by Thomas Hardy
Throughout the race, the world had gained! . . .
But too much, this, for fifty years.
THE SATIN SHOES
“If ever I walk to church to wed,
As other maidens use,
And face the gathered eyes,” she said,
”I’ll go in satin shoes!”
She was as fair as early day
Shining on meads unmown,
And her sweet syllables seemed to play
Like flute-notes softly blown.
The time arrived when it was meet
That she should be a bride;
The satin shoes were on her feet,
Her father was at her side.
They stood within the dairy door,
And gazed across the green;
The church loomed on the distant moor,
But rain was thick between.
“The grass-path hardly can be stepped,
The lane is like a pool!” -
Her dream is shown to be inept,
Her wish they overrule.
“To go forth shod in satin soft
A coach would be required!”
For thickest boots the shoes were doffed -
Those shoes her soul desired . . .
All day the bride, as overborne,
Was seen to brood apart,
And that the shoes had not been worn
Sat heavy on her heart.
From her wrecked dream, as months flew on,
Her thought seemed not to range.
What ails the wife?” they said anon,
”That she should be so strange?” . . .
Ah — what coach comes with furtive glide -
A coach of closed-up kind?
It comes to fetch the last year’s bride,
Who wanders in her mind.
She strove with them, and fearfully ran
Stairward with one low scream:
“Nay — coax her,” said the madhouse man,
”With some old household theme.”
“If you will go, dear, you must fain
Put on those shoes — the pair
Meant for your marriage, which the rain
Forbade you then to wear.”
She clapped her hands, flushed joyous hues;
”O yes — I’ll up and ride
If I am to wear my satin shoes
And be a proper bride!”
Out then her little foot held she,
As to depart with speed;
The madhouse man smiled pleasantly
To see the wile succeed.
She turned to him when all was done,
And gave him her thin hand,
Exclaiming like an enraptured one,
”This time it will be grand!”
She mounted with a face elate,
Shut was the carriage door;
They drove her to the madhouse gate,
And she was seen no more . . .
Yet she was fair as early day
Shining on meads unmown,
And her sweet syllables seemed to play
Like flute-notes softly blown.
EXEUNT OMNES
I
Everybody else, then, going,
And I still left where the fair was? . . .
Much have I seen of neighbour loungers
Making a lusty showing,
Each now past all knowing.
II
There is an air of blankness
In the street and the littered spaces;
Thoroughfare, steeple, bridge and highway
Wizen themselves to lankness;
Kennels dribble dankness.
III
Folk all fade. And whither,
As I wait alone where the fair was?
Into the clammy and numbing night-fog
Whence they entered hither.
Soon do I follow thither!
June 2, 1913.
A POET
Attentive eyes, fantastic heed,
Assessing minds, he does not need,
Nor urgent writs to sup or dine,
Nor pledges in the roseate wine.
For loud acclaim he does not care
By the august or rich or fair,
Nor for smart pilgrims from afar,
Curious on where his hauntings are.
But soon or later, when you hear
That he has doffed this wrinkled gear,
Some evening, at the first star-ray,
Come to his graveside, pause and say:
“Whatever the message his to tell,
Two bright-souled women loved him well.”
Stand and say that amid the dim:
It will be praise enough for him.
July 1914.
POSTSCRIPT “MEN WHO MARCH AWAY” (SONG OF THE SOLDIERS)
What of the faith and fire within us
Men who march away
Ere the barn-cocks say
Night is growing gray,
To hazards whence no tears can win us;
What of the faith and fire within us
Men who march away?
Is it a purblind prank, O think you,
Friend with the musing eye,
Who watch us stepping by
With doubt and dolorous sigh?
Can much pondering so hoodwink you!
Is it a purblind prank, O think you,
Friend with the musing eye?
Nay. We well see what we are doing,
Though some may not see -
Dalliers as they be -
England’s need are we;
Her distress would leave us rueing:
Nay. We well see what we are doing,
Though some may not see!
In our heart of hearts believing
Victory crowns the just,
And that braggarts must
Surely bite the dust,
Press we to the field ungrieving,
In our heart of hearts believing
Victory crowns the just.
Hence the faith and fire within us
Men who march away
Ere the barn-cocks say
Night is growing gray,
To hazards whence no tears can win us:
Hence the faith and fire within us
Men who march away.
September 5, 1914.
MOMENTS OF VISION AND MISCELLANEOUS VERSES
CONTENTS
MOMENTS OF VISION
THE VOICE OF THINGS
WHY BE AT PAINS?
WE SAT AT THE WINDOW
AT THE WICKET-GATE
IN A MUSEUM
APOSTROPHE TO AN OLD PSALM TUNE
AT THE WORD “FAREWELL”
FIRST SIGHT OF HER AND AFTER
THE RIVAL
HEREDITY
YOU WERE THE SORT THAT MEN FORGET
SHE, I, AND THEY
NEAR LANIVET, 1872
JOYS OF MEMORY
TO THE MOON
COPYING ARCHITECTURE IN AN OLD MINSTER
TO SHAKESPEARE AFTER THREE HUNDRED YEARS
QUID HIC AGIS?
