Poems of the Past and the Present

“BETWEEN US NOW”

Between us now and here —   Two thrown togetherWho are not wont to wear   Life’s flushest feather —Who see the scenes slide past,The daytimes dimming fast,Let there be truth at last,   Even if despair.So thoroughly and long   Have you now known me,So real in faith and strong   Have I now shown me,That nothing needs disguiseFurther in any wise,Or asks or justifies   A guarded tongue.Face unto face, then, say,   Eyes mine own meeting,Is your heart far away,   Or with mine beating?When false things are brought low,And swift things have grown slow,Feigning like froth shall go,   Faith be for aye.

“HOW GREAT MY GRIEF”

(TRIOLET)

How great my grief, my joys how few,Since first it was my fate to know thee!– Have the slow years not brought to viewHow great my grief, my joys how few,Nor memory shaped old times anew,   Nor loving-kindness helped to show theeHow great my grief, my joys how few,   Since first it was my fate to know thee?

“I NEED NOT GO”

I need not goThrough sleet and snowTo where I knowShe waits for me;She will wait me thereTill I find it fair,And have time to spareFrom company.When I’ve overgotThe world somewhat,When things cost notSuch stress and strain,Is soon enoughBy cypress soughTo tell my LoveI am come again.And if some day,When none cries nay,I still delayTo seek her side,(Though ample measureOf fitting leisureAwait my pleasure)She will riot chide.What – not upbraid meThat I delayed me,Nor ask what stayed meSo long?  Ah, no! —New cares may claim me,New loves inflame me,She will not blame me,But suffer it so.

THE COQUETTE, AND AFTER

(TRIOLETS)

IFor long the cruel wish I knewThat your free heart should ache for meWhile mine should bear no ache for you;For, long – the cruel wish! – I knewHow men can feel, and craved to viewMy triumph – fated not to beFor long!.. The cruel wish I knewThat your free heart should ache for me!IIAt last one pays the penalty —The woman – women always do.My farce, I found, was tragedyAt last! – One pays the penaltyWith interest when one, fancy-free,Learns love, learns shame.. Of sinners twoAt last one pays the penalty —The woman – women always do!

A SPOT

   In years defaced and lost,   Two sat here, transport-tossed,   Lit by a living loveThe wilted world knew nothing of:      Scared momently      By gaingivings,      Then hoping things      That could not be.   Of love and us no trace   Abides upon the place;   The sun and shadows wheel,Season and season sereward steal;      Foul days and fair      Here, too, prevail,      And gust and gale      As everywhere.   But lonely shepherd souls   Who bask amid these knolls   May catch a faery soundOn sleepy noontides from the ground:      “O not again      Till Earth outwears      Shall love like theirs      Suffuse this glen!”

LONG PLIGHTED

      Is it worth while, dear, now,To call for bells, and sally forth arrayedFor marriage-rites – discussed, decried, delayed         So many years?      Is it worth while, dear, now,To stir desire for old fond purposings,By feints that Time still serves for dallyings,         Though quittance nears?      Is it worth while, dear, whenThe day being so far spent, so low the sun,The undone thing will soon be as the done,      And smiles as tears?      Is it worth while, dear, whenOur cheeks are worn, our early brown is gray;When, meet or part we, none says yea or nay,      Or heeds, or cares?      Is it worth while, dear, sinceWe still can climb old Yell’ham’s wooded moundsTogether, as each season steals its rounds      And disappears?      Is it worth while, dear, sinceAs mates in Mellstock churchyard we can lie,Till the last crash of all things low and high      Shall end the spheres?

THE WIDOW

By Mellstock Lodge and Avenue   Towards her door I went,And sunset on her window-panes   Reflected our intent.The creeper on the gable nigh   Was fired to more than redAnd when I came to halt thereby   “Bright as my joy!” I said.Of late days it had been her aim   To meet me in the hall;Now at my footsteps no one came;   And no one to my call.Again I knocked; and tardily   An inner step was heard,And I was shown her presence then   With scarce an answering word.She met me, and but barely took   My proffered warm embrace;Preoccupation weighed her look,   And hardened her sweet face.“To-morrow – could you – would you call?   Make brief your present stay?My child is ill – my one, my all! —   And can’t be left to-day.”And then she turns, and gives commands   As I were out of sound,Or were no more to her and hers   Than any neighbour round.– As maid I wooed her; but one came   And coaxed her heart away,And when in time he wedded her   I deemed her gone for aye.He won, I lost her; and my loss   I bore I know not how;But I do think I suffered then   Less wretchedness than now.For Time, in taking him, had oped   An unexpected doorOf bliss for me, which grew to seem   Far surer than before.Her word is steadfast, and I know   That plighted firm are we:But she has caught new love-calls since   She smiled as maid on me!

