Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated)
Page 767
She did not turn,
Though the gate was whence I had often sped
In the mists of morning to meet her, and learn
Her heart, when its moving moods I read
As a book - she mine, as she sometimes said;
But she did not turn,
And passed foot-faint with averted head.
GROWTH IN MAY
I enter a daisy-and-buttercup land,
And thence thread a jungle of grass:
Hurdles and stiles scarce visible stand
Above the lush stems as I pass.
Hedges peer over, and try to be seen,
And seem to reveal a dim sense
That amid such ambitious and elbow-high green
They make a mean show as a fence.
Elsewhere the mead is possessed of the neats,
That range not greatly above
The rich rank thicket which brushes their teats,
And her gown, as she waits for her Love.
NEAR CHARD.
THE CHILDREN AND SIR NAMELESS
Sir Nameless, once of Athelhall, declared:
“These wretched children romping in my park
Trample the herbage till the soil is bared,
And yap and yell from early morn till dark!
Go keep them harnessed to their set routines:
Thank God I’ve none to hasten my decay;
For green remembrance there are better means
Than offspring, who but wish their sires away.”
Sir Nameless of that mansion said anon:
“To be perpetuate for my mightiness
Sculpture must image me when I am gone.”
- He forthwith summoned carvers there express
To shape a figure stretching seven-odd feet
(For he was tall) in alabaster stone,
With shield, and crest, and casque, and word complete:
When done a statelier work was never known.
Three hundred years hied; Church-restorers came,
And, no one of his lineage being traced,
They thought an effigy so large in frame
Best fitted for the floor. There it was placed,
Under the seats for schoolchildren. And they
Kicked out his name, and hobnailed off his nose;
And, as they yawn through sermon-time, they say,
“Who was this old stone man beneath our toes?”
AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY
These summer landscapes - clump, and copse, and croft -
Woodland and meadowland - here hung aloft,
Gay with limp grass and leafery new and soft,
Seem caught from the immediate season’s yield
I saw last noonday shining over the field,
By rapid snatch, while still are uncongealed
The saps that in their live originals climb;
Yester’s quick greenage here set forth in mime
Just as it stands, now, at our breathing-time.
But these young foils so fresh upon each tree,
Soft verdures spread in sprouting novelty,
Are not this summer’s, though they feign to be.
Last year their May to Michaelmas term was run,
Last autumn browned and buried every one,
And no more know they sight of any sun.
HER TEMPLE
Dear, think not that they will forget you:
- If craftsmanly art should be mine
I will build up a temple, and set you
Therein as its shrine.
They may say: “Why a woman such honour?”
- Be told, “O, so sweet was her fame,
That a man heaped this splendour upon her;
None now knows his name.”
A TWO-YEARS’ IDYLL
Yes; such it was;
Just those two seasons unsought,
Sweeping like summertide wind on our ways;
Moving, as straws,
Hearts quick as ours in those days;
Going like wind, too, and rated as nought
Save as the prelude to plays
Soon to come - larger, life-fraught:
Yes; such it was.
”Nought” it was called,
Even by ourselves - that which springs
Out of the years for all flesh, first or last,
Commonplace, scrawled
Dully on days that go past.
Yet, all the while, it upbore us like wings
Even in hours overcast:
Aye, though this best thing of things,
”Nought” it was called!
What seems it now?
Lost: such beginning was all;
Nothing came after: romance straight forsook
Quickly somehow
Life when we sped from our nook,
Primed for new scenes with designs smart and tall . . .
- A preface without any book,
A trumpet uplipped, but no call;
That seems it now.
BY HENSTRIDGE CROSS AT THE YEAR’S END
(From this centuries-old cross-road the highway leads east to London, north to Bristol and Bath, west to Exeter and the Land’s End, and south to the Channel coast.)
Why go the east road now? . . .
That way a youth went on a morrow
After mirth, and he brought back sorrow
Painted upon his brow
Why go the east road now?
Why go the north road now?
Torn, leaf-strewn, as if scoured by foemen,
Once edging fiefs of my forefolk yeomen,
Fallows fat to the plough:
Why go the north road now?
Why go the west road now?
Thence to us came she, bosom-burning,
Welcome with joyousness returning . . .
- She sleeps under the bough:
Why go the west road now?
Why go the south road now?
That way marched they some are forgetting,
Stark to the moon left, past regretting
Loves who have falsed their vow . . .
Why go the south road now?
Why go any road now?
