vows of man and maid are frail as filmy gossamere.

Weymouth, 1869

The Sun on the Letter

I drew the letter out, while gleamed

The sloping sun from under a roof

Of cloud whose verge rose visibly.

The burning ball flung rays that seemed

Stretched like a warp without a woof

Across the levels of the lea

To where I stood, and where they beamed

As brightly on the page of proof

That she had shown her false to me

As if it had shown her true – had teemed

With passionate thought for my behoof

Expressed with their own ardency!

The Night of the Dance

The cold moon hangs to the sky by its horn,

And centres its gaze on me;

The stars, like eyes in reverie,

Their westering as for a while forborne,

Quiz downward curiously.

Old Robert draws the backbrand in,

The green logs steam and spit;

The half-awakened sparrows flit

From the riddled thatch; and owls begin

To whoo from the gable-slit.

Yes; far and nigh things seem to know

Sweet scenes are impending here;

That all is prepared; that the hour is near

For welcomes, fellowships, and flow

Of sally, song, and cheer;

That spigots are pulled and viols strung;

That soon will arise the sound

Of measures trod to tunes renowned;

That She will return in Love's low tongue

My vows as we wheel around.

Misconception

I busied myself to find a sure

Snug hermitage

That should preserve my Love secure

From the world's rage;

Where no unseemly saturnals,

Or strident traffic-roars,

Or hum of intervolved cabals

Should echo at her doors.

I laboured that the diurnal spin

Of vanities

Should not contrive to suck her in

By dark degrees,

And cunningly operate to blur

Sweet teachings I had begun;

And then I went full-heart to her

To expound the glad deeds done.

She looked at me, and said thereto

With a pitying smile,

»And this is what has busied you

So long a while?

O poor exhausted one, I see

You have worn you old and thin

For naught! Those moils you fear for me

I find most pleasure in!«

The Voice of the Thorn

I

When the thorn on the down

Quivers naked and cold,

And the mid-aged and old

Pace the path there to town,

In these words dry and drear

It seems to them sighing:

»O winter is trying

To sojourners here!«

II

When it stands fully tressed

On a hot summer day,

And the ewes there astray

Find its shade a sweet rest,

By the breath of the breeze

It inquires of each farer:

»Who would not be sharer

Of shadow with these?«

III

But by day or by night,

And in winter or summer,

Should I be the comer

Along that lone height,

In its voicing to me

Only one speech is spoken:

»Here once was nigh broken

A heart, and by thee.«

From Her in the Country

I thought and thought of thy crass clanging town

To folly, till convinced such dreams were ill,

I held my heart in bond, and tethered down

Fancy to where I was, by force of will.

I said: How beautiful are these flowers, this wood,

One little bud is far more sweet to me

Than all man's urban shows; and then I stood

Urging new zest for bird, and bush, and tree;

And strove to feel my nature brought it forth

Of instinct, or no rural maid was I;

But it was vain; for I could not see worth

Enough around to charm a midge or fly,

And mused again on city din and sin,

Longing to madness I might move therein!

16 W.P.V., 1866

Her Confession

As some bland soul, to whom a debtor says

»I'll now repay the amount I owe to you,«

In inward gladness feigns forgetfulness

That such a payment ever was his due

(His long thought notwithstanding), so did I

At our last meeting waive your proffered kiss

With quick divergent talk of scenery nigh,

By such suspension to enhance my bliss.

And as his looks in consternation fall

When, gathering that the debt is lightly deemed,

The debtor makes as not to pay at all,

So faltered I, when your intention seemed

Converted by my false uneagerness

To putting off for ever the caress.

W.P.V., 1865-67

To an Impersonator of Rosalind

Did he who drew her in the years ago –

Till now conceived creator of her grace –

With telescopic sight high natures know,

Discern remote in Time's untravelled space

Your soft sweet mien, your gestures, as do we,

And with a copyist's hand but set them down,

Glowing yet more to dream our ecstasy

When his Original should be forthshown?

For, kindled by that animated eye,

Whereto all fairnesses about thee brim,

And by thy tender tones, what wight can fly

The wild conviction welling up in him

That he at length beholds woo, parley, plead,

The ›very, very Rosalind‹ indeed!

