“Give me much and many”;—
held out her apron,
tossed them her penny.
“Nay, take a seat with us,
honor and eat with us,”
they answered grinning;
“Our feast is but beginning.
night yet is early,
warm and dew-pearly,
wakeful and starry:
such fruits as these
no man can carry;
half their bloom would fly,
half their dew would dry,
half their flavor would pass by.
Sit down and feast with us,
be welcome guest with us,
cheer you and rest with us.”
“Thank you,” said Lizzie; “but one waits
at home alone for me:
so, without further parleying,
if you will not sell me any
of your fruits though much and many,
give me back my silver penny
I tossed you for a fee.”
They began to scratch their pates,
no longer wagging, purring,
but visibly demurring,
grunting and snarling.
one called her proud,
cross-grained, uncivil;
their tones waxed loud,
their looks were evil.
Lashing their tails
they trod and hustled her,
elbowed and jostled her,
clawed with their nails,
barking, mewing, hissing, mocking,
tore her gown and soiled her stocking,
twitched her hair out by the roots,
stamped upon her tender feet,
held her hands and squeezed their fruits
against her mouth to make her eat.
White and golden Lizzie stood,
like a lily in a flood,
like a rock of blue-veined stone
lashed by tides obstreperously,—
like a beacon left alone
in a hoary roaring sea,
sending up a golden fire,—
like a fruit-crowned orange-tree
white with blossoms honey-sweet
sore beset by wasp and bee,—
like a royal virgin town
topped with gilded dome and spire
close beleaguered by a fleet
mad to tear her standard down.
One may lead a horse to water,
twenty cannot make him drink.
Though the goblins cuffed and caught her,
coaxed and fought her,
bullied and besought her,
scratched her, pinched her black as ink,
kicked and knocked her,
mauled and mocked her,
Lizzie uttered not a word;
would not open lip from lip
lest they should cram a mouthful in;
but laughed in heart to feel the drip
of juice that syruped all her face,
and lodged in dimples of her chin,
and streaked her neck which quaked like curd.
At last the evil people,
worn out by her resistance,
flung back her penny, kicked their fruit
along whichever road they took,
not leaving root or stone or shoot.
Some writhed into the ground,
some dived into the brook
with ring and ripple.
Some scudded on the gale without a sound,
some vanished in the distance.
In a smart, ache, tingle,
Lizzie went her way;
knew not was it night or day;
sprang up the bank, tore through the furze,
threaded copse and dingle,
and heard her penny jingle
bouncing in her purse,—
its bounce was music to her ear.
she ran and ran
as if she feared some goblin man
dogged her with gibe or curse
or something worse:
but not one goblin scurried after,
nor was she pricked by fear;
the kind heart made her windy-paced
that urged her home quite out of breath with haste
and inward laughter.
She cried “Laura,” up the garden,
“Did you miss me?
come and kiss me.
never mind my bruises,
hug me, kiss me, suck my juices
squeezed from goblin fruits for you,
goblin pulp and goblin dew.
Eat me, drink me, love me;
Laura, make much of me:
for your sake I have braved the glen
and had to do with goblin merchant men.”
Laura started from her chair,
flung her arms up in the air,
clutched her hair:
“Lizzie, Lizzie, have you tasted
for my sake the fruit forbidden?
must your light like mine be hidden,
your young life like mine be wasted,
undone in mine undoing,
and ruined in my ruin;
thirsty, cankered, goblin-ridden?”
She clung about her sister,
kissed and kissed and kissed her:
tears once again
refreshed her shrunken eyes,
dropping like rain
after long sultry drouth;
shaking with aguish fear, and pain,
she kissed and kissed her with a hungry mouth.
Her lips began to scorch,
that juice was wormwood to her tongue,
she loathed the feast:
writhing as one possessed she leaped and sung,
rent all her robe, and wrung
her hands in lamentable haste,
and beat her breast.
her locks streamed like the torch
borne by a racer at full speed,
or like the mane of horses in their flight,
or like an eagle when she stems the light
straight toward the sun,
or like a caged thing freed,
or like a flying flag when armies run.
