Time's Laughingstocks and Other verses Read Online

I saw her never again. ...

Now glares my moody meaning on you, friend? –

That when you talk of offspring as sheer joy

So trustingly, you blink contingencies.

Fors Fortuna! He who goes fathering

Gives frightful hostages to hazardry!«

Thus Panthera's tale. 'Twas one he seldom told,

But yet it got abroad. He would unfold,

At other times, a story of less gloom,

Though his was not a heart where jests had room.

He would regret discovery of the truth

Was made too late to influence to ruth

The Procurator who had condemned his son –

Or rather him so deemed. For there was none

To prove that Panthera erred not: and indeed,

When vagueness of identity I would plead,

Panther himself would sometimes own as much –

Yet lothly. But, assuming fact was such,

That the said woman did not recognize

Her lover's face, is matter for surprise.

However, there's his tale, fantasy or otherwise.

Thereafter shone not men of Panthera's kind:

The indolent heads at home were ill-inclined

To press campaigning that would hoist the star

Of their lieutenants valorous afar.

Jealousies kept him irked abroad, controlled

And stinted by an Empire no more bold.

Yet in some actions southward he had share –

In Mauretania and Numidia; there

With eagle eye, and sword and steed and spur,

Quelling uprisings promptly. Some small stir

In Parthia next engaged him, until maimed,

As I have said; and cynic Time proclaimed

His noble spirit broken. What a waste

Of such a Roman! – one in youth-time graced

With indescribable charm, so I have heard,

Yea, magnetism impossible to word

When faltering as I saw him. What a fame,

O Son of Saturn, had adorned his name,

Might the Three so have urged Thee! – Hour by hour

His own disorders hampered Panthera's power

To brood upon the fate of those he had known,

Even of that one he always called his own –

Either in morbid dream or memory. ...

He died at no great age, untroublously,

An exit rare for ardent soldiers such as he.

The Unborn

I rose at night, and visited

The Cave of the Unborn:

And crowding shapes surrounded me

For tidings of the life to be,

Who long had prayed the silent Head

To haste its advent morn.

Their eyes were lit with artless trust,

Hope thrilled their every tone;

»A scene the loveliest, is it not?

A pure delight, a beauty-spot

Where all is gentle, true and just,

And darkness is unknown?«

My heart was anguished for their sake,

I could not frame a word;

And they descried my sunken face,

And seemed to read therein, and trace

The news that pity would not break,

Nor truth leave unaverred.

And as I silently retired

I turned and watched them still,

And they came helter-skelter out,

Driven forward like a rabble rout

Into the world they had so desired,

By the all-immanent Will.

The Man He Killed

»Had he and I but met

By some old ancient inn,

We should have sat us down to wet

Right many a nipperkin!

But ranged as infantry,

And staring face to face,

I shot at him as he at me,

And killed him in his place.

I shot him dead because –

Because he was my foe,

Just so: my foe of course he was;

That's clear enough; although

He thought he'd 'list, perhaps,

Off-hand like – just as I –

Was out of work – had sold his traps –

No other reason why.

Yes; quaint and curious war is!

You shoot a fellow down

You'd treat if met where any bar is,

Or help to half-a-crown.«

Geographical Knowledge

(A Memory of Christiana C––)

Where Blackmoor was, the road that led

To Bath, she could not show,

Nor point the sky that overspread

Towns ten miles off or so.

But that Calcutta stood this way,

Cape Horn there figured fell,

That here was Boston, here Bombay,

She could declare full well.

Less known to her the track athwart

Froom Mead or Yell'ham Wood

Than how to make some Austral port

In seas of surly mood.

She saw the glint of Guinea's shore

Behind the plum-tree nigh,

Heard old unruly Biscay's roar

In the weir's purl hard by. ...

»My son's a sailor, and he knows

All seas and many lands,

And when he's home he points and shows

Each country where it stands.

He's now just there – by Gib's high rock –

And when he gets, you see,

To Portsmouth here, behind the clock,

Then he'll come back to me!«

One Ralph Blossom Soliloquizes

(»It being deposed that vij women who were mayds before he knew them have been brought upon the towne [rates?] by the fornicacions of one Ralph Blossom, Mr. Maior inquired why he should not contribute xiv pence weekly toward their mayntenance. But it being shewn that the sayd R.B. was dying of a purple feaver, no order was made.« – Budmouth Borough Minutes: 16–)

When I am in hell or some such place,

A-groaning over my sorry case,

What will those seven women say to me

Who, when I coaxed them, answered »Aye« to me?

»I did not understand your sign!«

Will be the words of Caroline;

While Jane will cry, »If I'd had proof of you,

I should have learnt to hold aloof of you!«

»I won't reproach: it was to be!«

Will dryly murmur Cicely;

And Rosa: »I feel no hostility,

For I must own I lent facility.«

Lizzy says: »Sharp was my regret,

And sometimes it is now! But yet

I joy that, though it brought notoriousness,

I knew Love once and all its gloriousness!«

Says Patience: »Why are we apart?

