Time's Laughingstocks, and Other Verses

THE REJECTED MEMBER’S WIFE

We shall see her no more   On the balcony,Smiling, while hurt, at the roar   As of surging seaFrom the stormy sturdy band   Who have doomed her lord’s cause,Though she waves her little hand   As it were applause.Here will be candidates yet,   And candidates’ wives,Fervid with zeal to set   Their ideals on our lives:Here will come market-men   On the market-days,Here will clash now and then   More such party assays.And the balcony will fill   When such times are renewed,And the throng in the street will thrill   With to-day’s mettled mood;But she will no more stand   In the sunshine there,With that wave of her white-gloved hand,   And that chestnut hair.January 1906.

THE FARM-WOMAN’S WINTER

IIf seasons all were summers,   And leaves would never fall,And hopping casement-comers   Were foodless not at all,And fragile folk might be here   That white winds bid depart;Then one I used to see here   Would warm my wasted heart!IIOne frail, who, bravely tilling   Long hours in gripping gusts,Was mastered by their chilling,   And now his ploughshare rusts.So savage winter catches   The breath of limber things,And what I love he snatches,   And what I love not, brings.

AUTUMN IN KING’S HINTOCK PARK

Here by the baring bough   Raking up leaves,Often I ponder how   Springtime deceives, —I, an old woman now,   Raking up leaves.Here in the avenue   Raking up leaves,Lords’ ladies pass in view,   Until one heavesSighs at life’s russet hue,   Raking up leaves!Just as my shape you see   Raking up leaves,I saw, when fresh and free,   Those memory weavesInto grey ghosts by me,   Raking up leaves.Yet, Dear, though one may sigh,   Raking up leaves,New leaves will dance on high —   Earth never grieves! —Will not, when missed am I   Raking up leaves.1901.

SHUT OUT THAT MOON

Close up the casement, draw the blind,   Shut out that stealing moon,She wears too much the guise she wore   Before our lutes were strewnWith years-deep dust, and names we read   On a white stone were hewn.Step not out on the dew-dashed lawn   To view the Lady’s Chair,Immense Orion’s glittering form,   The Less and Greater Bear:Stay in; to such sights we were drawn   When faded ones were fair.Brush not the bough for midnight scents   That come forth lingeringly,And wake the same sweet sentiments   They breathed to you and meWhen living seemed a laugh, and love   All it was said to be.Within the common lamp-lit room   Prison my eyes and thought;Let dingy details crudely loom,   Mechanic speech be wrought:Too fragrant was Life’s early bloom,   Too tart the fruit it brought!1904.

REMINISCENCES OF A DANCING MAN

IWho now remembers Almack’s balls —   Willis’s sometime named —In those two smooth-floored upper halls   For faded ones so famed?Where as we trod to trilling soundThe fancied phantoms stood around,   Or joined us in the maze,Of the powdered Dears from Georgian years,Whose dust lay in sightless sealed-up biers,   The fairest of former days.IIWho now remembers gay Cremorne,   And all its jaunty jills,And those wild whirling figures born   Of Jullien’s grand quadrilles?With hats on head and morning coatsThere footed to his prancing notes   Our partner-girls and we;And the gas-jets winked, and the lustres clinked,And the platform throbbed as with arms enlinked   We moved to the minstrelsy.IIIWho now recalls those crowded rooms   Of old yclept “The Argyle,”Where to the deep Drum-polka’s booms   We hopped in standard style?Whither have danced those damsels now!Is Death the partner who doth moue   Their wormy chaps and bare?Do their spectres spin like sparks withinThe smoky halls of the Prince of Sin   To a thunderous Jullien air?

THE DEAD MAN WALKING

They hail me as one living,   But don’t they knowThat I have died of late years,   Untombed although?I am but a shape that stands here,   A pulseless mould,A pale past picture, screening   Ashes gone cold.Not at a minute’s warning,   Not in a loud hour,For me ceased Time’s enchantments   In hall and bower.There was no tragic transit,   No catch of breath,When silent seasons inched me   On to this death.– A Troubadour-youth I rambled   With Life for lyre,The beats of being raging   In me like fire.But when I practised eyeing   The goal of men,It iced me, and I perished   A little then.When passed my friend, my kinsfolk   Through the Last Door,And left me standing bleakly,   I died yet more;And when my Love’s heart kindled   In hate of me,Wherefore I knew not, died I   One more degree.And if when I died fully   I cannot say,And changed into the corpse-thing   I am to-day;Yet is it that, though whiling   The time somehowIn walking, talking, smiling,   I live not now.

