Wessex Poems and Other Verses

THE PEASANT’S CONFESSION

“Si le maréchal Grouchy avait été rejoint par l’officier que Napoléon lui avait expédié la veille à dix heures du soir, toute question eût disparu. Mais cet officier n’était point parvenu à sa destination, ainsi que le maréchal n’a cessé de l’affirmer toute sa vie, et il faut l’en croire, car autrement il n’aurait eu aucune raison pour hésiter. Cet officier avait-il été pris? avait-il passé à l’ennemi? C’est ce qu’on a toujours ignoré.”

– Thiers: Histoire de l’Empire. “Waterloo.”Good Father!.. ’Twas an eve in middle June,And war was waged anewBy great Napoleon, who for years had strewnMen’s bones all Europe through.Three nights ere this, with columned corps he’d crossedThe Sambre at Charleroi,To move on Brussels, where the English hostDallied in Parc and Bois.The yestertide we’d heard the gloomy gunGrowl through the long-sunned dayFrom Quatre-Bras and Ligny; till the dunTwilight suppressed the fray;Albeit therein – as lated tongues bespoke —Brunswick’s high heart was drained,And Prussia’s Line and Landwehr, though unbroke,Stood cornered and constrained.And at next noon-time Grouchy slowly passedWith thirty thousand men:We hoped thenceforth no army, small or vast,Would trouble us again.My hut lay deeply in a vale recessed,And never a soul seemed nighWhen, reassured at length, we went to rest —My children, wife, and I.But what was this that broke our humble ease?What noise, above the rain,Above the dripping of the poplar treesThat smote along the pane?– A call of mastery, bidding me arise,Compelled me to the door,At which a horseman stood in martial guise —Splashed – sweating from every pore.Had I seen Grouchy?  Yes?  Which track took he?Could I lead thither on? —Fulfilment would ensure gold pieces three,Perchance more gifts anon.“I bear the Emperor’s mandate,” then he said,“Charging the Marshal straightTo strike between the double host aheadEre they co-operate,“Engaging Blücher till the Emperor putLord Wellington to flight,And next the Prussians.  This to set afootIs my emprise to-night.”I joined him in the mist; but, pausing, soughtTo estimate his say.Grouchy had made for Wavre; and yet, on thought,I did not lead that way.I mused: “If Grouchy thus instructed beThe clash comes sheer hereon;My farm is stript.While, as for pieces three,Money the French have none.“Grouchy unwarned, moreo’er, the English win,And mine is left to me —They buy, not borrow.” – Hence did I beginTo lead him treacherously.By Joidoigne, near to east, as we ondrew,Dawn pierced the humid air;And eastward faced I with him, though I knewNever marched Grouchy there.Near Ottignies we passed, across the Dyle(Lim’lette left far aside),And thence direct toward Pervez and NovilleThrough green grain, till he cried:“I doubt thy conduct, man! no track is here —I doubt thy gagèd word!Thereat he scowled on me, and pranced me near,And pricked me with his sword.“Nay, Captain, hold!  We skirt, not trace the courseOf Grouchy,” said I then:“As we go, yonder went he, with his forceOf thirty thousand men.”– At length noon nighed; when west, from Saint-John’s-Mound,A hoarse artillery boomed,And from Saint-Lambert’s upland, chapel-crowned,The Prussian squadrons loomed.Then to the wayless wet gray ground he leapt;“My mission fails!” he cried;“Too late for Grouchy now to intercept,For, peasant, you have lied!”He turned to pistol me.  I sprang, and drewThe sabre from his flank,And ’twixt his nape and shoulder, ere he knew,I struck, and dead he sank.I hid him deep in nodding rye and oat —His shroud green stalks and loam;His requiem the corn-blade’s husky note —And then I hastened home,.– Two armies writhe in coils of red and blue,And brass and iron clangFrom Goumont, past the front of Waterloo,To Pap’lotte and Smohain.The Guard Imperial wavered on the height;The Emperor’s face grew glum;“I sent,” he said, “to Grouchy yesternight,And yet he does not come!”’Twas then, Good Father, that the French espied,Streaking the summer land,The men of Blücher.  But the Emperor cried,“Grouchy is now at hand!”And meanwhile Vand’leur, Vivian, Maitland, Kempt,Met d’Erlon, Friant, Ney;But Grouchy – mis-sent, blamed, yet blame-exempt —Grouchy was far away.By even, slain or struck, Michel the strong,Bold Travers, Dnop, Delord,Smart Guyot,Reil-le, l’Heriter, Friant,Scattered that champaign o’er.Fallen likewise wronged Duhesme, and skilled LobauDid that red sunset see;Colbert, Legros, Blancard!.. And of the foePicton and Ponsonby;With Gordon, Canning, Blackman, Ompteda,L’Estrange, Delancey, Packe,Grose, D’Oyly, Stables, Morice, Howard, Hay,Von Schwerin, Watzdorf, Boek,Smith, Phelips, Fuller, Lind, and Battersby,And hosts of ranksmen round.Memorials linger yet to speak to theeOf those that bit the ground!The Guards’ last column yielded; dykes of deadLay between vale and ridge,As, thinned yet closing, faint yet fierce, they spedIn packs to Genappe Bridge.Safe was my stock; my capple cow unslain;Intact each cock and hen;But Grouchy far at Wavre all day had lain,And thirty thousand men.O Saints, had I but lost my earing cornAnd saved the cause once prized!O Saints, why such false witness had I borneWhen late I’d sympathized!.So now, being old, my children eye askanceMy slowly dwindling store,And crave my mite; till, worn with tarriance,I care for life no more.To Almighty God henceforth I stand confessed,And Virgin-Saint Marie;O Michael, John, and Holy Ones in rest,Entreat the Lord for me!