Small harm did you, my poor Sweet Heart!

A manchild born, now tall and beautiful,

Was worth the ache of days undutiful.«

And Anne cries: »O the time was fair,

So wherefore should you burn down there?

There is a deed under the sun, my Love,

And that was ours. What's done is done, my Love.

These trumpets here in Heaven are dumb to me

With you away. Dear, come, O come to me!«

The Noble Lady's Tale

(circa 1790)

I

»We moved with pensive paces,

I and he,

And bent our faded faces

Wistfully,

For something troubled him, and troubled me.

The lanthorn feebly lightened

Our grey hall,

Where ancient brands had brightened

Hearth and wall,

And shapes long vanished whither vanish all.

›O why, Love, nightly, daily,‹

I had said,

›Dost sigh, and smile so palely,

As if shed

Were all Life's blossoms, all its dear things dead?‹

›Since silence sets thee grieving,‹

He replied,

›And I abhor deceiving

One so tried,

Why, Love, I'll speak, ere time us twain divide.‹

He held me, I remember,

Just as when

Our life was June – (September

It was then);

And we walked on, until he spoke again:

›Susie, an Irish mummer,

Loud-acclaimed

Through the gay London summer,

Was I; named

A master in my art, who would be famed.

But lo, there beamed before me

Lady Su;

God's altar-vow she swore me

When none knew,

And for her sake I bade the sock adieu.

My Lord your father's pardon

Thus I won:

He let his heart unharden

Towards his son,

And honourably condoned what we had done;

But said – recall you, dearest? –

As for Su,

I'd see her – ay, though nearest

Me unto –

Sooner entombed than in a stage purlieu!

Just so. – And here he housed us,

In this nook,

Where Love like balm has drowsed us:

Robin, rook,

Our chief familiars, next to string and book.

Our days here, peace-enshrouded,

Followed strange

The old stage-joyance, crowded,

Rich in range;

But never did my soul desire a change,

Till now, when far uncertain

Lips of yore

Call, call me to the curtain,

There once more,

But once, to tread the boards I trod before.

A night – the last and single

Ere I die –

To face the lights, to mingle

As did I

Once in the game, and rivet every eye!‹

Such was his wish. He feared it,

Feared it though

Rare memories so endeared it.

I, also,

Feared it still more; its outcome who could know?

›Alas, my Love,‹ said I then,

›Since it be

A wish so mastering, why, then,

E'en go ye! –

Despite your pledge to father and to me ...‹

'Twas fixed; no more was spoken

Thereupon;

Our silences were broken

Only on

The petty items of his needs while gone.

Farewell he bade me, pleading

That it meant

So little, thus conceding

To his bent;

And then, as one constrained to go, he went.

Thwart thoughts I let deride me,

As, 'twere vain

To hope him back beside me

Ever again:

Could one plunge make a waxing passion wane?

I thought, ›Some wild stage-woman,

Honour-wrecked ...‹

But no: it was inhuman

To suspect;

Though little cheer could my lone heart affect!

II

Yet came it, to my gladness,

That, as vowed,

He did return. – But sadness

Swiftly cowed

The joy with which my greeting was endowed.

Some woe was there. Estrangement

Marked his mind.

Each welcome-warm arrangement

I had designed

Touched him no more than deeds of careless kind.

›I –failed!‹ escaped him glumly.

›– I went on

In my old part. But dumbly –

Memory gone –

Advancing, I sank sick; my vision drawn

To something drear, distressing

As the knell

Of all hopes worth possessing!‹ ...

– What befell

Seemed linked with me, but how I could not tell.

Hours passed; till I implored him,

As he knew

How faith and frankness toward him

Ruled me through,

To say what ill I had done, and could undo.

›Faith – frankness. Ah! Heaven save such!‹

Murmured he,

›They are wedded wealth! I gave such

Liberally,

But you, Dear, not. For you suspected me.‹

I was about beseeching

In hurt haste

More meaning, when he, reaching

To my waist,

Led me to pace the hall as once we paced.

›I never meant to draw you

To own all,‹

Declared he, ›But – I saw you –

By the wall,

Half-hid. And that was why I failed withal!‹

›Where? when?‹ said I – ›Why, nigh me,

At the play

That night. That you should spy me,

Doubt my fay,

And follow, furtive, took my heart away!‹

That I had never been there,

But had gone

To my locked room – unseen there,

Curtains drawn,

Long days abiding – told I, wonder-wan.

›Nay, 'twas your form and vesture,

Cloak and gown,

Your hooded features – gesture

Half in frown,

That faced me, pale,‹ he urged, ›that night in town.

And when, outside, I handed

To her chair

(As courtesy demanded

Of me there)

The leading lady, you peeped from the stair.‹

Straight pleaded I: ›Forsooth, Love,

Had I gone,

I must have been in truth, Love,

Mad to don

Such well-known raiment.‹ But he still went on

That he was not mistaken

Nor misled. –

I felt like one forsaken,

Wished me dead,

That he could think thus of the wife he had wed!