MORE LOVE LYRICS

1967

In five-score summers!  All new eyes,New minds, new modes, new fools, new wise;New woes to weep, new joys to prize;With nothing left of me and youIn that live century’s vivid viewBeyond a pinch of dust or two;A century which, if not sublime,Will show, I doubt not, at its prime,A scope above this blinkered time.– Yet what to me how far above?For I would only ask thereofThat thy worm should be my worm, Love!16 Westbourne Park Villas, 1867.

HER DEFINITION

I lingered through the night to break of day,Nor once did sleep extend a wing to me,Intently busied with a vast arrayOf epithets that should outfigure thee.Full-featured terms – all fitless – hastened by,And this sole speech remained: “That maiden mine!” —Debarred from due description then did IPerceive the indefinite phrase could yet define.As common chests encasing wares of priceAre borne with tenderness through halls of state,For what they cover, so the poor deviceOf homely wording I could tolerate,Knowing its unadornment held as freightThe sweetest image outside Paradise.W. P. V.,Summer: 1866.

THE DIVISION

Rain on the windows, creaking doors,   With blasts that besom the green,And I am here, and you are there,   And a hundred miles between!O were it but the weather, Dear,   O were it but the milesThat summed up all our severance,   There might be room for smiles.But that thwart thing betwixt us twain,   Which nothing cleaves or clears,Is more than distance, Dear, or rain,   And longer than the years!1893.

ON THE DEPARTURE PLATFORM

We kissed at the barrier; and passing throughShe left me, and moment by moment gotSmaller and smaller, until to my view   She was but a spot;A wee white spot of muslin fluffThat down the diminishing platform boreThrough hustling crowds of gentle and rough   To the carriage door.Under the lamplight’s fitful glowers,Behind dark groups from far and near,Whose interests were apart from ours,   She would disappear,Then show again, till I ceased to seeThat flexible form, that nebulous white;And she who was more than my life to me   Had vanished quite.We have penned new plans since that fair fond day,And in season she will appear again —Perhaps in the same soft white array —   But never as then!– “And why, young man, must eternally flyA joy you’ll repeat, if you love her well?”– O friend, nought happens twice thus; why,   I cannot tell!

IN A CATHEDRAL CITY

These people have not heard your name;No loungers in this placid placeHave helped to bruit your beauty’s fame.The grey Cathedral, towards whose faceBend eyes untold, has met not yours;Your shade has never swept its base,Your form has never darked its doors,Nor have your faultless feet once thrownA pensive pit-pat on its floors.Along the street to maids well knownBlithe lovers hum their tender airs,But in your praise voice not a tone.– Since nought bespeaks you here, or bears,As I, your imprint through and through,Here might I rest, till my heart sharesThe spot’s unconsciousness of you!Salisbury.

“I SAY I’LL SEEK HER”

I say, “I’ll seek her side   Ere hindrance interposes;”   But eve in midnight closes,And here I still abide.When darkness wears I see   Her sad eyes in a vision;   They ask, “What indecisionDetains you, Love, from me? —“The creaking hinge is oiled,   I have unbarred the backway,   But you tread not the trackway;And shall the thing be spoiled?“Far cockcrows echo shrill,   The shadows are abating,   And I am waiting, waiting;But O, you tarry still!”

HER FATHER

I met her, as we had privily planned,Where passing feet beat busily:She whispered: “Father is at hand!   He wished to walk with me.”His presence as he joined us thereBanished our words of warmth away;We felt, with cloudings of despair,   What Love must lose that day.Her crimson lips remained unkissed,Our fingers kept no tender hold,His lack of feeling made the tryst   Embarrassed, stiff, and cold.A cynic ghost then rose and said,“But is his love for her so smallThat, nigh to yours, it may be read   As of no worth at all?“You love her for her pink and white;But what when their fresh splendours close?His love will last her in despite   Of Time, and wrack, and foes.”Weymouth.