White stands the handpost for brisk on-bearers,
“Halt!” is the word for wan-cheeked farers
Musing on Whither, and How . . .
Why go any road now?
”Yea: we want new feet now”
Answer the stones. “Want chit-chat, laughter:
Plenty of such to go hereafter
By our tracks, we trow!
We are for new feet now.
During the War.
PENANCE
“Why do you sit, O pale thin man,
At the end of the room
By that harpsichord, built on the quaint old plan?
- It is cold as a tomb,
And there’s not a spark within the grate;
And the jingling wires
Are as vain desires
That have lagged too late.”
“Why do I? Alas, far times ago
A woman lyred here
In the evenfall; one who fain did so
From year to year;
And, in loneliness bending wistfully,
Would wake each note
In sick sad rote,
None to listen or see!
“I would not join. I would not stay,
But drew away,
Though the winter fire beamed brightly . . . Aye!
I do to-day
What I would not then; and the chill old keys,
Like a skull’s brown teeth
Loose in their sheath,
Freeze my touch; yes, freeze.”
I LOOK IN HER FACE
(SONG: Minor)
I look in her face and say,
“Sing as you used to sing
About Love’s blossoming”;
But she hints not Yea or Nay.
“Sing, then, that Love’s a pain,
If, De
ar, you think it so,
Whether it be or no;”
But dumb her lips remain.
I go to a far-off room,
A faint song ghosts my ear;
Which song I cannot hear,
But it seems to come from a tomb.
AFTER THE WAR
Last Post sounded
Across the mead
To where he loitered
With absent heed.
Five years before
In the evening there
Had flown that call
To him and his Dear.
“You’ll never come back;
Good-bye!” she had said;
“Here I’ll be living,
And my Love dead!”
Those closing minims
Had been as shafts darting
Through him and her pressed
In that last parting;
They thrilled him not now,
In the selfsame place
With the selfsame sun
On his war-seamed face.
“Lurks a god’s laughter
In this?” he said,
“That I am the living
And she the dead!”
IF YOU HAD KNOWN
If you had known
When listening with her to the far-down moan
Of the white-selvaged and empurpled sea,
And rain came on that did not hinder talk,
Or damp your flashing facile gaiety
In turning home, despite the slow wet walk
By crooked ways, and over stiles of stone;
If you had known
You would lay roses,
Fifty years thence, on her monument, that discloses
Its graying shape upon the luxuriant green;
Fifty years thence to an hour, by chance led there,
What might have moved you? - yea, had you foreseen
That on the tomb of the selfsame one, gone where
The dawn of every day is as the close is,
You would lay roses!
1920.
THE CHAPEL-ORGANIST
(A.D. 185-)
I’ve been thinking it through, as I play here to-night, to play never again,
By the light of that lowering sun peering in at the window-pane,
And over the back-street roofs, throwing shades from the boys of the chore
In the gallery, right upon me, sitting up to these keys once more . . .
How I used to hear tongues ask, as I sat here when I was new:
“Who is she playing the organ? She touches it mightily true!”
“She travels from Havenpool Town,” the deacon would softly speak,
“The stipend can hardly cover her fare hither twice in the week.”
(It fell far short of doing, indeed; but I never told,
For I have craved minstrelsy more than lovers, or beauty, or gold.)
‘Twas so he answered at first, but the story grew different later:
“It cannot go on much longer, from what we hear of her now!”
At the meaning wheeze in the words the inquirer would shift his place
Till he could see round the curtain that screened me from people below.
“A handsome girl,” he would murmur, upstaring, (and so I am).
“But - too much sex in her build; fine eyes, but eyelids too heavy;
A bosom too full for her age; in her lips too voluptuous a look.”
(It may be. But who put it there? Assuredly it was not I.)
I went on playing and singing when this I had heard, and more,
Though tears half-blinded me; yes, I remained going on and on,
Just as I used me to chord and to sing at the selfsame time! . . .
For it’s a contralto - my voice is; they’ll hear it again here to-night
In the psalmody notes that I love more than world or than flesh or than life.
Well, the deacon, in fact, that day had learnt new tidings about me;
They troubled his mind not a little, for he was a worthy man.
(He trades as a chemist in High Street, and during the week he had sought
His fellow-deacon, who throve as a book-binder over the way.)
“These are strange rumours,” he said. “We must guard the good name of the chapel.
If, sooth, she’s of evil report, what else can we do but dismiss her?”
