by Thomas Hardy
I almost wished we’d not begun.
Even now, if people only knew
My sinkings, as we slowly drew
Along through Kappa, Lambda, Mu,
They’d be concerned at my misgiving,
And how I mused on a College living
Right down to Sigma,
But feared a stigma
If I succumbed, and left old Donnegan
For weary freshmen’s eyes to con again:
And how I often, often wondered
What could have led me to have blundered
So far away from sound theology
To dialects and etymology;
Words, accents not to be breathed by men
Of any country ever again!”
“My heart most failed,
Indeed, quite quailed,”
Said Scott to Liddell,
“Long ere the middle! . . .
‘Twas one wet dawn
When, slippers on,
And a cold in the head anew,
Gazing at Delta
I turned and felt a
Wish for bed anew,
And to let supersedings
Of Passow’s readings
In dialects go.
‘That German has read
More than we!’ I said;
Yea, several times did I feel so! . . .
“O that first morning, smiling bland,
With sheets of foolscap, quills in hand,
To write ±±±Ä¿ and ±±³·,
Followed by fifteen hundred pages,
What nerve was ours
So to back our powers,
Assured that we should reach ÉÉ´·
While there was breath left in our bodies!”
Liddell replied: “Well, that’s past now;
The job’s done, thank God, anyhow.”
“And yet it’s not,”
Considered Scott,
“For we’ve to get
Subscribers yet
We must remember;
Yes; by September.”
“O Lord; dismiss that. We’ll succeed.
Dinner is my immediate need.
I feel as hollow as a fiddle,
Working so many hours,” said Liddell.
CHRISTMASTIDE
The rain-shafts splintered on me
As despondently I strode;
The twilight gloomed upon me
And bleared the blank high-road.
Each bush gave forth, when blown on
By gusts in shower and shower,
A sigh, as it were sown on
In handfuls by a sower.
A cheerful voice called, nigh me,
“A merry Christmas, friend!” —
There rose a figure by me,
Walking with townward trend,
A sodden tramp’s, who, breaking
Into thin song, bore straight
Ahead, direction taking
Toward the Casuals’ gate.
RELUCTANT CONFESSION
“What did you do? Cannot you let me know?”
“Don’t ask! . . . ‘Twas midnight, and I’d lost at cards.”
“Ah. Was it crime — or seemed it to be so?”
“No — not till afterwards.”
“But what, then, did you do?”
“Well — that was the beginning — months ago;
You see, I had lost, and could not pay but — so.
And there flashed from him strange and strong regards
That you only see when scruples smash to shards;
And thus it happened — O it rained and blew! —
But I can’t tell. ‘Twas all so lurid in hue!
And what was worst came after, when I knew
What first crossed not my mind,
And he has never divined!” . . .
“But he must have, if he proposed it you?”
“I mean, that — I got rid of what resulted
In a way a woman told me I consulted:
‘Tis that he does not know;
Great God, it harrows me so!
I did not mean to. Every night —
In hell-dark dreams
I see an appealing figure in white —
That somehow seems
A newborn child in the clothes I set to make,
But left off, for my own depraved name’s sake!”
EXPECTATION AND EXPERIENCE
“I had a holiday once,” said the woman —
Her name I did not know —
“And I thought that where I’d like to go,
Of all the places for being jolly,
And getting rid of melancholy,
Would be to a good big fair:
And I went. And it rained in torrents, drenching
Every horse, and sheep, and yeoman,
And my shoulders, face and hair;
And I found that I was the single woman
In the field — and looked quite odd there!
Everything was spirit-quenching:
I crept and stood in the lew of a wall
To think, and could not tell at all
What on earth made me plod there!”
ARISTODEMUS THE MESSENIAN
(DRAMATIC HENDECASYLLABICS)
Scene: Before the Stronghold of Ithome, Messenia, 735 B.C.
His daughter’s lover discovered, in the disguise of a soothsayer; to whom enters Aristodemus.
Aristodemus
(apostrophically)
Straightway let it be done!
Lover
Let what be done, chief?
Aristodemus
Who art thou that art speaking? Some sage prophet? —
She, my daughter’s to perish on the altar!