AT WAKING

   When night was lifting,And dawn had crept under its shade,   Amid cold clouds driftingDead-white as a corpse outlaid,      With a sudden scare      I seemed to behold      My Love in bare      Hard lines unfold.   Yea, in a moment,An insight that would not die   Killed her old endowmentOf charm that had capped all nigh,      Which vanished to none      Like the gilt of a cloud,      And showed her but one      Of the common crowd.   She seemed but a sampleOf earth’s poor average kind,   Lit up by no ampleEnrichments of mien or mind.      I covered my eyes      As to cover the thought,      And unrecognize      What the morn had taught.   O vision appallingWhen the one believed-in thing   Is seen falling, falling,With all to which hope can cling.      Off: it is not true;      For it cannot be      That the prize I drew      Is a blank to me!Weymouth, 1869.

FOUR FOOTPRINTS

Here are the tracks upon the sandWhere stood last evening she and I —Pressed heart to heart and hand to hand;The morning sun has baked them dry.I kissed her wet face – wet with rain,For arid grief had burnt up tears,While reached us as in sleeping painThe distant gurgling of the weirs.“I have married him – yes; feel that ring;’Tis a week ago that he put it on.A dutiful daughter does this thing,And resignation succeeds anon!“But that I body and soul was yoursEre he’d possession, he’ll never know.He’s a confident man.  ‘The husband scores,’He says, ‘in the long run’.. Now, Dear, go!”I went.  And to-day I pass the spot;It is only a smart the more to endure;And she whom I held is as though she were not,For they have resumed their honeymoon tour.

IN THE VAULTED WAY

In the vaulted way, where the passage turnedTo the shadowy corner that none could see,You paused for our parting, – plaintively;Though overnight had come words that burnedMy fond frail happiness out of me.And then I kissed you, – despite my thoughtThat our spell must end when reflection cameOn what you had deemed me, whose one long aimHad been to serve you; that what I soughtLay not in a heart that could breathe such blame.But yet I kissed you; whereon you againAs of old kissed me.  Why, why was it so?Do you cleave to me after that light-tongued blow?If you scorned me at eventide, how love then?The thing is dark, Dear.  I do not know.

IN THE MIND’S EYE

That was once her casement,   And the taper nigh,Shining from within there,   Beckoned, “Here am I!”Now, as then, I see her   Moving at the pane;Ah; ’tis but her phantom   Borne within my brain! —Foremost in my vision   Everywhere goes she;Change dissolves the landscapes,   She abides with me.Shape so sweet and shy, Dear,   Who can say thee nay?Never once do I, Dear,   Wish thy ghost away.

THE END OF THE EPISODE

   Indulge no more may weIn this sweet-bitter pastime:The love-light shines the last time   Between you, Dear, and me.   There shall remain no traceOf what so closely tied us,And blank as ere love eyed us   Will be our meeting-place.   The flowers and thymy air,Will they now miss our coming?The dumbles thin their humming   To find we haunt not there?   Though fervent was our vow,Though ruddily ran our pleasure,Bliss has fulfilled its measure,   And sees its sentence now.   Ache deep; but make no moans:Smile out; but stilly suffer:The paths of love are rougher   Than thoroughfares of stones.

THE SIGH

Little head against my shoulder,Shy at first, then somewhat bolder,   And up-eyed;Till she, with a timid quaver,Yielded to the kiss I gave her;   But, she sighed.That there mingled with her feelingSome sad thought she was concealing   It implied.– Not that she had ceased to love me,None on earth she set above me;   But she sighed.She could not disguise a passion,Dread, or doubt, in weakest fashion   If she tried:Nothing seemed to hold us sundered,Hearts were victors; so I wondered   Why she sighed.Afterwards I knew her throughly,And she loved me staunchly, truly,   Till she died;But she never made confessionWhy, at that first sweet concession,   She had sighed.It was in our May, remember;And though now I near November,   And abideTill my appointed change, unfretting,Sometimes I sit half regretting   That she sighed.