AT A HASTY WEDDING

(TRIOLET)

If hours be years the twain are blest,For now they solace swift desireBy bonds of every bond the best,If hours be years.  The twain are blestDo eastern stars slope never west,Nor pallid ashes follow fire:If hours be years the twain are blest,For now they solace swift desire.

THE DREAM-FOLLOWER

A dream of mine flew over the mead   To the halls where my old Love reigns;And it drew me on to follow its lead:   And I stood at her window-panes;And I saw but a thing of flesh and bone   Speeding on to its cleft in the clay;And my dream was scared, and expired on a moan,   And I whitely hastened away.

HIS IMMORTALITY

I   I saw a dead man’s finer partShining within each faithful heartOf those bereft.  Then said I: “This must be      His immortality.”II   I looked there as the seasons wore,And still his soul continuously upboreIts life in theirs.  But less its shine excelled      Than when I first beheld.III   His fellow-yearsmen passed, and thenIn later hearts I looked for him again;And found him – shrunk, alas! into a thin      And spectral mannikin.IV   Lastly I ask – now old and chill —If aught of him remain unperished still;And find, in me alone, a feeble spark,      Dying amid the dark. February 1899.

THE TO-BE-FORGOTTEN

I   I heard a small sad sound,And stood awhile amid the tombs around:“Wherefore, old friends,” said I, “are ye distrest,   Now, screened from life’s unrest?”II   – “O not at being here;But that our future second death is drear;When, with the living, memory of us numbs,   And blank oblivion comes!III   “Those who our grandsires beLie here embraced by deeper death than we;Nor shape nor thought of theirs canst thou descry   With keenest backward eye.IV   “They bide as quite forgot;They are as men who have existed not;Theirs is a loss past loss of fitful breath;   It is the second death.V   “We here, as yet, each dayAre blest with dear recall; as yet, alwayIn some soul hold a loved continuance   Of shape and voice and glance.VI   “But what has been will be —First memory, then oblivion’s turbid sea;Like men foregone, shall we merge into those   Whose story no one knows.VII   “For which of us could hopeTo show in life that world-awakening scopeGranted the few whose memory none lets die,   But all men magnify?VIII   “We were but Fortune’s sport;Things true, things lovely, things of good reportWe neither shunned nor sought.. We see our bourne,   And seeing it we mourn.”

WIVES IN THE SERE

INever a careworn wife but shows,   If a joy suffuse her,Something beautiful to those   Patient to peruse her,Some one charm the world unknows   Precious to a muser,Haply what, ere years were foes,   Moved her mate to choose her.IIBut, be it a hint of rose   That an instant hues her,Or some early light or pose   Wherewith thought renews her —Seen by him at full, ere woes   Practised to abuse her —Sparely comes it, swiftly goes,   Time again subdues her.

THE SUPERSEDED

IAs newer comers crowd the fore,   We drop behind.– We who have laboured long and sore   Times out of mind,And keen are yet, must not regret   To drop behind.IIYet there are of us some who grieve   To go behind;Staunch, strenuous souls who scarce believe   Their fires declined,And know none cares, remembers, spares   Who go behind.III’Tis not that we have unforetold   The drop behind;We feel the new must oust the old   In every kind;But yet we think, must we, must we,   Too, drop behind?

AN AUGUST MIDNIGHT

IA shaded lamp and a waving blind,And the beat of a clock from a distant floor:On this scene enter – winged, horned, and spined —A longlegs, a moth, and a dumbledore;While ’mid my page there idly standsA sleepy fly, that rubs its hands.IIThus meet we five, in this still place,At this point of time, at this point in space.– My guests parade my new-penned ink,Or bang at the lamp-glass, whirl, and sink.“God’s humblest, they!” I muse.  Yet why?They know Earth-secrets that know not I.Max Gate, 1899.

THE CAGED THRUSH FREED AND HOME AGAIN

(VILLANELLE)

“Men know but little more than we,Who count us least of things terrene,How happy days are made to be!“Of such strange tidings what think ye,O birds in brown that peck and preen?Men know but little more than we!“When I was borne from yonder treeIn bonds to them, I hoped to gleanHow happy days are made to be,“And want and wailing turned to glee;Alas, despite their mighty mienMen know but little more than we!“They cannot change the Frost’s decree,They cannot keep the skies serene;How happy days are made to be“Eludes great Man’s sagacityNo less than ours, O tribes in treen!Men know but little more than weHow happy days are made to be.”

