Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated)
Page 777
Yes: I forgot.”
AT WYNYARD’S GAP
She
(on horseback)
The hounds pass here?
He
(on horseback)
They did an hour ago,
Just in full cry, and went down-wind, I saw,
Towards Pen Wood, where they may kill, and draw
A second time, and bear towards the Yeo.
She
How vexing! And I’ve crept along unthinking.
He
Ah! — lost in dreams. Fancy to fancy linking!
She
(more softly)
Not that, quite. . . . Now, to settle what I’ll do.
He
Go home again. But have you seen the view
From the top there? Not? It’s really worth your while. —
You must dismount, because there is a stile. They dismount, hitch their horses, and climb a few-score yards from the road.
There you see half South Wessex, — combe, and glen,
And down, to Lewsdon Hill and Pilsdon Pen.
She
Yes. It is fine. And I, though living out there
By Crewkerne, never knew it. (She turns her head)
Well, I declare,
Look at the horses! — How shall I catch my mare? The horses have got loose and scampered off.
Now that’s your fault, through leading me up here!
You must have known ‘twould happen —
He
No, my dear!
She
I’m not your dear.
He
(blandly)
But you can’t help being so,
If it comes to that. The fairest girl I’ve seen
Is of course dear — by her own fault, I mean.
She
(quickly)
What house is that we see just down below?
He
Oh — that’s the inn called “Wynyard’s Gap.” — I’ll go
While you wait here, and catch those brutes. Don’t stir.
He goes. She waits.
She
What a handsome man. Not local, I’ll aver.
He comes back.
He
I met a farmer’s labourer some way on;
He says he’ll bring them to us here anon,
If possible before the day is dim.
Come down to the inn: there we can wait for him.
They descend slowly in that direction.
She
What a lonely inn. Why is there such a one?
He
For us to wait at. Thus ‘tis things are done.
She
Thus things are done? Well — what things do you mean?
He
Romantic things. Meetings unknown, unseen.
She
But ours is accident, and needn’t have been,
And isn’t what I’d plan with a stranger, quite,
Particularly at this time — nearly night.
He
Nor I. But still, the tavern’s loneliness
Is favourable for lovers in distress,
When they’ve eloped, for instance, and are in fear
Of being pursued. No one would find them here. He goes to speak to the labourer approaching; and returns.
He says the horses long have passed the combe,
And cannot be overtaken. They’ll go home.
She
And what’s to be done? And it’s beginning to rain.
‘Tis always so. One trouble brings a train!
He
It seems to me that here we’d better stay
And rest us till some vehicle comes this way:
In fact, we might put up here till the morning:
The floods are high, and night-farers have warning.
She
Put up? Do you think so!
He
I incline to such,
My dear (do you mind?)
She
Yes. — Well (more softly)
, I don’t much,
If I seem like it. But I ought to tell you
One thing. I’m married. Being so, it’s well you —
He
Oh, so am I. (A silence, he regarding her)
I note a charming thing —
You stand so stock-still that your ear-ring shakes
At each pulsation which the vein there makes.
She
Does it? Perhaps because it’s flustering
To be caught thus! (In a murmur)
Why did we chance to meet here!
He
God knows! Perhaps to taste a bitter-sweet here. —
Still, let us enter. Shelter we must get:
The night is darkening and is growing wet.
So, anyhow, you can treat me as a lover
Just for this once. To-morrow ‘twill be over!
They reach the inn. The door is locked, and they discern a board marked “To Let.” While they stand stultified a van is seen drawing near, with passengers.
She
Ah, here’s an end of it! The Crewkerne carrier.
He
So cynic circumstance erects its barrier!
She
(mischievously)
To your love-making, which would have grown stronger,
No doubt, if we had stayed on here much longer?
The carrier comes up. Her companion reluctantly hails him.
He
Yes. . . . And in which you might have shown some ruth,
Had but the inn been open! — Well, forsooth,
I’m sorry it’s not. Are you? Now, dear, the truth!
She
(with gentle evasiveness)
I am — almost. But best ‘tis thus to be.
