Time's Laughingstocks, and Other Verses

THE MAN HE KILLED

   “Had he and I but met   By some old ancient inn,We should have sat us down to wet   Right many a nipperkin!   “But ranged as infantry,   And staring face to face,I shot at him as he at me,   And killed him in his place.   “I shot him dead because —   Because he was my foe,Just so: my foe of course he was;   That’s clear enough; although   “He thought he’d ’list, perhaps,   Off-hand like – just as I —Was out of work – had sold his traps —   No other reason why.   “Yes; quaint and curious war is!   You shoot a fellow downYou’d treat if met where any bar is,   Or help to half-a-crown.”1902.

GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE

(A Memory of Christiana C – )

Where Blackmoor was, the road that led   To Bath, she could not show,Nor point the sky that overspread   Towns ten miles off or so.But that Calcutta stood this way,   Cape Horn there figured fell,That here was Boston, here Bombay,   She could declare full well.Less known to her the track athwart   Froom Mead or Yell’ham WoodThan how to make some Austral port   In seas of surly mood.She saw the glint of Guinea’s shore   Behind the plum-tree nigh,Heard old unruly Biscay’s roar   In the weir’s purl hard by.“My son’s a sailor, and he knows   All seas and many lands,And when he’s home he points and shows   Each country where it stands.“He’s now just there – by Gib’s high rock —   And when he gets, you see,To Portsmouth here, behind the clock,   Then he’ll come back to me!”

ONE RALPH BLOSSOM SOLILOQUIZES

(“It being deposed that vij women who were mayds before he knew them have been brought upon the towne [rates?] by the fornicacions of one Ralph Blossom, Mr Major inquired why he should not contribute xiv pence weekly toward their mayntenance. But it being shewn that the sayd R. B. was dying of a purple feaver, no order was made.” —Budmouth Borough Minutes: 16–.)

When I am in hell or some such place,A-groaning over my sorry case,What will those seven women say to meWho, when I coaxed them, answered “Aye” to me?“I did not understand your sign!”Will be the words of Caroline;While Jane will cry, “If I’d had proof of you,I should have learnt to hold aloof of you!”“I won’t reproach: it was to be!”Will dryly murmur Cicely;And Rosa: “I feel no hostility,For I must own I lent facility.”Lizzy says: “Sharp was my regret,And sometimes it is now!  But yetI joy that, though it brought notoriousness,I knew Love once and all its gloriousness!”Says Patience: “Why are we apart?Small harm did you, my poor Sweet Heart!A manchild born, now tall and beautiful,Was worth the ache of days undutiful.”And Anne cries: “O the time was fair,So wherefore should you burn down there?There is a deed under the sun, my Love,And that was ours.  What’s done is done, my Love.These trumpets here in Heaven are dumb to meWith you away.  Dear, come, O come to me!”

THE NOBLE LADY’S TALE

(circa 1790)