ON A MIDSUMMER EVE
TIMING HER
BEFORE KNOWLEDGE
THE BLINDED BIRD
THE WIND BLEW WORDS
THE FADED FACE
THE RIDDLE
THE DUEL
AT MAYFAIR LODGINGS
TO MY FATHER’S VIOLIN
THE STATUE OF LIBERTY
THE BACKGROUND AND THE FIGURE
THE CHANGE
SITTING ON THE BRIDGE
THE YOUNG CHURCHWARDEN
I TRAVEL AS A PHANTOM NOW
LINES TO A MOVEMENT IN MOZART’S E-FLAT SYMPHONY
IN THE SEVENTIES
THE PEDIGREE
THIS HEART A WOMAN’S DREAM
WHERE THEY LIVED
THE OCCULTATION
LIFE LAUGHS ONWARD
THE PEACE-OFFERING
SOMETHING TAPPED
THE WOUND
A ME
RRYMAKING IN QUESTION
I SAID AND SANG HER EXCELLENCE
A JANUARY NIGHT (1879)
A KISS
THE ANNOUNCEMENT
THE OXEN
THE TRESSES
THE PHOTOGRAPH
ON A HEATH
AN ANNIVERSARY
BY THE RUNIC STONE
THE PINK FROCK
TRANSFORMATIONS
IN HER PRECINCTS
THE LAST SIGNAL
THE HOUSE OF SILENCE
GREAT THINGS
THE CHIMES
THE FIGURE IN THE SCENE
WHY DID I SKETCH
CONJECTURE
THE BLOW
LOVE THE MONOPOLIST
AT MIDDLE-FIELD GATE IN FEBRUARY
THE YOUTH WHO CARRIED A LIGHT
THE HEAD ABOVE THE FOG
OVERLOOKING THE RIVER STOUR
THE MUSICAL BOX
ON STURMINSTER FOOT-BRIDGE (ONOMATOPOEIC)
ROYAL SPONSORS
OLD FURNITURE
A THOUGHT IN TWO MOODS
THE LAST PERFORMANCE
YOU ON THE TOWER
THE INTERLOPER
LOGS ON THE HEARTH A MEMORY OF A SISTER
THE SUNSHADE
THE AGEING HOUSE
THE CAGED GOLDFINCH
AT MADAME TUSSAUD’S IN VICTORIAN YEARS
THE BALLET
THE FIVE STUDENTS
THE WIND’S PROPHECY
DURING WIND AND RAIN
HE PREFERS HER EARTHLY
THE DOLLS
MOLLY GONE
A BACKWARD SPRING
LOOKING ACROSS
AT A SEASIDE TOWN IN 1869
THE GLIMPSE
THE PEDESTRIAN AN INCIDENT OF 1883
WHO’S IN THE NEXT ROOM?
AT A COUNTRY FAIR
THE MEMORIAL BRASS: 186-
HER LOVE-BIRDS
PAYING CALLS
THE UPPER BIRCH-LEAVES
IT NEVER LOOKS LIKE SUMMER
EVERYTHING COMES
THE MAN WITH A PAST
HE FEARS HIS GOOD FORTUNE
HE WONDERS ABOUT HIMSELF
JUBILATE
HE REVISITS HIS FIRST SCHOOL
I THOUGHT, MY HEART
FRAGMENT
MIDNIGHT ON THE GREAT WESTERN
HONEYMOON TIME AT AN INN
THE ROBIN
I ROSE AND WENT TO ROU’TOR TOWN
THE NETTLES
IN A WAITING-ROOM
THE CLOCK-WINDER
OLD EXCURSIONS
THE MASKED FACE
IN A WHISPERING GALLERY
THE SOMETHING THAT SAVED HIM
THE ENEMY’S PORTRAIT
IMAGININGS
ON THE DOORSTEP
SIGNS AND TOKENS
PATHS OF FORMER TIME
THE CLOCK OF THE YEARS
AT THE PIANO
THE SHADOW ON THE STONE
IN THE GARDEN (M. H.)
THE TREE AND THE LADY
AN UPBRAIDING
THE YOUNG GLASS-STAINER
LOOKING AT A PICTURE ON AN ANNIVERSARY
THE CHOIRMASTER’S BURIAL
THE MAN WHO FORGOT
WHILE DRAWING IN A CHURCH-YARD
FOR LIFE I HAD NEVER CARED GREATLY
MEN WHO MARCH AWAY (SONG OF THE SOLDIERS)
HIS COUNTRY
ENGLAND TO GERMANY IN 1914
ON THE BELGIAN EXPATRIATION
AN APPEAL TO AMERICA ON BEHALF OF THE BELGIAN DESTITUTE
THE PITY OF IT
IN TIME OF WARS AND TUMULTS
IN TIME OF “THE BREAKING OF NATIONS”
CRY OF THE HOMELESS AFTER THE PRUSSIAN INVASION OF BELGIUM
BEFORE MARCHING AND AFTER (in Memoriam F. W. G.)
