by Thomas Hardy
I thought, was wantoned with
By a man of levity:
And I lay in wait all day,
All day did I wait for him,
And dogged him to Bollard Head
When twilight dwindled dim,
And hurled him over the edge
And heard him fall below:
O would I were lying with him,
For the truth I did not know!
“O where’s my husband?” she asked,
As evening wore away:
“Best you had one, forsooth,
But never had you!” I say.
“Yes, but I have!” says she,
“My Love made it up with me,
And we churched it yesterday
And mean to live happily.”
And now I go in haste
To the Head, before she’s aware,
To join him in death for the wrong
I’ve done them both out there!
WE FIELD-WOMEN
How it rained
When we worked at Flintcomb-Ash,
And could not stand upon the hill
Trimming swedes for the slicing-mill.
The wet washed through us — plash, plash, plash:
How it rained!
How it snowed
When we crossed from Flintcomb-Ash
To the Great Barn for drawing reed,
Since we could nowise chop a swede. —
Flakes in each doorway and casement-sash:
How it snowed!
How it shone
When we went from Flintcomb-Ash
To start at dairywork once more
In the laughing meads, with cows three-score,
And pails, and songs, and love — too rash:
How it shone!
A PRACTICAL WOMAN
“O who’ll get me a healthy child: —
I should prefer a son —
Seven have I had in thirteen years,
Sickly every one!
“Three mope about as feeble shapes;
Weak; white; they’ll be no good.
One came deformed; an idiot next;
And two are crass as wood.
“I purpose one not only sound
In flesh, but bright in mind:
And duly for producing him
A means I’ve now to find.”
She went away. She disappeared,
Years, years. Then back she came:
In her hand was a blooming boy
Mentally and in frame.
“I found a father at last who’d suit
The purpose in my head,
And used him till he’d done his job,”
Was all thereon she said.
SQUIRE HOOPER
Hooper was ninety. One September dawn
He sent a messenger
For his physician, who asked thereupon
What ailed the sufferer
Which he might circumvent, and promptly bid begone.
“Doctor, I summoned you,” the squire replied —
“Pooh-pooh me though you may —
To ask what’s happened to me — burst inside,
It seems — not much, I’d say —
But awkward with a house-full here for a shoot to-day.”
And he described the symptoms. With bent head
The listener looked grave.
“H’m. . . . You’re a dead man in six hours,” he said. —
“I speak out, since you are brave —
And best ‘tis you should know, that last things may be sped.”
“Right,” said the squire. “And now comes — what to do?
One thing: on no account
Must I now spoil the sport I’ve asked them to —
My guests are paramount —
They must scour scrub and stubble; and big bags bring as due.”
He downed to breakfast, and bespoke his guests: —
“I find I have to go
An unexpected journey, and it rests
With you, my friends, to show
The shoot can go off gaily, whether I’m there or no.”
Thus blandly spoke he; and to the fields they went,
And Hooper up the stair.
They had a glorious day; and stiff and spent
Returned as dusk drew near. —
“Gentlemen,” said the doctor, “he’s not back as meant,
To his deep regret!” — So they took leave, each guest
Observing: “I dare say
Business detains him in the town: ‘tis best
We should no longer stay
Just now. We’ll come again anon”; and they went their way.
Meeting two men in the obscurity
Shouldering a box a thin
Cloth-covering wrapt, one sportsman cried: “Damn me,
I thought them carrying in,
At first, a coffin; till I knew it could not be.”
A GENTLEMAN’S SECOND-HAND SUIT
Here it is hanging in the sun
By the pawn-shop door,
A dress-suit — all its revels done
Of heretofore.
Long drilled to the waltzers’ swing and sway,
As its tokens show:
What it has seen, what it could say
If it did but know!
The sleeve bears still a print of powder
Rubbed from her arms
When she warmed up as the notes swelled louder
And livened her charms —
Or rather theirs, for beauties many
Leant there, no doubt,
Leaving these tell-tale traces when he
Spun them about.
Its cut seems rather in bygone style
On looking close,
So it mayn’t have bent it for some while
To the dancing pose:
Anyhow, often within its clasp
Fair partners hung,
Assenting to the wearer’s grasp
With soft sweet tongue.