Swift fire spread through her veins,
knocked at her heart,
met the fire smouldering there
and overbore its lesser flame,
she gorged on bitterness without a name:
ah! fool, to choose such part
of soul-consuming care!
Sense failed in the mortal strife:
like the watch-tower of a town
which an earthquake shatters down,
like a lightning-stricken mast,
like a wind-uprooted tree
spun about,
like a foam-topped water-spout
cast down headlong in the sea,
she fell at last;
pleasure past and anguish past,
is it death or is it life?
Life out of death.
That night long Lizzie watched by her,
counted her pulse’s flagging stir,
felt for her breath,
held water to her lips, and cooled her face
with tears and fanning leaves:
but when the first birds chirped about their eaves,
and early reapers plodded to the place
of golden sheaves,
and dew-wet grass
bowed in the morning winds so brisk to pass,
and new buds with new day
opened of cup-like lilies on the stream,
Laura awoke as from a dream,
laughed in the innocent old way,
hugged Lizzie but not twice or thrice;
her gleaming locks showed not one thread of gray,
her breath was sweet as May,
and light danced in her eyes.
Days, weeks, months, years
afterwards, when both were wives
with children of their own;
their mother-hearts beset with fears,
<
br /> their lives bound up in tender lives;
Laura would call the little ones
and tell them of her early prime,
those pleasant days long gone
of not-returning time:
would talk about the haunted glen,
the wicked, quaint fruit-merchant men,
their fruits like honey to the throat,
but poison in the blood;
(men sell not such in any town;)
would tell them how her sister stood
in deadly peril to do her good,
and win the fiery antidote:
then joining hands to little hands
would bid them cling together,
“For there is no friend like a sister,
in calm or stormy weather,
to cheer one on the tedious way,
to fetch one if one goes astray,
to lift one if one totters down,
to strengthen whilst one stands.”
Remember1
Remember me when I am gone away,
gone far away into the silent land;
when you can no more hold me by the hand,
nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
you tell me of our future that you planned:
only remember me; you understand
it will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
and afterwards remember, do not grieve:
for if the darkness and corruption leave
a vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
better by far you should forget and smile
than that you should remember and be sad.
Song1
When I am dead, my dearest,
sing no sad songs for me;
plant thou no roses at my head,
nor shady cypress tree:
be the green grass above me
with showers and dewdrops wet;
and if thou wilt, remember,
and if thou wilt, forget.
I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
sing on, as if in pain;
and dreaming through the twilight
that doth not rise nor set,
haply I may remember,
and haply may forget.
The First Day1
I wish I could remember the first day,
first hour, first moments of your meeting me;
if bright or dim the season, it might be.
Summer or Winter for aught I can say.
so unrecorded did it slip away.
So blind was I to see and to foresee,
so dull to mark the budding of my tree,
that would not blossom for many a May.
If only I could recollect it!
Such a day of days!
Let it come and go
as traceless as a thaw of bygone snow.
It seemed to mean so little, meant so much!
If only now I could recall that touch,
first touch of hand in hand!—Did one but know!
Lewis Carroll (1832 – 1898)
The Walrus and the Carpenter2
The sun was shining on the sea,
shining with all his might:
he did his very best to make
the billows smooth and bright—
and this was odd, because it was
the middle of the night.
The moon was shining sulkily,
because she thought the sun
had got no business to be there
after the day was done—
“It’s very rude of him,” she said,
“to come and spoil the fun!”
The sea was wet as wet could be,
the sands were dry as dry.
You could not see a cloud, because
no cloud was in the sky:
no birds were flying overhead—
there were no birds to fly.
The Walrus and the Carpenter
were walking close at hand;
they wept like anything to see
such quantities of sand:
“If this were only cleared away,”
they said, “it would be grand!”
“If seven maids with seven mops
swept it for half a year,
do you suppose,” the Walrus said,
“that they could get it clear?”
“I doubt it,” said the Carpenter,
and shed a bitter tear.
“O Oysters, come and walk with us!”