I   “We moved with pensive paces,      I and he,   And bent our faded faces      Wistfully,For something troubled him, and troubled me.   “The lanthorn feebly lightened      Our grey hall,   Where ancient brands had brightened      Hearth and wall,And shapes long vanished whither vanish all.   “‘O why, Love, nightly, daily,’      I had said,   ‘Dost sigh, and smile so palely,      As if shedWere all Life’s blossoms, all its dear things dead?’   “‘Since silence sets thee grieving,’      He replied,   ‘And I abhor deceiving      One so tried,Why, Love, I’ll speak, ere time us twain divide.’   “He held me, I remember,      Just as when   Our life was June – (September      It was then);And we walked on, until he spoke again.   “‘Susie, an Irish mummer,      Loud-acclaimed   Through the gay London summer,      Was I; namedA master in my art, who would be famed.   “‘But lo, there beamed before me      Lady Su;   God’s altar-vow she swore me      When none knew,And for her sake I bade the sock adieu.   “‘My Lord your father’s pardon      Thus I won:   He let his heart unharden      Towards his son,And honourably condoned what we had done;   “‘But said – recall you, dearest? —      As for Su,   I’d see her – ay, though nearest      Me unto—Sooner entombed than in a stage purlieu!   “‘Just so. – And here he housed us,      In this nook,   Where Love like balm has drowsed us:      Robin, rook,Our chief familiars, next to string and book.   “‘Our days here, peace-enshrouded,      Followed strange   The old stage-joyance, crowded,      Rich in range;But never did my soul desire a change,   “‘Till now, when far uncertain      Lips of yore   Call, call me to the curtain,      There once more,But once, to tread the boards I trod before.   “‘A night – the last and single      Ere I die —   To face the lights, to mingle      As did IOnce in the game, and rivet every eye!’   “Such was his wish.  He feared it,      Feared it though   Rare memories endeared it.      I, also,Feared it still more; its outcome who could know?   “‘Alas, my Love,’ said I then,      ‘Since it be   A wish so mastering, why, then,      E’en go ye! —Despite your pledge to father and to me.. ’   “’Twas fixed; no more was spoken      Thereupon;   Our silences were broken      Only onThe petty items of his needs were gone.   “Farewell he bade me, pleading      That it meant   So little, thus conceding      To his bent;And then, as one constrained to go, he went.   “Thwart thoughts I let deride me,      As, ’twere vain   To hope him back beside me      Ever again:Could one plunge make a waxing passion wane?   “I thought, ‘Some wild stage-woman,      Honour-wrecked.. ’   But no: it was inhuman      To suspect;Though little cheer could my lone heart affect!II   “Yet came it, to my gladness,      That, as vowed,   He did return. – But sadness      Swiftly cowedThe job with which my greeting was endowed.   “Some woe was there.  Estrangement      Marked his mind.   Each welcome-warm arrangement      I had designedTouched him no more than deeds of careless kind.   “‘I —failed!’ escaped him glumly.      ‘ – I went on   In my old part.  But dumbly —      Memory gone —Advancing, I sank sick; my vision drawn   “‘To something drear, distressing      As the knell   Of all hopes worth possessing!’.      – What befellSeemed linked with me, but how I could not tell.   “Hours passed; till I implored him,      As he knew   How faith and frankness toward him      Ruled me through,To say what ill I had done, and could undo.   “‘Faith – frankness.  Ah!  Heaven save such!’      Murmured he,   ‘They are wedded wealth!  I gave such      Liberally,But you, Dear, not.  For you suspected me.’   “I was about beseeching      In hurt haste   More meaning, when he, reaching      To my waist,Led me to pace the hall as once we paced.   “‘I never meant to draw you      To own all,’   Declared he.  ‘But – I saw you —      By the wall,Half-hid.  And that was why I failed withal!’   “‘Where? when?’ said I – ‘Why, nigh me,      At the play   That night.  That you should spy me,      Doubt my fay,And follow, furtive, took my heart away!’   “That I had never been there,      But had gone   To my locked room – unseen there,      Curtains drawn,Long days abiding – told I, wonder-wan.   “‘Nay, ’twas your form and vesture,      Cloak and gown,   Your hooded features – gesture      Half in frown,That faced me, pale,’ he urged, ‘that night in town.   “‘And when, outside, I handed      To her chair   (As courtesy demanded      Of me there)The leading lady, you peeped from the stair.   “Straight pleaded I: ‘Forsooth, Love,      Had I gone,   I must have been in truth, Love,      Mad to donSuch well-known raiment.’  But he still went on   “That he was not mistaken      Nor misled. —   I felt like one forsaken,      Wished me dead,That he could think thus of the wife he had wed!   “His going seemed to waste him      Like a curse,   To wreck what once had graced him;      And, averseTo my approach, he mused, and moped, and worse.   “Till, what no words effected      Thought achieved:   It was my wraith– projected,      He conceived,Thither, by my tense brain at home aggrieved.   “Thereon his credence centred      Till he died;   And, no more tempted, entered      Sanctified,The little vault with room for one beside.”   “Thwart thoughts I let deride me,      As, ’twere vain   To hope him back beside me      Ever again:Could one plunge make a waxing passion wane?   “Thwart thoughts I let deride me,      As, ’twere vain   To hope him back beside me      Ever again:Could one plunge make a waxing passion wane?   “Thwart thoughts I let deride me,      As, ’twere vain   To hope him back beside me      Ever again:Could one plunge make a waxing passion wane?III   Thus far the lady’s story. —      Now she, too,   Reclines within that hoary      Last dark mewIn Mellstock Quire with him she loved so true.   A yellowing marble, placed there      Tablet-wise,   And two joined hearts enchased there      Meet the eyes;And reading their twin names we moralize:   Did she, we wonder, follow      Jealously?   And were those protests hollow? —      Or saw heSome semblant dame?  Or can wraiths really be?   Were it she went, her honour,      All may hold,   Pressed truth at last upon her      Till she told —(Him only – others as these lines unfold.)   Riddle death-sealed for ever,      Let it rest!.   One’s heart could blame her never      If one guessedThat go she did.  She knew her actor best.   “Farewell he bade me, pleading      That it meant   So little, thus conceding      To his bent;And then, as one constrained to go, he went.   “Farewell he bade me, pleading      That it meant   So little, thus conceding      To his bent;And then, as one constrained to go, he went.   “Farewell he bade me, pleading      That it meant   So little, thus conceding      To his bent;And then, as one constrained to go, he went.