BIRDS AT WINTER NIGHTFALL

(TRIOLET)

Around the house the flakes fly faster,And all the berries now are goneFrom holly and cotoneasterAround the house.  The flakes fly! – fasterShutting indoors that crumb-outcasterWe used to see upon the lawnAround the house.  The flakes fly faster,And all the berries now are gone!Max Gate.

THE PUZZLED GAME-BIRDS

(TRIOLET)

They are not those who used to feed usWhen we were young – they cannot be —These shapes that now bereave and bleed us?They are not those who used to feed us, —For would they not fair terms concede us?– If hearts can house such treacheryThey are not those who used to feed usWhen we were young – they cannot be!

WINTER IN DURNOVER FIELD

Scene. – A wide stretch of fallow ground recently sown with wheat, and frozen to iron hardness. Three large birds walking about thereon, and wistfully eyeing the surface. Wind keen from north-east: sky a dull grey.

(TRIOLET)Rook. – Throughout the field I find no grain;   The cruel frost encrusts the cornland!Starling. – Aye: patient pecking now is vain   Throughout the field, I find.Rook. – No grain!Pigeon. – Nor will be, comrade, till it rain,   Or genial thawings loose the lorn land   Throughout the field.Rook. – I find no grain:   The cruel frost encrusts the cornland!

THE LAST CHRYSANTHEMUM

Why should this flower delay so long   To show its tremulous plumes?Now is the time of plaintive robin-song,   When flowers are in their tombs.Through the slow summer, when the sun   Called to each frond and whorlThat all he could for flowers was being done,   Why did it not uncurl?It must have felt that fervid call   Although it took no heed,Waking but now, when leaves like corpses fall,   And saps all retrocede.Too late its beauty, lonely thing,   The season’s shine is spent,Nothing remains for it but shivering   In tempests turbulent.Had it a reason for delay,   Dreaming in witlessnessThat for a bloom so delicately gay   Winter would stay its stress?– I talk as if the thing were born   With sense to work its mind;Yet it is but one mask of many worn   By the Great Face behind.

THE DARKLING THRUSH

I leant upon a coppice gate   When Frost was spectre-gray,And Winter’s dregs made desolate   The weakening eye of day.The tangled bine-stems scored the sky   Like strings from broken lyres,And all mankind that haunted nigh   Had sought their household fires.The land’s sharp features seemed to be   The Century’s corpse outleant,His crypt the cloudy canopy,   The wind his death-lament.The ancient pulse of germ and birth   Was shrunken hard and dry,And every spirit upon earth   Seemed fervourless as I.At once a voice outburst among   The bleak twigs overheadIn a full-hearted evensong   Of joy illimited;An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,   In blast-beruffled plume,Had chosen thus to fling his soul   Upon the growing gloom.So little cause for carollings   Of such ecstatic soundWas written on terrestrial things   Afar or nigh around,That I could think there trembled through   His happy good-night airSome blessed Hope, whereof he knew   And I was unaware. December 1900.

THE COMET AT YALBURY OR YELL’HAM

IIt bends far over Yell’ham Plain,   And we, from Yell’ham Height,Stand and regard its fiery train,   So soon to swim from sight.IIIt will return long years hence, when   As now its strange swift shineWill fall on Yell’ham; but not then   On that sweet form of thine.

MAD JUDY

When the hamlet hailed a birth   Judy used to cry:When she heard our christening mirth   She would kneel and sigh.She was crazed, we knew, and weHumoured her infirmity.When the daughters and the sons   Gathered them to wed,And we like-intending ones   Danced till dawn was red,She would rock and mutter, “MoreComers to this stony shore!”When old Headsman Death laid hands   On a babe or twain,She would feast, and by her brands   Sing her songs again.What she liked we let her do,Judy was insane, we knew.

A WASTED ILLNESS

      Through vaults of pain,Enribbed and wrought with groins of ghastliness,I passed, and garish spectres moved my brain      To dire distress.      And hammerings,And quakes, and shoots, and stifling hotness, blentWith webby waxing things and waning things      As on I went.      “Where lies the endTo this foul way?” I asked with weakening breath.Thereon ahead I saw a door extend —      The door to death.      It loomed more clear:“At last!” I cried.  “The all-delivering door!”And then, I knew not how, it grew less near      Than theretofore.      And back slid IAlong the galleries by which I came,And tediously the day returned, and sky,      And life – the same.      And all was well:Old circumstance resumed its former show,And on my head the dews of comfort fell      As ere my woe.      I roam anew,Scarce conscious of my late distress..  And yetThose backward steps through pain I cannot view      Without regret.      For that dire trainOf waxing shapes and waning, passed before,And those grim aisles, must be traversed again      To reach that door.