“IN THE NIGHT SHE CAME”

I told her when I left one dayThat whatsoever weight of careMight strain our love, Time’s mere assault   Would work no changes there.And in the night she came to me,   Toothless, and wan, and old,With leaden concaves round her eyes,   And wrinkles manifold.I tremblingly exclaimed to her,“O wherefore do you ghost me thus!I have said that dull defacing Time   Will bring no dreads to us.”“And is that true of you?” she cried   In voice of troubled tune.I faltered: “Well.. I did not think   You would test me quite so soon!”She vanished with a curious smile,Which told me, plainlier than by word,That my staunch pledge could scarce beguile   The fear she had averred.Her doubts then wrought their shape in me,   And when next day I paidMy due caress, we seemed to be   Divided by some shade.

THE CONFORMERS

   Yes; we’ll wed, my little fay,   And you shall write you mine,And in a villa chastely gray   We’ll house, and sleep, and dine.   But those night-screened, divine,   Stolen trysts of heretofore,We of choice ecstasies and fine      Shall know no more.   The formal faced cohue   Will then no more upbraidWith smiting smiles and whisperings two   Who have thrown less loves in shade.   We shall no more evade   The searching light of the sun,Our game of passion will be played,      Our dreaming done.   We shall not go in stealth   To rendezvous unknown,But friends will ask me of your health,   And you about my own.   When we abide alone,   No leapings each to each,But syllables in frigid tone      Of household speech.   When down to dust we glide   Men will not say askance,As now: “How all the country side   Rings with their mad romance!”   But as they graveward glance   Remark: “In them we loseA worthy pair, who helped advance      Sound parish views.”

THE DAWN AFTER THE DANCE

Here is your parents’ dwelling with its curtained windows tellingOf no thought of us within it or of our arrival here;Their slumbers have been normal after one day more of formalMatrimonial commonplace and household life’s mechanic gear.I would be candid willingly, but dawn draws on so chillinglyAs to render further cheerlessness intolerable now,So I will not stand endeavouring to declare a day for severing,But will clasp you just as always – just the olden love avow.Through serene and surly weather we have walked the ways together,And this long night’s dance this year’s end eve now finishes the spell;Yet we dreamt us but beginning a sweet sempiternal spinningOf a cord we have spun to breaking – too intemperately, too well.Yes; last night we danced I know, Dear, as we did that year ago, Dear,When a new strange bond between our days was formed, and felt, and heard;Would that dancing were the worst thing from the latest to the first thingThat the faded year can charge us with; but what avails a word!That which makes man’s love the lighter and the woman’s burn no brighterCame to pass with us inevitably while slipped the shortening year.And there stands your father’s dwelling with its blind bleak windows tellingThat the vows of man and maid are frail as filmy gossamere.Weymouth, 1869.

THE SUN ON THE LETTER

I drew the letter out, while gleamedThe sloping sun from under a roofOf cloud whose verge rose visibly.The burning ball flung rays that seemedStretched like a warp without a woofAcross the levels of the leaTo where I stood, and where they beamedAs brightly on the page of proofThat she had shown her false to meAs if it had shown her true – had teemedWith passionate thought for my behoofExpressed with their own ardency!

THE NIGHT OF THE DANCE

The cold moon hangs to the sky by its horn,   And centres its gaze on me;The stars, like eyes in reverie,Their westering as for a while forborne,   Quiz downward curiously.Old Robert draws the backbrand in,   The green logs steam and spit;The half-awakened sparrows flitFrom the riddled thatch; and owls begin   To whoo from the gable-slit.Yes; far and nigh things seem to know   Sweet scenes are impending here;That all is prepared; that the hour is nearFor welcomes, fellowships, and flow   Of sally, song, and cheer;That spigots are pulled and viols strung;   That soon will arise the soundOf measures trod to tunes renowned;That She will return in Love’s low tongue   My vows as we wheel around.

MISCONCEPTION

I busied myself to find a sure      Snug hermitageThat should preserve my Love secure      From the world’s rage;Where no unseemly saturnals,   Or strident traffic-roars,Or hum of intervolved cabals   Should echo at her doors.I laboured that the diurnal spin      Of vanitiesShould not contrive to suck her in      By dark degrees,And cunningly operate to blur   Sweet teachings I had begun;And then I went full-heart to her   To expound the glad deeds done.She looked at me, and said thereto      With a pitying smile,“And this is what has busied you      So long a while?O poor exhausted one, I see   You have worn you old and thinFor naught!  Those moils you fear for me   I find most pleasure in!”