Where is, alas, the gentleman
Who wore this suit?
And where are his ladies? Tell none can:
Gossip is mute.
Some of them may forget him quite
Who smudged his sleeve,
Some think of a wild and whirling night
With him, and grieve.
WE SAY WE SHALL NOT MEET
We say we shall not meet
Again beneath this sky,
And turn with leaden feet,
Murmuring “Good-bye!”
But laugh at how we rued
Our former time’s adieu
When those who went for good
Are met anew.
We talk in lightest vein
On trifles talked before,
And part to meet again,
But meet no more.
SEEING THE MOON RISE
We used to go to Froom-hill Barrow
To see the round moon rise
Into the heath-rimmed skies,
Trudging thither by plough and harrow
Up the pathway, steep and narrow,
Singing a song.
Now we do not go there. Why?
Zest burns not so high!
Latterly we’ve only conned her
With a passing glance
From window or door by chance,
Hoping to go again, high yonder,
As we used, and gaze, and ponder,
Singing a song.
Thitherward we do not go:
Feet once quick are slow!
August 1927
SONG TO AURORE
We’ll not begin again to love,
It only leads to pain;
The fire we now are master of
Has seared us not in vain.
Any new step of yours I’m fain
To hear of from afar,
And even in such may find a gain
While lodged not where you are.
No: that must not be done anew
<
br /> Which has been done before;
I scarce could bear to seek, or view,
Or clasp you any more!
Life is a labour, death is sore,
And lonely living wrings;
But go your courses, Sweet Aurore,
Kisses are caresome things!
HE NEVER EXPECTED MUCH
[or] A CONSIDERATION
[A reflection] ON MY EIGHTY-SIXTH BIRTHDAY
Well, World, you have kept faith with me,
Kept faith with me;
Upon the whole you have proved to be
Much as you said you were.
Since as a child I used to lie
Upon the leaze and watch the sky,
Never, I own, expected I
That life would all be fair.
‘Twas then you said, and since have said,
Times since have said,
In that mysterious voice you shed
From clouds and hills around:
“Many have loved me desperately,
Many with smooth serenity,
While some have shown contempt of me
Till they dropped underground.
“I do not promise overmuch,
Child; overmuch;
Just neutral-tinted haps and such,”
You said to minds like mine.
Wise warning for your credit’s sake!
Which I for one failed not to take,
And hence could stem such strain and ache
As each year might assign.
STANDING BY THE MANTELPIECE
(H. M. M., 1873)
This candle-wax is shaping to a shroud
To-night. (They call it that, as you may know) —
By touching it the claimant is avowed,
And hence I press it with my finger — so.
To-night. To me twice night, that should have been
The radiance of the midmost tick of noon,
And close around me wintertime is seen
That might have shone the veriest day of June!
But since all’s lost, and nothing really lies
Above but shade, and shadier shade below,
Let me make clear, before one of us dies,
My mind to yours, just now embittered so.
Since you agreed, unurged and full-advised,
And let warmth grow without discouragement,
Why do you bear you now as if surprised,
When what has come was clearly consequent?
Since you have spoken, and finality
Closes around, and my last movements loom,
I say no more: the rest must wait till we
Are face to face again, yonside the tomb.
And let the candle-wax thus mould a shape
Whose meaning now, if hid before, you know,
And how by touch one present claims its drape,
And that it’s I who press my finger — so.
BOYS THEN AND NOW
“More than one cuckoo?”
And the little boy
Seemed to lose something
Of his spring joy.
When he’d grown up
He told his son
He’d used to think
There was only one,
Who came each year
With the trees’ new trim
On purpose to please
England and him:
And his son — old already
In life and its ways —
Said yawning: “How foolish
Boys were in those days!”
THAT KISS IN THE DARK
Recall it you? —
Say you do! —
When you went out into the night,
In an impatience that would not wait,
From that lone house in the woodland spot,
And when I, thinking you had gone
For ever and ever from my sight,
Came after, printing a kiss upon
Black air
In my despair,
And my two lips lit on your cheek
As you leant silent against a gate,
Making my woman’s face flush hot
At what I had done in the dark, unware
You lingered for me but would not speak:
Yes, kissed you, thinking you were not there!