8 Adelphi Terrace, 21 April 1867

To an Actress

I read your name when you were strange to me,

Where it stood blazoned bold with many more;

I passed it vacantly, and did not see

Any great glory in the shape it wore.

O cruelty, the insight barred me then!

Why did I not possess me with its sound,

And in its cadence catch and catch again

Your nature's essence floating therearound?

Could that man be this I, unknowing you,

When now the knowing you is all of me,

And the old world of then is now a new,

And purpose no more what it used to be –

A thing of formal journeywork, but due

To springs that then were sealed up utterly?

The Minute before Meeting

The grey gaunt days dividing us in twain

Seemed hopeless hills my strength must faint to climb,

But they are gone; and now I would detain

The few clock-beats that part us; rein back Time,

And live in close expectance never closed

In change for far expectance closed at last,

So harshly has expectance been imposed

On my long need while these slow blank months passed.

And knowing that what is now about to be

Will all have been in O, so short a space!

I read beyond it my despondency

When more dividing months shall take its place,

Thereby denying to this hour of grace

A full-up measure of felicity.

He Abjures Love

At last I put off love,

For twice ten years

The daysman of my thought,

And hope, and doing;

Being ashamed thereof,

And faint of fears

And desolations, wrought

In his pursuing,

Since first in youthtime those

Disquietings

That heart-enslavement brings

To hale and hoary,

Became my housefellows,

And, fool and blind,

I turned from kith and kind

To give him glory.

I was as children be

Who have no care;

I did not shrink or sigh,

I did not sicken;

But lo, Love beckoned me,

And I was bare,

And poor, and starved, and dry,

And fever-stricken.

Too many times ablaze

With fatuous fires,

Enkindled by his wiles

To new embraces,

Did I, by wilful ways

And baseless ires,

Return the anxious smiles

Of friendly faces.

No more will now rate I

The common rare,

The midnight drizzle dew,

The gray hour golden,

The wind a yearning cry,

The faulty fair,

Things dreamt, of comelier hue

Than things beholden! ...

– I speak as one who plumbs

Life's dim profound,

One who at length can sound

Clear views and certain.

But – after love what comes?

A scene that lours,

A few sad vacant hours,

And then, the Curtain.

A set of country songs

Let Me Enjoy

(Minor key)

I

Let me enjoy the earth no less

Because the all-enacting Might

That fashioned forth its loveliness

Had other aims than my delight.

II

About my path there flits a Fair,

Who throws me not a word or sign;

I'll charm me with her ignoring air,

And laud the lips not meant for mine.

III

From manuscripts of moving song

Inspired by scenes and dreams unknown

I'll pour out raptures that belong

To others, as they were my own.

IV

And some day hence, toward Paradise

And all its blest – if such should be –

I will lift glad, afar-off eyes,

Though it contain no place for me.

I. The Ballad-Singer

At Casterbridge Fair

Sing, Ballad-singer, raise a hearty tune;

Make me forget that there was ever a one

I walked with in the meek light of the moon

When the day's work was done.

Rhyme, Ballad-rhymer, start a country song;

Make me forget that she whom I loved well

Swore she would love me dearly, love me long,

Then – what I cannot tell!

Sing, Ballad-singer, from your little book;

Make me forget those heart-breaks, achings, fears;

Make me forget her name, her sweet sweet look –

Make me forget her tears.

II. Former Beauties

These market-dames, mid-aged, with lips thin-drawn,

And tissues sere,

Are they the ones we loved in years agone,

And courted here?

Are these the muslined pink young things to whom

We vowed and swore

In nooks on summer Sundays by the Froom,

Or Budmouth shore?

Do they remember those gay tunes we trod

Clasped on the green;

Aye; trod till moonlight set on the beaten sod

A satin sheen?

They must forget, forget! They cannot know

What once they were,

Or memory would transfigure them, and show

Them always fair.

III. After the Club-Dance

Black'on frowns east on Maidon,

And westward to the sea,

But on neither is his frown laden

With scorn, as his frown on me!