THE VOICE OF THE THORN

IWhen the thorn on the downQuivers naked and cold,And the mid-aged and oldPace the path there to town,In these words dry and drearIt seems to them sighing:“O winter is tryingTo sojourners here!”IIWhen it stands fully tressedOn a hot summer day,And the ewes there astrayFind its shade a sweet rest,By the breath of the breezeIt inquires of each farer:“Who would not be sharerOf shadow with these?”IIIBut by day or by night,And in winter or summer,Should I be the comerAlong that lone height,In its voicing to meOnly one speech is spoken:“Here once was nigh brokenA heart, and by thee.”

FROM HER IN THE COUNTRY

I thought and thought of thy crass clanging townTo folly, till convinced such dreams were ill,I held my heart in bond, and tethered downFancy to where I was, by force of will.I said: How beautiful are these flowers, this wood,One little bud is far more sweet to meThan all man’s urban shows; and then I stoodUrging new zest for bird, and bush, and tree;And strove to feel my nature brought it forthOf instinct, or no rural maid was I;But it was vain; for I could not see worthEnough around to charm a midge or fly,And mused again on city din and sin,Longing to madness I might move therein!16 W. P. V., 1866.

HER CONFESSION

As some bland soul, to whom a debtor says“I’ll now repay the amount I owe to you,”In inward gladness feigns forgetfulnessThat such a payment ever was his due(His long thought notwithstanding), so did IAt our last meeting waive your proffered kissWith quick divergent talk of scenery nigh,By such suspension to enhance my bliss.And as his looks in consternation fallWhen, gathering that the debt is lightly deemed,The debtor makes as not to pay at all,So faltered I, when your intention seemedConverted by my false uneagernessTo putting off for ever the caress.W. P. V., 1865–67.

TO AN IMPERSONATOR OF ROSALIND

Did he who drew her in the years ago —Till now conceived creator of her grace —With telescopic sight high natures know,Discern remote in Time’s untravelled spaceYour soft sweet mien, your gestures, as do we,And with a copyist’s hand but set them down,Glowing yet more to dream our ecstasyWhen his Original should be forthshown?For, kindled by that animated eye,Whereto all fairnesses about thee brim,And by thy tender tones, what wight can flyThe wild conviction welling up in himThat he at length beholds woo, parley, plead,The “very, very Rosalind” indeed!8 Adelphi Terrace, 21st April 1867.

TO AN ACTRESS

I read your name when you were strange to me,Where it stood blazoned bold with many more;I passed it vacantly, and did not seeAny great glory in the shape it wore.O cruelty, the insight barred me then!Why did I not possess me with its sound,And in its cadence catch and catch againYour nature’s essence floating therearound?Could that man be this I, unknowing you,When now the knowing you is all of me,And the old world of then is now a new,And purpose no more what it used to be —A thing of formal journeywork, but dueTo springs that then were sealed up utterly?1867.

THE MINUTE BEFORE MEETING

The grey gaunt days dividing us in twainSeemed hopeless hills my strength must faint to climb,But they are gone; and now I would detainThe few clock-beats that part us; rein back Time,And live in close expectance never closedIn change for far expectance closed at last,So harshly has expectance been imposedOn my long need while these slow blank months passed.And knowing that what is now about to beWill all have been in O, so short a space!I read beyond it my despondencyWhen more dividing months shall take its place,Thereby denying to this hour of graceA full-up measure of felicity.1871.

HE ABJURES LOVE

At last I put off love,   For twice ten yearsThe daysman of my thought,   And hope, and doing;Being ashamed thereof,   And faint of fearsAnd desolations, wroughtIn his pursuing,Since first in youthtime those   DisquietingsThat heart-enslavement brings   To hale and hoary,Became my housefellows,   And, fool and blind,I turned from kith and kind   To give him glory.I was as children be   Who have no care;I did not shrink or sigh,   I did not sicken;But lo, Love beckoned me,   And I was bare,And poor, and starved, and dry,   And fever-stricken.Too many times ablaze   With fatuous fires,Enkindled by his wiles   To new embraces,Did I, by wilful ways   And baseless ires,Return the anxious smiles   Of friendly faces.No more will now rate I   The common rare,The midnight drizzle dew,   The gray hour golden,The wind a yearning cry,   The faulty fair,Things dreamt, of comelier hue   Than things beholden!.– I speak as one who plumbs   Life’s dim profound,One who at length can sound   Clear views and certain.But – after love what comes?   A scene that lours,A few sad vacant hours,   And then, the Curtain.1883.