A MAN

(IN MEMORY OF H. OF M.)

IIn Casterbridge there stood a noble pile,Wrought with pilaster, bay, and balustradeIn tactful times when shrewd Eliza swayed. —      On burgher, squire, and clownIt smiled the long street down for near a mileIIBut evil days beset that domicile;The stately beauties of its roof and wallPassed into sordid hands.  Condemned to fall      Were cornice, quoin, and cove,And all that art had wove in antique style.IIIAmong the hired dismantlers entered thereOne till the moment of his task untold.When charged therewith he gazed, and answered bold:      “Be needy I or no,I will not help lay low a house so fair!IV“Hunger is hard.  But since the terms be such —No wage, or labour stained with the disgraceOf wrecking what our age cannot replace      To save its tasteless soul —I’ll do without your dole.  Life is not much!”VDismissed with sneers he backed his tools and went,And wandered workless; for it seemed unwiseTo close with one who dared to criticize      And carp on points of taste:To work where they were placed rude men were meant.VIYears whiled.  He aged, sank, sickened, and was not:And it was said, “A man intractableAnd curst is gone.”  None sighed to hear his knell,      None sought his churchyard-place;His name, his rugged face, were soon forgot.VIIThe stones of that fair hall lie far and wide,And but a few recall its ancient mould;Yet when I pass the spot I long to hold      As truth what fancy saith:“His protest lives where deathless things abide!”

THE DAME OF ATHELHALL

I“Soul!  Shall I see thy face,” she said,   “In one brief hour?And away with thee from a loveless bedTo a far-off sun, to a vine-wrapt bower,And be thine own unseparated,   And challenge the world’s white glower?”IIShe quickened her feet, and met him where   They had predesigned:And they clasped, and mounted, and cleft the airUpon whirling wheels; till the will to bindHer life with his made the moments there   Efface the years behind.IIIMiles slid, and the sight of the port upgrew   As they sped on;When slipping its bond the bracelet flewFrom her fondled arm.  Replaced anon,Its cameo of the abjured one drew   Her musings thereupon.IVThe gaud with his image once had been   A gift from him:And so it was that its carving keenRefurbished memories wearing dim,Which set in her soul a throe of teen,   And a tear on her lashes’ brim.V“I may not go!” she at length upspake,   “Thoughts call me back —I would still lose all for your dear, dear sake;My heart is thine, friend!  But my trackI home to Athelhall must take   To hinder household wrack!”VIHe appealed.  But they parted, weak and wan:   And he left the shore;His ship diminished, was low, was gone;And she heard in the waves as the daytide wore,And read in the leer of the sun that shone,   That they parted for evermore.VIIShe homed as she came, at the dip of eve   On Athel CoombRegaining the Hall she had sworn to leave.The house was soundless as a tomb,And she entered her chamber, there to grieve   Lone, kneeling, in the gloom.VIIIFrom the lawn without rose her husband’s voice   To one his friend:“Another her Love, another my choice,Her going is good.  Our conditions mend;In a change of mates we shall both rejoice;   I hoped that it thus might end!IX“A quick divorce; she will make him hers,   And I wed mine.So Time rights all things in long, long years —Or rather she, by her bold design!I admire a woman no balk deters:   She has blessed my life, in fine.X“I shall build new rooms for my new true bride,   Let the bygone be:By now, no doubt, she has crossed the tideWith the man to her mind.  Far happier sheIn some warm vineland by his side   Than ever she was with me.”

THE SEASONS OF HER YEAR

IWinter is white on turf and tree,   And birds are fled;But summer songsters pipe to me,   And petals spread,For what I dreamt of secretly   His lips have said!IIO ’tis a fine May morn, they say,   And blooms have blown;But wild and wintry is my day,   My birds make moan;For he who vowed leaves me to pay   Alone – alone!

THE MILKMAID

   Under a daisied bankThere stands a rich red ruminating cow,   And hard against her flankA cotton-hooded milkmaid bends her brow.   The flowery river-oozeUpheaves and falls; the milk purrs in the pail;   Few pilgrims but would chooseThe peace of such a life in such a vale.   The maid breathes words – to vent,It seems, her sense of Nature’s scenery,   Of whose life, sentiment,And essence, very part itself is she.   She bends a glance of pain,And, at a moment, lets escape a tear;   Is it that passing train,Whose alien whirr offends her country ear? —   Nay!  Phyllis does not dwellOn visual and familiar things like these;   What moves her is the spellOf inner themes and inner poetries:   Could but by Sunday mornHer gay new gown come, meads might dry to dun,   Trains shriek till ears were torn,If Fred would not prefer that Other One.