“ - But get such another to play here we cannot for double the price!”
It settled the point for the time, and I triumphed awhile in their strait,
And my much-beloved grand semibreves went living on under my fingers.
At length in the congregation more head-shakes and murmurs were rife,
And my dismissal was ruled, though I was not warned of it then.
But a day came when they declared it. The news entered me as a sword;
I was broken; so pallid of face that they thought I should faint, they said.
I rallied. “O, rather than go, I will play you for nothing!” said I.
‘Twas in much desperation I spoke it, for bring me to forfeit I could not
Those melodies chorded so richly for which I had laboured and lived.
They paused. And for nothing I played at the chapel through Sundays anon,
Upheld by that art which I loved more than blandishments lavished of men.
But it fell that murmurs again from the flock broke the pastor’s peace.
Some member had seen me at Havenpool, comrading close a sea-captain.
(Yes; I was thereto constrained, lacking means for the fare to and fro.)
Yet God knows, if aught He knows ever, I loved the Old-Hundredth, Saint Stephen’s,
Mount Zion, New Sabbath, Miles-Lane, Holy Rest, and Arabia, and Eaton,
Above all embraces of body by wooers who sought me and won! . . .
Next week ‘twas declared I was seen coming home with a lover at dawn.
The deacons insisted then, strong; and forgiveness I did not implore.
I saw all was lost for me, quite, but I made a last bid in my throbs.
High love had been beaten by lust; and the senses had conquered the soul,
But the soul should die game, if I knew it! I turned to my masters and said:
“I yield, Gentlemen, without parlance. But - let me just hymn you once more!
It’s a little thing, Sirs, that I ask; and a passion is music with me!”
They saw that consent would cost nothing, and show as good grace, as knew I,
Though tremble I did, and feel sick, as I paused thereat, dumb for their words.
They gloomily nodded assent, saying, “Yes, if you care to. Once more,
And only once more, understand.” To that with a bend I agreed.
- “You’ve a fixed and a far-reaching look,” spoke one who had eyed me awhile.
“I’ve a fixed and a far-reaching plan, and my look only showed it,” said I.
This evening of Sunday is come - the last of my functioning here.
“She plays as if she were possessed!” they exclaim, glancing upward and round.
“Such harmonies I never dreamt the old instrument capable of!”
Meantime the sun lowers and goes; shades deepen; the lights are turned up,
And the people voice out the last singing: tune Tallis: the Evening Hymn.
(I wonder Dissenters sing Ken: it shows them more liberal in spirit
At this little chapel down here than at certain new others I know.)
I sing as I play. Murmurs some one: “No woman’s throat richer than hers!”
“True: in these parts, at least,” ponder I. “But, my man, you will hear it no more.”
And I sing with them onward: “The grave dread as little do I as my bed.”
I lift up my feet from the pedals; and then, while my eyes are still wet
From the symphonies born of my fingers, I do that whereon I am set,
And draw from my “full round bosom,” (their words; how
can I help its heave?)
A bottle blue-coloured and fluted - a vinaigrette, they may conceive -
And before the choir measures my meaning, reads aught in my moves to and fro,
I drink from the phial at a draught, and they think it a pick-me-up; so.
Then I gather my books as to leave, bend over the keys as to pray.
When they come to me motionless, stooping, quick death will have whisked me away.
“Sure, nobody meant her to poison herself in her haste, after all!”
The deacons will say as they carry me down and the night shadows fall,
“Though the charges were true,” they will add. “It’s a case red as scarlet withal!”
I have never once minced it. Lived chaste I have not. Heaven knows it above! . . .
But past all the heavings of passion - it’s music has been my life-love! . . .
That tune did go well - this last playing! . . . I reckon they’ll bury me here . . .
Not a soul from the seaport my birthplace - will come, or bestow me . . . a tear.
FETCHING HER
An hour before the dawn,
My friend,
You lit your waiting bedside-lamp,
Your breakfast-fire anon,
And outing into the dark and damp
You saddled, and set on.
Thuswise, before the day,
My friend,
You sought her on her surfy shore,
To fetch her thence away
Unto your own new-builded door
For a staunch lifelong stay.
You said: “It seems to be,
My friend,
That I were bringing to my place
The pure brine breeze, the sea,
The mews - all her old sky and space,
In bringing her with me!”
- But time is prompt to expugn,
My friend,
Such magic-minted conjurings:
The brought breeze fainted soon,
And then the sense of seamews’ wings,