Lover
Thou called hero! — a myth thy vaunted power,
If it fail to redeem thy best beloved.
Aristodemus
Power is nought to the matter. What the Sibyl
Bids, must be!
Lover
But I doubt such bidding thereto.
Aristodemus
Nay. White lippings above the Delphic tripod
Mangle never their message! And they lip such.
Thriving, conquering shall Messene be forthwith —
Future worthy my gift of this intact one.
Yea, and who of the Aépytids’ renowned house
Weigh can greater with Zeus than she my offspring?
Shall these Spartiats sway to save me reavement?
What is fatherhood when they march in hearing?
Hark! E’en now they are here!
(Marching soldiers heard afar.)
Lover
(after a silence)
And mean you to warn her?
Aristodemus
Not till evening shades can cover pallor.
[Exit.
Lover stands motionless. Enter the daughter of Aristodemus.
Daughter
Ah! Thou comest to me, Love, not as earlier! Lover, as it were waking, approaches, unhoods his face, and embraces her.
Why not speak to me?
Lover
Sweetest, thou’rt a doomed one!
Daughter
How?
Lover
Thy sacrifice by thy father waits thee —
Thee, as offering for the State’s salvation.
Daughter
Not the slaying of me?
Lover
Fail I to stay him — (She droops in his arms)
Whereto bursts in a flame a means upon me!
Daughter
How? My father is mighty. Thou’rt so powerless.
Lover
Thus and now it adumbrates. Haste I to him,
Vowing love for thee!
Daughter
Which he’ll value wryly —
Less than nought, as I know.
Lover
Till comes my sequel;
This, to wit. Thou art got with child by me. Ay,
List: the Sibylli
ne utterance asks a virgin;
So th’rt saved!
Daughter
But a maid’s the thing I am, Love!
Gods! With child I am not, but veriest virgin —
Who knows surer than thou?
Lover
I’ll make him think so,
Though no man upon earth more knows its falseness,
Such will I.
Daughter
But alas, thou canst not make him:
Me he knows to the core. He’ll not believe thee.
Lover
Then thou canst. He’ll accept thy vouching, sure, Sweet,
And another intact one, equal serving,
Straightway find for the knife.
Daughter
My Love, I must not!
Lover
Not? And yet there is pending for thee, elsewise,
Dark destruction, and all thy burning being
Dungeoned in an eternal nescientness! She shudders, but weepingly shows unwillingness.
Stay. I’ll make the asseverance first. Thou’lt clinch it?
Daughter
(with white cheeks, after a pause)
Be it so! . . .
The Messenian army is heard going out to meet the Spartans. Lover hoods himself as Aristodemus enters from the stronghold.
Aristodemus
(looking strangely at his daughter)
Stay you yet at the gate? The old man also?
Hath indeed he disclosed the sore pronouncement?
Daughter
(falteringly)
Sore pronouncement? And what is, sire, its substance?
Messenger enters.
Messenger
King Euphaes is just found slain in combat:
Thereby King is the Chief, Aristodemus,
E’en ere falters the strife — still hard against us!
Aristodemus
Ha! And is it in balance yet! — The deed, then! Daughter looks at her lover, who throws off his disguise; and they go up to Aristodemus together.
Who’s this man? And to what tends all this feigning?
Daughter
He — my lover — who thinks to be my husband —
O my father, thy pardon! Know a secret!
Aristodemus
Lover? Secret? And what? But such is nought now:
Husband he nor another can be to thee,
Let him think as he may! And though I meant not
Death to broach till the eve, let doom be dealt now.
Hark, the Spartan assays! It straight behoves me,
Cost it what to my soul, to give deliverance
To my country the instant. Thou, my daughter,
Foremost maiden of all the maidens round us —
Daughter
O but save me, I pray, sire! And to that end
There has now to be spoke a thing immediate,
And I fain would be speaker. But I cannot!
What he now will reveal, receive as vouched for!
(She rushes into the castle.)
Aristodemus
(to lover)
What means this in her? Reads she what’s impending?