OFTEN WHEN WARRING
THEN AND NOW
A CALL TO NATIONAL SERVICE
THE DEAD AND THE LIVING ONE
A NEW YEAR’S EVE IN WAR TIME
I MET A MAN
I LOOKED UP FROM MY WRITING
THE COMING OF THE END
AFTERWARDS
MOMENTS OF VISION
That mirror
Which makes of men a transparency,
Who holds that mirror
And bids us such a breast-bare spectacle see
Of you and me?
That mirror
Whose magic penetrates like a dart,
Who lifts that mirror
And throws our mind back on us, and our heart,
Until we start?
That mirror
Works well in these night hours of ache;
Why in that mirror
Are tincts we never see ourselves once take
When the world is awake?
That mirror
Can test each mortal when unaware;
Yea, that strange mirror
May catch his last thoughts, whole life foul or fair,
Glassing it — where?
THE VOICE OF THINGS
Forty Augusts — aye, and several more — ago,
When I paced the headlands loosed from dull employ,
The waves huzza’d like a multitude below
In the sway of an all-including joy
Without cloy.
Blankly I walked there a double decade after,
When thwarts had flung their toils in front of me,
And I heard the waters wagging in a long ironic laughter
At the lot of men, and all the vapoury
Things that be.
Wheeling change has set me again standing where
Once I heard the waves huzza at Lammas-tide;
But they supplicate now — like a congregation there
Who murmur the Confession — I outside,
Prayer denied.
WHY BE AT PAINS?
(Wooer’s Song)
Why be at pains that I should know
You sought not me?
Do breezes, then, make features glow
So rosily?
Come, the lit port is at our back,
And the tumbling sea;
Elsewhere the lampless uphill track
To uncertainty!
O should not we two waifs join hands?
I am alone,
You would enrich me more than lands
By being my own.
Yet, though this facile moment flies,
Close is your tone,
And ere to-morrow’s dewfall dries
I plough the unknown.
WE SAT AT THE WINDOW
(Bournemouth, 1875)
We sat at the window looking out,
And the rain came down like silken strings
That Swithin’s day. Each gutter and spout
Babbled unchecked in the busy way
Of witless things:
Nothing to read, nothing to see
Seemed in that room for her and me
On Swithin’s day.
We were irked by the scene, by our own selves; yes,
For I did not know, nor did she infer
How much there was to read and guess
By her in me, and to see and crown
By me in her.
Wasted were two souls in their prime,
And great was the waste, that July time
When the rain came down.
AFTERNOON SERVICE AT MELLSTOCK
(Circa 1850)
On afternoons of drowsy calm
We stood in the panelled pew,
Singing one-voiced a Tate-and-Brady psalm
To the tune of “Cambridge New.”
We watched the elms, we watched the rooks,
The clouds upon the breeze,
Between the whiles of glancing at our books,
And swaying like the trees.
So mindless were those outpourings! -
Though I am not aware
That I have gained by subtle thought on things
Since we stood psalming there.
AT THE WICKET-G
ATE
There floated the sounds of church-chiming,
But no one was nigh,
Till there came, as a break in the loneness,
Her father, she, I.
And we slowly moved on to the wicket,
And downlooking stood,
Till anon people passed, and amid them
We parted for good.
Greater, wiser, may part there than we three
Who parted there then,
But never will Fates colder-featured
Hold sway there again.
Of the churchgoers through the still meadows
No single one knew
What a play was played under their eyes there
As thence we withdrew.
IN A MUSEUM
I
Here’s the mould of a musical bird long passed from light,
Which over the earth before man came was winging;
There’s a contralto voice I heard last night,
That lodges in me still with its sweet singing.
II
Such a dream is Time that the coo of this ancient bird
Has perished not, but is blent, or will be blending
Mid visionless wilds of space with the voice that I heard,
In the full-fugued song of the universe unending.
EXETER.
APOSTROPHE TO AN OLD PSALM TUNE
I met you first — ah, when did I first meet you?
When I was full of wonder, and innocent,
Standing meek-eyed with those of choric bent,
While dimming day grew dimmer
In the pulpit-glimmer.
Much riper in years I met you — in a temple
Where summer sunset streamed upon our shapes,
And you spread over me like a gauze that drapes,
And flapped from floor to rafters,
Sweet as angels’ laughters.
But you had been stripped of some of your old vesture
By Monk, or another. Now you wore no frill,
And at first you startled me. But I knew you still,
Though I missed the minim’s waver,
And the dotted quaver.
I grew accustomed to you thus. And you hailed me