The Walrus did beseech.
“A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
along the briny beach:
we cannot do with more than four,
to give a hand to each.”
The eldest Oyster looked at him,
but never a word he said:
the eldest Oyster winked his eye,
and shook his heavy head—
meaning to say he did not choose
to leave the oyster-bed.
But four young Oysters hurried up,
all eager for the treat:
their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
their shoes were clean and neat—
and this was odd, because, you know,
they hadn’t any feet.
Four other Oysters followed them,
and yet another four;
and thick and fast they came at last,
and more, and more, and more—
all hopping through the frothy waves,
and scrambling to the shore.
The Walrus and the Carpenter
walked on a mile or so,
and then they rested on a rock
conveniently low:
and all the little Oysters stood
and waited in a row.
“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“to talk of many things:
of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
of cabbages—and kings—
and why the sea is boiling hot—
and whether pigs have wings.”
“But wait a bit,” the Oysters cried,
“before we have our chat;
for some of us are out of breath,
and all of us are fat!”
“No hurry!” said the Carpenter.
they thanked him much for that.
“A loaf of bread,” the Walrus said,
“is what we chiefly need:
pepper and vinegar besides
are very good indeed—
now if you’re ready, Oysters dear,
we can begin to feed.”
“But not on us!” the Oysters cried,
turning a little blue.
“After such kindness, that would be
a dismal thing to do!”
“The night is fine,” the Walrus said.
“do you admire the view?
It was so kind of you to come!
and you are very nice!”
The Carpenter said nothing but
“Cut us another slice:
I wish you were not quite so deaf—
I’ve had to ask you twice!”
“It seems a shame,” the Walrus said,
“to play them such a trick,
after we’ve brought them out so far,
and made them trot so quick!”
The Carpenter said nothing but
“The butter’s spread too thick!”
“I weep for you,” the Walrus said:
“I deeply sympathize.”
With sobs and tears he sorted out
those of the largest size,
holding his pocket-handkerchief
before his streaming eyes.
“O Oysters,” said the Carpenter,
“You’ve had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?’
; But answer came there none—
and this was scarcely odd, because
they’d eaten every one.
Thomas Hardy (1840 – 1928)
Channel firing1
That night your great guns, unawares,
shook all our coffins as we lay,
and broke the chancel window-squares,
we thought it was the Judgement-day
and sat upright. While drearisome
arose the howl of wakened hounds:
the mouse let fall the altar-crumb,
the worm drew back into the mounds,
the glebe cow drooled. Till God cried, “No;
it’s gunnery practice out at sea
just as before you went below;
the world is as it used to be:
all nations striving strong to make
red war yet redder. Mad as hatters
they do no more for Christés sake
than you who are helpless in such matters.
That this is not the judgment-hour
for some of them’s a blessed thing,
for if it were they’d have to scour
hell’s floor for so much threatening … .
Ha, ha. It will be warmer when
I blow the trumpet (if indeed
I ever do; for you are men,
and rest eternal sorely need).”
So down we lay again. “I wonder,
will the world ever saner be,”
said one, “than when He sent us under
in our indifferent century!”
And many a skeleton shook his head.
“Instead of preaching forty year,”
my neighbor Parson Thirdly said,
“I wish I had stuck to pipes and beer.”
Again the guns disturbed the hour,
roaring their readiness to avenge,
as far inland as Stourton Tower,
and Camelot, and starlit Stonehenge.
I look into my glass1
I look into my glass,
and view my wasting skin,
and say, “Would God it came to pass
my heart had shrunk as thin!”
For then, I, undistrest
by hearts grown cold to me,
could lonely wait my endless rest
with equanimity.
But Time, to make me grieve,
part steals, lets part abide;
and shakes this fragile frame at eve
with throbbings of noontide.
The oxen2
Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
“Now they are all on their knees,”
an elder said as we sat in a flock
by the embers in hearthside ease.
We pictured the meek mild creatures where
they dwelt in their strawy pen,
nor did it occur to one of us there
to doubt they were kneeling then.
The Giant Book of Poetry Page 20