For — dear one — there I’ve said it! — you can see
That both at one inn (though roomed separately,
Of course) — so lone, too — might have been unfit,
Perfect as ‘tis for lovers, I admit.
He
(after a sigh)
Carrier! A lift for my wife, please.
She
(in quick undertones)
Wife? But nay —
He
(continuing)
Her horse has thrown her and has gone astray:
See she gets safe to Crewkerne. I’ve to stay.
Carrier
I will, sir! I’m for Crookhorn straight away.
He
(to her, aloud)
Right now, dear. I shall soon be home. Adieu!
(Kisses her.)
She
(whispering confusedly)
You shouldn’t! Pretending you are my husband, too!
I now must act the part of wife to you!
He
(whispering)
Yes, since I’ve kissed you, dear. You see it’s done
To silence tongues as we’re found here alone
At night, by gossipers, and seem as shown
Staying together!
She
(whispering)
Then must I, too, kiss?
He
Yes: a mere matter of form, you know,
To check all scandal. People will talk so!
She
I’d no idea it would reach to this! (Kisses him.)
What makes it worse is, I’m ashamed to say,
I’ve a young baby waiting me at home!
He
Ah — there you beat me! — But, my dearest, play
The wife to the end, and don’t give me away,
Despite the baby, since we’ve got so far,
And what we’ve acted feel we almost are!
She
(sighing)
Yes. ‘Tis so! And my conscience has gone dumb! (Aloud)
‘Bye, dear, awhile! I’ll sit up till you come. (In a whisper)
Which means Good-bye for ever, truly heard!
Upon to-night be silent!
He
Never a word,
Till Pilsdon Pen by Marshwood wind is stirred!
He hands her up. Exeunt omnes.
AT SHAG’S HEATH
1(TRADITIONAL)
I grieve and grieve for what I have done,
And nothing now is left to me
But straight to drown; yea, I have slain
The rarest soul the world shall see!
— My husband said: “Now thou art wed
Thou must beware! And should a man
Cajole, mind, he means ill to thee,
Depend on’t: fool him if ye can!”
But ‘twas King Monmouth, he!
As truth I took what was not true:
Till darked my door just such a one.
He asked me but the way to go,
Though looking all so down and done.
And as he stood he said, unsued,
“The prettiest wife I’ve eyed to-day!”
And then he kissed me tenderly
Before he footed fast away
Did dear King Monmouth, he!
Builded was he so beautiful! —
Why did I pout a pettish word
For what he’d done? — Then whisking off —
For his pursuers’ feet were heard —
“Dear one, keep faith!” he turns and saith.
And next he vanished in the copse
Before I knew what such might be,
And how great fears and how great hopes
Had rare King Monmouth — he!
Up rode the soldiers. “Where’s this man? —
He is the rebel Duke,” say they.
“And calls himself King Monmouth, sure!”
Then I believed my husband; aye,
Though he’d spoke lies in jealous-wise!
— To Shag’s nigh copse beyond the road
I moved my finger mercilessly;
And there lay hidden where I showed:
My dear King Monmouth, he!
The soldiers brought him by my door,
His elbows bound behind him, fast;
Passing, he me-ward cast his eyes —
What eyes of beauty did he cast!
Grieved was his glance at me askance:
“I wished all weal might thee attend,
But this is what th’st done to me,
O heartless woman, held my friend!”
Said sweet King Monmouth, he!
O then I saw he was no hind,
But a great lord of loftihood,
Come here to claim his rule and rights,
Who’d wished me, as he’d said, but good. —
With tug and jolt, then, out to Holt,
To Justice Ettricke, he was led,
And thence to London speedily,
Where under yester’s headsman bled
The rare King Monmouth, he!
Last night, the while my husband slept,
He rose up at the window there,
All blood and blear, and hacked about,
With heavy eyes, and rumpled hair;
And said: “My Love, ‘twas cruel of
A Fair like thee to use me so!
But now it’s nought: from foes I’m free!
Sooner or later all must go,”
Said dear King Monmouth, he!
“Yes, lovely cruel one!” he said
In through the mullioned pane, shroud-pale,
“I love you still, would kiss you now,
But blood would stain your nighty-rail!”