UNREALIZED

Down comes the winter rain —   Spoils my hat and bow —Runs into the poll of me;   But mother won’t know.We’ve been out and caught a cold,   Knee-deep in snow;Such a lucky thing it is   That mother won’t know!Rosy lost herself last night —   Couldn’t tell where to go.Yes – it rather frightened her,   But mother didn’t know.Somebody made Willy drunk   At the Christmas show:O ’twas fun!  It’s well for him   That mother won’t know!Howsoever wild we are,   Late at school or slow,Mother won’t be cross with us,   Mother won’t know.How we cried the day she died!   Neighbours whispering low.But we now do what we will —   Mother won’t know.

WAGTAIL AND BABY

A baby watched a ford, whereto   A wagtail came for drinking;A blaring bull went wading through,   The wagtail showed no shrinking.A stallion splashed his way across,   The birdie nearly sinking;He gave his plumes a twitch and toss,   And held his own unblinking.Next saw the baby round the spot   A mongrel slowly slinking;The wagtail gazed, but faltered not   In dip and sip and prinking.A perfect gentleman then neared;   The wagtail, in a winking,With terror rose and disappeared;   The baby fell a-thinking.

ABERDEEN

(April: 1905)

“And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times.” – Isaiah xxxiii. 6.

I looked and thought, “All is too gray and coldTo wake my place-enthusiasms of old!”Till a voice passed: “Behind that granite mienLurks the imposing beauty of a Queen.”I looked anew; and saw the radiant formOf Her who soothes in stress, who steers in storm,On the grave influence of whose eyes sublimeMen count for the stability of the time.

GEORGE MEREDITH

1828–1909

Forty years back, when much had placeThat since has perished out of mind,I heard that voice and saw that face.He spoke as one afoot will windA morning horn ere men awake;His note was trenchant, turning kind.He was of those whose wit can shakeAnd riddle to the very coreThe counterfeits that Time will break.Of late, when we two met once more,The luminous countenance and rareShone just as forty years before.So that, when now all tongues declareHis shape unseen by his green hill,I scarce believe he sits not there.No matter.  Further and further stillThrough the world’s vaporous vitiate airHis words wing on – as live words will. May 1909.

YELL’HAM-WOOD’S STORY

Coomb-Firtrees say that Life is a moan,   And Clyffe-hill Clump says “Yea!”But Yell’ham says a thing of its own:      It’s not “Gray, gray      Is Life alway!”      That Yell’ham says,   Nor that Life is for ends unknown.It says that Life would signify   A thwarted purposing:That we come to live, and are called to die,      Yes, that’s the thing      In fall, in spring,      That Yell’ham says: —   “Life offers – to deny!”1902.

A YOUNG MAN’S EPIGRAM ON EXISTENCE

A senseless school, where we must giveOur lives that we may learn to live!A dolt is he who memorizesLessons that leave no time for prizes.16 W. P. V., 1866.