Recall it you? —
Say you do!
A NECESSITARIAN’S EPITAPH
A world I did not wish to enter
Took me and poised me on my centre,
Made me grimace, and foot, and prance,
As cats on hot bricks have to dance
Strange jigs to keep them from the floor,
Till they sink down and feel no more.
BURNING THE HOLLY
O you are sad on Twelfth Night,
I notice: sad on Twelfth Night;
You are as sad on Twelfth Night
As any that I know.
“Yes: I am sad on that night,
Doubtless I’m sad on that night:
Yes; I am sad on that night,
For we all loved her so!”
Why are you sad on Twelfth Night,
Especially on Twelfth Night?
Why are you sad on Twelfth Night
When wit and laughter flow?
— ”She’d been a famous dancer,
Much lured of men; a dancer.
She’d been a famous dancer,
Facile in heel and toe. . . .
“And we were burning the holly
On Twelfth Night; the holly,
As people do: the holly,
Ivy, and mistletoe.
“And while it popped and crackled,
(She being our lodger), crackled;
And while it popped and crackled,
Her face caught by the glow,
“In he walked and said to her,
In a slow voice he said to her;
Yes, walking in he said to her,
‘We sail before cock-crow.’
“‘Why did you not come on to me,
As promised? Yes, come on to me?
Why did you not come on to me,
Since you had sworn to go?’
“His eyes were deep and flashing,
As flashed the holm-flames: flashing;
His eyes were deep, and flashing
In their quick, keen upthrow.
“As if she had been ready,
Had furtively been ready;
As if she had been ready
For his insistence — lo! —
“She clasped his arm and went with him
As his entirely: went with him.
She clasped his arm and went with him
Into the sprinkling snow.
“We saw the prickly leaves waste
To ashes: saw the leaves waste;
The burnt-up prickly leaves waste. . . .
The pair had gone also.
— ”On Twelfth Night, two years after —
Yes, Twelfth Night, two years after;
On Twelfth Night, two years after,
We sat — our spirits low —
“Musing, when back the door swung
Without a knock. The door swung;
Thought flew to her. The door swung,
And in she came, pale, slow;
“Against her breast a child clasped;
Close to her breast a child clasped;
She stood there with the child clasped,
Swaying it to and fro.
“Her look alone the tale told;
Quite wordless was the tale told;
Her careworn eyes the tale told
As larger they seemed to grow. . . .
“One day next spring she disappeared,
The second time she disappeared.
And that time, when she’d disappeared
Came back no more. Ah, no!
“But we still burn the holly
On Twelfth Night; burn the holly
As people do: the holly,
Ivy, and mi
stletoe.”
SUSPENSE
A clamminess hangs over all like a clout,
The fields are a water-colour washed out,
The sky at its rim leaves a chink of light,
Like the lid of a pot that will not close tight.
She is away by the groaning sea,
Strained at the heart, and waiting for me:
Between us our foe from a hid retreat
Is watching, to wither us if we meet. . . .
But it matters little, however we fare —
Whether we meet, or I get not there;
The sky will look the same thereupon,
And the wind and the sea go groaning on.
THE SECOND VISIT
Clack, clack, clack, went the mill-wheel as I came,
And she was on the bridge with the thin hand-rail,
And the miller at the door, and the ducks at mill-tail;
I come again years after, and all there seems the same.
And so indeed it is: the apple-tree’d old house,
And the deep mill-pond, and the wet wheel clacking,
And a woman on the bridge, and white ducks quacking,
And the miller at the door, powdered pale from boots to brows.
But it’s not the same miller whom long ago I knew,
Nor are they the same apples, nor the same drops that dash
Over the wet wheel, nor the ducks below that splash,
Nor the woman who to fond plaints replied, “You know I do!”
OUR OLD FRIEND DUALISM
All hail to him, the Protean! A tough old chap is he:
Spinoza and the Monists cannot make him cease to be.
We pound him with our “Truth, Sir, please!” and quite appear to still him:
He laughs; holds Bergson up, and James; and swears we cannot kill him.