THE LEVELLED CHURCHYARD

“O passenger, pray list and catch   Our sighs and piteous groans,Half stifled in this jumbled patch   Of wrenched memorial stones!“We late-lamented, resting here,   Are mixed to human jam,And each to each exclaims in fear,   ‘I know not which I am!’“The wicked people have annexed   The verses on the good;A roaring drunkard sports the text   Teetotal Tommy should!“Where we are huddled none can trace,   And if our names remain,They pave some path or p-ing place   Where we have never lain!“There’s not a modest maiden elf   But dreads the final Trumpet,Lest half of her should rise herself,   And half some local strumpet!“From restorations of Thy fane,   From smoothings of Thy sward,From zealous Churchmen’s pick and plane   Deliver us O Lord!  Amen!”1882.

THE RUINED MAID

“O ’Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?” —“O didn’t you know I’d been ruined?” said she.– “You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;And now you’ve gay bracelets and bright feathers three!” —“Yes: that’s how we dress when we’re ruined,” said she.– “At home in the barton you said ‘thee’ and ‘thou,’And ‘thik oon,’ and ‘theäs oon,’ and ‘t’other’; but nowYour talking quite fits ’ee for high compa-ny!” —“Some polish is gained with one’s ruin,” said she.– “Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak,But now I’m bewitched by your delicate cheek,And your little gloves fit as on any la-dy!” —“We never do work when we’re ruined,” said she.– “You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream,And you’d sigh, and you’d sock; but at present you seemTo know not of megrims or melancho-ly!” —“True.  There’s an advantage in ruin,” said she.– “I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown,And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!” —“My dear – a raw country girl, such as you be,Isn’t equal to that.  You ain’t ruined,” said she.Westbourne Park Villas, 1866.

THE RESPECTABLE BURGHER

ON “THE HIGHER CRITICISM”

Since Reverend Doctors now declareThat clerks and people must prepareTo doubt if Adam ever were;To hold the flood a local scare;To argue, though the stolid stare,That everything had happened ereThe prophets to its happening sware;That David was no giant-slayer,Nor one to call a God-obeyerIn certain details we could spare,But rather was a debonairShrewd bandit, skilled as banjo-player:That Solomon sang the fleshly Fair,And gave the Church no thought whate’er;That Esther with her royal wear,And Mordecai, the son of Jair,And Joshua’s triumphs, Job’s despair,And Balaam’s ass’s bitter blare;Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace-flare,And Daniel and the den affair,And other stories rich and rare,Were writ to make old doctrine wearSomething of a romantic air:That the Nain widow’s only heir,And Lazarus with cadaverous glare(As done in oils by Piombo’s care)Did not return from Sheol’s lair:That Jael set a fiendish snare,That Pontius Pilate acted square,That never a sword cut Malchus’ earAnd (but for shame I must forbear)That – did not reappear!.– Since thus they hint, nor turn a hair,All churchgoing will I forswear,And sit on Sundays in my chair,And read that moderate man Voltaire.

ARCHITECTURAL MASKS

IThere is a house with ivied walls,And mullioned windows worn and old,And the long dwellers in those hallsHave souls that know but sordid calls,   And daily dote on gold.IIIn blazing brick and plated showNot far away a “villa” gleams,And here a family few may know,With book and pencil, viol and bow,   Lead inner lives of dreams.IIIThe philosophic passers say,“See that old mansion mossed and fair,Poetic souls therein are they:And O that gaudy box!  Away,   You vulgar people there.”

THE TENANT-FOR-LIFE

The sun said, watching my watering-pot   “Some morn you’ll pass away;These flowers and plants I parch up hot —   Who’ll water them that day?“Those banks and beds whose shape your eye   Has planned in line so true,New hands will change, unreasoning why   Such shape seemed best to you.“Within your house will strangers sit,   And wonder how first it came;They’ll talk of their schemes for improving it,   And will not mention your name.“They’ll care not how, or when, or at what   You sighed, laughed, suffered here,Though you feel more in an hour of the spot   Than they will feel in a year“As I look on at you here, now,   Shall I look on at these;But as to our old times, avow   No knowledge – hold my peace!.“O friend, it matters not, I say;   Bethink ye, I have shinedOn nobler ones than you, and they   Are dead men out of mind!”