At dawn my heart grew heavy,

I could not sip the wine,

I left the jocund bevy

And that young man o' mine.

The roadside elms pass by me, –

Why do I sink with shame

When the birds a-perch there eye me?

They, too, have done the same!

IV. The Market-Girl

Nobody took any notice of her as she stood on the causey kerb,

All eager to sell her honey and apples and bunches of garden herb;

And if she had offered to give her wares and herself with them too that day,

I doubt if a soul would have cared to take a bargain so choice away.

But chancing to trace her sunburnt grace that morning as I passed nigh,

I went and I said »Poor maidy dear! – and will none of the people buy?«

And so it began; and soon we knew what the end of it all must be,

And I found that though no others had bid, a prize had been won by me.

V. The Inquiry

And are ye one of Hermitage –

Of Hermitage, by Ivel Road,

And do ye know, in Hermitage

A thatch-roofed house where sengreens grow?

And does John Waywood live there still –

He of the name that there abode

When father hurdled on the hill

Some fifteen years ago?

Does he now speak o' Patty Beech,

The Patty Beech he used to – see,

Or ask at all if Patty Beech

Is known or heard of out this way?

– Ask ever if she's living yet,

And where her present home may be,

And how she bears life's fag and fret

After so long a day?

In years agone at Hermitage

This faded face was counted fair,

None fairer; and at Hermitage

We swore to wed when he should thrive.

But never a chance had he or I,

And waiting made his wish outwear,

And Time, that dooms man's love to die,

Preserves a maid's alive.

VI. A Wife Waits

Will's at the dance in the Club-room below,

Where the tall liquor-cups foam;

I on the pavement up here by the Bow,

Wait, wait, to steady him home.

Will and his partner are treading a tune,

Loving companions they be;

Willy, before we were married in June,

Said he loved no one but me;

Said he would let his old pleasures all go

Ever to live with his Dear.

Will's at the dance in the Club-room below,

Shivering I wait for him here.

NOTE. – »The Bow« (line 3). The old name for the curved corner by the cross-streets in the middle of Casterbridge.

VII. After the Fair

The singers are gone from the Cornmarket-place

With their broadsheets of rhymes,

The street rings no longer in treble and bass

With their skits on the times,

And the Cross, lately thronged, is a dim naked space

That but echoes the stammering chimes.

From Clock-corner steps, as each quarter ding-dongs,

Away the folk roam

By the ›Hart‹ and Grey's Bridge into byways and ›drongs‹,

Or across the ridged loam;

The younger ones shrilling the lately heard songs,

The old saying, »Would we were home.«

The shy-seeming maiden so mute in the fair

Now rattles and talks,

And that one who looked the most swaggering there

Grows sad as she walks,

And she who seemed eaten by cankering care

In statuesque sturdiness stalks.

And midnight clears High Street of all but the ghosts

Of its buried burghees,

From the latest far back to those old Roman hosts

Whose remains one yet sees,

Who loved, laughed, and fought, hailed their friends, drank their toasts

At their meeting-times here, just as these!

NOTE. – »The chimes« (line 6) will be listened for in vain here at midnight now, having been abolished some years ago.

The Dark-Eyed Gentleman

I

I pitched my day's leazings in Crimmercrock Lane,

To tie up my garter and jog on again,

When a dear dark-eyed gentleman passed there and said,

In a way that made all o' me colour rose-red,

»What do I see –

O pretty knee!«

And he came and he tied up my garter for me.

II

'Twixt sunset and moonrise it was, I can mind:

Ah, 'tis easy to lose what we nevermore find! –

Of the dear stranger's home, of his name, I knew nought,

But I soon knew his nature and all that it brought.

Then bitterly

Sobbed I that he

Should ever have tied up my garter for me!

III

Yet now I've beside me a fine lissom lad,

And my slip's nigh forgot, and my days are not sad;

My own dearest joy is he, comrade, and friend,

He it is who safe-guards me, on him I depend;

No sorrow brings he,

And thankful I be

That his daddy once tied up my garter for me!

NOTE.