Lover
King, its meaning is much! That she’s with child. Yea,
By me! Hence there is called for immolation
One who’s what she is not — a sure-sealed virgin —
If you’d haste to deliver stressed Ithome,
Bulking yet overhead as though unweakened!
Aristodemus sinks on to a projection of the rock, and covers his eyes.
Aristodemus
(brokenly)
Better had she been made the purposed victim
Than that this should have so befallen to save her!
Foul disaster of fatherhood and home-pride! . . .
Let this citadel fall; the Spartan army
Trample over its dust, and enter in here!
She is worse than a martyr for the State-weal,
I than one of the slain. And king to-morrow!
(He pauses)
Tis not true!
He makes as if to fall upon her lover with his sword. Lover defends himself with his dagger. Aristodemus turns to rush into the castle after his daughter.
I misdoubt it! They speak falsely!
[Exit Aristodemus. Lover walks up and down in strained suspense. Interval. A groan is heard. Lover is about to rush out, but re-enter Aristodemus sword in hand, now bloody.
Aristodemus
I have proved me her honour, shown the falsehood
Ye twain both have declared me!
Lover
That canst not do!
Aristodemus
I say I have outshown it; proved her even
Until death very virgin pure and spotless!
Enter Attendants.
Attendants
(severally)
Horror, horror indeed! He’s ripped her up — yea,
With his sword! He hath split her beauteous body
To prove her maid!
Aristodemus
(to lover)
Now diest thou for thy lying, like as she died!
He turns his sword on lover, but falls from exhaustion. Lover seizes Aristodemus’ sword, and is about to run him through with it; but he checks his hand, and turn the sword upon himself.
(Lover dies.)
EVENING SHADOWS
The shadows of my chimneys stretch afar
Across the plot, and on to the privet bower,
And even the shadows of their smokings show,
And nothing says just now that where they are
They will in future stretch at this same hour,
Though in my earthen cyst I shall not know.
And at this time the neighbouring Pagan mound,
Whose myths the Gospel news now supersede,
Upon the greensward also throws its shade,
And nothing says such shade will spread around
Even as to-day when men will no more heed
The Gospel news than when the mound was made.
THE THREE TALL MEN
The First Tapping
“What’s that tapping at night: tack, tack,
In some house in the street at the back?”
“O, ‘tis a man who, when he has leisure,
Is making himself a coffin to measure.
He’s so very tall that no carpenter
Will make it long enough, he’s in fear.
His father’s was shockingly short for his limb —
And it made a deep impression on him.”
The Second Tapping
“That tapping has begun again,
Which ceased a year back, or near then?”
“Yes, ‘tis the man you heard before
Making his coffin. The first scarce done
His brother died — his only one —
And, being of his own height, or more,
He used it for him; for he was afraid
He’d not get a long enough one quick made.
He’s making a second now, to fit
Himself when there shall be need for it.
Carpenters work so by rule of thumb
That they make mistakes when orders come.”
The Third Tapping
“It’s strange, but years back, when I was here,
I used to notice a tapping near;
A man was making his coffin at night,
And he made a second, if I am right?
I have heard again the self-same tapping —
Yes, late last night — or was I napping?”
“O no. It’s the same man. He made one
Which his brother had; and a second was done —
For himself, as he thought. But lately his son,
As tall as he, died; aye, and as trim,
And his sorrowful father bestowed it on him.
And now the man is making a third,
To be used for himself when he is interred.”
“Many years
later was brought to me
News that the man had died at sea.”
THE LODGING-HOUSE FUCHSIAS
Mrs. Masters’s fuchsias hung
Higher and broader, and brightly swung,
Bell-like, more and more
Over the narrow garden-path,
Giving the passer a sprinkle-bath
In the morning.
She put up with their pushful ways,
And made us tenderly lift their sprays,
Going to her door:
But when her funeral had to pass
They cut back all the flowery mass
In the morning.
THE WHALER’S WIFE
I never pass that inn “The Ring of Bells”
Without recalling what its signpost tells
To recollection:
A tale such as all houses yield, maybe,
That ever have known of fealties, phantasy,
Hate, or affection.
He has come from a whaling cruise to settle down
As publican in his small native town,
Where his wife dwells.
It is a Sunday morning; she has gone