His going seemed to waste him

Like a curse,

To wreck what once had graced him;

And, averse

To my approach, he mused, and moped, and worse.

Till, what no words effected

Thought achieved:

It was my wraith – projected,

He conceived,

Thither, by my tense brain at home aggrieved.

Thereon his credence centred

Till he died;

And, no more tempted, entered

Sanctified,

The little vault with room for one beside.«

III

Thus far the lady's story. –

Now she, too,

Reclines within that hoary

Last dark mew

In Mellstock Quire with him she loved so true.

A yellowing marble, placed there

Tablet-wise,

And two joined hearts enchased there

Meet the eyes;

And reading their twin names we moralize:

Did she, we wonder, follow

Jealously?

And were those protests hollow? –

Or saw he

Some semblant dame? Or can wraiths really be?

Were it she went, her honour,

All may hold,

Pressed truth at last upon her

Till she told –

(Him only – others as these lines unfold).

Riddle death-sealed for ever,

Let it rest! ...

One's heart could blame her never

If one guessed

That go she did. She knew her actor best.

Unrealized

Down comes the winter rain –

Spoils my hat and bow –

Runs into the poll of me;

But mother won't know.

We've been out and caught a cold,

Knee-deep in snow;

Such a lucky thing it is

That mother won't know!

Rosy lost herself last night –

Couldn't tell where to go.

Yes – it rather frightened her,

But mother didn't know.

Somebody made Willy drunk

At the Christmas show:

O 'twas fun! It's well for him

That mother won't know!

Howsoever wild we are,

Late at school or slow,

Mother won't be cross with us,

Mother won't know.

How we cried the day she died!

Neighbours whispering low ...

But we now do what we will –

Mother won't know.

Wagtail and Baby

A baby watched a ford, whereto

A wagtail came for drinking;

A blaring bull went wading through,

The wagtail showed no shrinking.

A stallion splashed his way across,

The birdie nearly sinking;

He gave his plumes a twitch and toss,

And held his own unblinking.

Next saw the baby round the spot

A mongrel slowly slinking;

The wagtail gazed, but faltered not

In dip and sip and prinking.

A perfect gentleman then neared;

The wagtail, in a winking,

With terror rose and disappeared;

The baby fell a-thinking.

Aberdeen

(April: 1905)

»And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times.« –

Isaiah, xxxiii 6

I looked and thought, »All is too gray and cold

To wake my place-enthusiasms of old!«

Till a voice passed: »Behind that granite mien

Lurks the imposing beauty of a Queen.«

I looked anew; and saw the radiant form

Of Her who soothes in stress, who steers in storm,

On the grave influence of whose eyes sublime

Men count for the stability of the time.

George Meredith

(1828-1909)

Forty years back, when much had place

That since has perished out of mind,

I heard that voice and saw that face.

He spoke as one afoot will wind

A morning horn ere men awake;

His note was trenchant, turning kind.

He was of those whose wit can shake

And riddle to the very core

The counterfeits that Time will break. ...

Of late, when we two met once more,

The luminous countenance and rare

Shone just as forty years before.

So that, when now all tongues declare

His shape unseen by his green hill,

I scarce believe he sits not there.

No matter. Further and further still

Through the world's vaporous vitiate air

His words wing on – as live words will.

Yell'ham-Wood's Story

Coomb-firtrees say that Life is a moan,

And Clyffe-hill Clump says »Yea!«

But Yell'ham says a thing of its own:

It's not »Gray, gray

Is Life alway!«

That Yell'ham says,

Nor that Life is for ends unknown.

It says that Life would signify

A thwarted purposing:

That we come to live, and are called to die.

Yes, that's the thing

In fall, in spring,

That Yell'ham says: –

»Life offers – to deny!«

A Young Man's Epigram on Existence

A senseless school, where we must give

Our lives that we may learn to live!

A dolt is he who memorizes

Lessons that leave no time for prizes.

16 W.P.V., 1866

Notes

1 The early editions were illustrated by the writer.

2 thirtover, cross

3 tranted, traded as carrier

4 horned, sang loudly

5 homealong, homeward

6 leer, empty-stomached

7 tidetimes, holidays

8 linhay, lean-to building

9 vlankers, fire-flakes

10 chimley-tun, chimney-stack

11 rafted, roused

12 crooping, squatting down

13 lewth, shelter

14 bivering, with chattering teeth

15 totties, feet

16 Fall, autumn

17 gallied, frightened

18 tardle, entanglement

19 heft, weight

20 mid, might

21 thik husbird that rascal

22 mixens, manure-heaps

23 lumpered, stumbled

24 halter-path, bridle-path

25 shrammed, numbed

26 caddle, quandary

27 mid, might

28 tallet, loft

29 huddied, hidden

30 skimmity-ride, satirical procession with effigies

31 wold, old

32 The »Race« is the turbulent sea-area off the Bill of Portland, where contrary tides meet.

33 Pronounce ›Loddy‹.