A SET OF COUNTRY SONGS

LET ME ENJOY

(MINOR KEY)ILet me enjoy the earth no lessBecause the all-enacting MightThat fashioned forth its lovelinessHad other aims than my delight.IIAbout my path there flits a Fair,Who throws me not a word or sign;I’ll charm me with her ignoring air,And laud the lips not meant for mine.IIIFrom manuscripts of moving songInspired by scenes and dreams unknownI’ll pour out raptures that belongTo others, as they were my own.IVAnd some day hence, towards Paradise,And all its blest – if such should be —I will lift glad, afar-off eyes,Though it contain no place for me.

AT CASTERBRIDGE FAIR

IThe Ballad-SingerSing, Ballad-singer, raise a hearty tune;Make me forget that there was ever a oneI walked with in the meek light of the moon   When the day’s work was done.Rhyme, Ballad-rhymer, start a country song;Make me forget that she whom I loved wellSwore she would love me dearly, love me long,   Then – what I cannot tell!Sing, Ballad-singer, from your little book;Make me forget those heart-breaks, achings, fears;Make me forget her name, her sweet sweet look —   Make me forget her tears.IIFormer BeautiesThese market-dames, mid-aged, with lips thin-drawn,   And tissues sere,Are they the ones we loved in years agone,   And courted here?Are these the muslined pink young things to whom   We vowed and sworeIn nooks on summer Sundays by the Froom,   Or Budmouth shore?Do they remember those gay tunes we trod   Clasped on the green;Aye; trod till moonlight set on the beaten sod   A satin sheen?They must forget, forget!  They cannot know   What once they were,Or memory would transfigure them, and show   Them always fair.IIIAfter the Club-DanceBlack’on frowns east on Maidon,   And westward to the sea,But on neither is his frown laden   With scorn, as his frown on me!At dawn my heart grew heavy,   I could not sip the wine,I left the jocund bevy   And that young man o’ mine.The roadside elms pass by me, —   Why do I sink with shameWhen the birds a-perch there eye me?   They, too, have done the same!IVThe Market-GirlNobody took any notice of her as she stood on the causey kerb,All eager to sell her honey and apples and bunches of garden herb;And if she had offered to give her wares and herself with them too that day,I doubt if a soul would have cared to take a bargain so choice away.But chancing to trace her sunburnt grace that morning as I passed nigh,I went and I said “Poor maidy dear! – and will none of the people buy?”And so it began; and soon we knew what the end of it all must be,And I found that though no others had bid, a prize had been won by me.VThe InquiryAnd are ye one of Hermitage —Of Hermitage, by Ivel Road,And do ye know, in HermitageA thatch-roofed house where sengreens grow?And does John Waywood live there still —He of the name that there abodeWhen father hurdled on the hill   Some fifteen years ago?Does he now speak o’ Patty Beech,The Patty Beech he used to – see,Or ask at all if Patty BeechIs known or heard of out this way?– Ask ever if she’s living yet,And where her present home may be,And how she bears life’s fag and fret   After so long a day?In years agone at HermitageThis faded face was counted fair,None fairer; and at HermitageWe swore to wed when he should thrive.But never a chance had he or I,And waiting made his wish outwear,And Time, that dooms man’s love to die,   Preserves a maid’s alive.VIA Wife WaitsWill’s at the dance in the Club-room below,   Where the tall liquor-cups foam;I on the pavement up here by the Bow,   Wait, wait, to steady him home.Will and his partner are treading a tune,   Loving companions they be;Willy, before we were married in June,   Said he loved no one but me;Said he would let his old pleasures all go   Ever to live with his Dear.Will’s at the dance in the Club-room below,   Shivering I wait for him here.

Note. – “The Bow” (line 3). The old name for the curved corner by the cross-streets in the middle of Casterbridge.