— That’s all. And so to drown I go:
O wear no weeds, my friends, for me . . .
When comes the waterman, he’ll say,
“Who’s done her thuswise?” — ’Twill be, yea,
Sweet, slain King Monmouth — he!
A SECOND ATTEMPT
Thirty years after
I began again
An old-time passion:
And it seemed as fresh as when
The first day ventured on:
When mutely I would waft her
In Love’s past fashion
Dreams much dwelt upon,
Dreams I wished she knew.
I went the course through,
From Love’s fresh-found sensation —
Remembered still so well —
To worn words charged anew,
That left no more to tell:
Thence to hot hopes and fears,
And thence to consummation,
And thence to sober years,
Markless, and mellow-hued.
Firm the whole fabric stood,
Or seemed to stand, and sound
As it had stood before.
But nothing backward climbs,
And when I looked around
As at the former times,
There was Life — pale and hoar;
And slow it said to me,
“Twice-over cannot be!”
FREED THE FRET OF THINKING
Freed the fret of thinking,
Light of lot were we,
Song with service linking
Like to bird or bee:
Chancing bale unblinking,
Freed the fret of thinking
On mortality!
Had not thought-endowment
Beings ever known,
What Life once or now meant
None had wanted shown —
Measuring but the moment —
Had not thought-endowment
Caught Creation’s groan!
Loosed from wrings of reason,
We might blow like flowers,
Sense of Time-wrought treason
Would not then be ours
In and out of season;
Loosed from wrings of reason
We should laud the Powers!
THE ABSOLUTE EXPLAINS
I
“O no,” said It: her lifedoings
Time’s touch hath not destroyed:
They lie their length, with the throbbing things
Akin them, down the Void,
Live, unalloyed.
II
“Know, Time is toothless, seen all through;
The Present, that men but see,
Is phasmal: since in a sane purview
All things are shaped to be
Eternally.
III
“Your ‘Now’ is just a gleam, a glide
Across your gazing sense:
With me, ‘Past,’ ‘Future,’ ever abide:
They come not, go not, whence
They are never hence.
IV
“As one upon a dark highway,
Plodding by lantern-light,
Finds but the reach of its frail ray
Uncovered to his sight,
Though mid the night
V
“The road lies all its length the same,
Forwardly as at rear,
So, outside what you ‘Present’ name,
Future and Past stand sheer,
Cognate and clear.”
VI
— Thus It: who straightway opened then
The vista called the Past,
Wherein were seen, as fair as when
They seemed they could not last,
Small things and vast.
VII
There were those songs, a score times sung,
With all their tripping tunes,
There were the laughters once that rung,
There those unmatched full moons,
Those idle noons!
VIII
There fadeless, fixed, were dust-dead flowers
Remaining still in blow;
Elsewhere, wild love-makings in bowers;
Hard by, that irised bow
Of years ago.
IX
There were my ever memorable
Glad days of pilgrimage,
Coiled like a precious parchment fell,
Illumined page by page,
Unhurt by age.
X
/>
“ — Here you see spread those mortal ails
So powerless to restrain
Your young life’s eager hot assails,
With hazards then not plain
Till past their pain.
XI
“Here you see her who, by these laws
You learn of, still shines on,
As pleasing-pure as erst she was,
Though you think she lies yon,
Graved, glow all gone.
XII
“Here are those others you used to prize. —
But why go further we?
The Future? — Well, I would advise
You let the future be,
Unshown by me!
XIII
“‘Twould harrow you to see undraped
The scenes in ripe array
That wait your globe — all worked and shaped;
And I’ll not, as I say,
Bare them to-day.
XIV
“In fine, Time is a mock, — yea, such! —
As he might well confess:
Yet hath he been believed in much,
Though lately, under stress
Of science, less.
XV
“And hence, of her you asked about
At your first speaking: she
Hath, I assure you, not passed out
Of continuity,
But is in me.
XVI
“So thus doth Being’s length transcend
Time’s ancient regal claim
To see all lengths begin and end.
‘The Fourth Dimension’ fame
Bruits as its name.”