THE ALARM

(1803)

See “The Trumpet-Major”In Memory of one of the Writer’s Family who was aVolunteer during the War with NapoleonIn a ferny bywayNear the great South-Wessex Highway,A homestead raised its breakfast-smoke aloft;The dew-damps still lay steamless, for the sun had made no sky-way,And twilight cloaked the croft.’Twas hard to realize onThis snug side the mute horizonThat beyond it hostile armaments might steer,Save from seeing in the porchway a fair woman weep with eyes onA harnessed Volunteer.In haste he’d flown thereTo his comely wife alone there,While marching south hard by, to still her fears,For she soon would be a mother, and few messengers were known thereIn these campaigning years.’Twas time to be Good-bying,Since the assembly-hour was nighingIn royal George’s town at six that morn;And betwixt its wharves and this retreat were ten good miles of hieingEre ring of bugle-horn.“I’ve laid in food, Dear,And broached the spiced and brewed, Dear;And if our July hope should antedate,Let the char-wench mount and gallop by the halterpath and wood, Dear,And fetch assistance straight. “As for Buonaparte, forget him;He’s not like to land!  But let him,Those strike with aim who strike for wives and sons!And the war-boats built to float him; ’twere but wanted to upset himA slat from Nelson’s guns!“But, to assure thee,And of creeping fears to cure thee,If he should be rumoured anchoring in the Road,Drive with the nurse to Kingsbere; and let nothing thence allure theeTill we’ve him safe-bestowed.“Now, to turn to marching matters: —I’ve my knapsack, firelock, spatters,Crossbelts, priming-horn, stock, bay’net, blackball, clay,Pouch, magazine, flints, flint-box that at every quick-step clatters;.. My heart, Dear; that must stay!”– With breathings brokenFarewell was kissed unspoken,And they parted there as morning stroked the panes;And the Volunteer went on, and turned, and twirled his glove for token,And took the coastward lanes.When above He’th Hills he found him,He saw, on gazing round him,The Barrow-Beacon burning – burning low,As if, perhaps, uplighted ever since he’d homeward bound him;And it meant: Expect the Foe!Leaving the byway,And following swift the highway,Car and chariot met he, faring fast inland;“He’s anchored, Soldier!” shouted some: “God save thee, marching thy way,Th’lt front him on the strand!”He slowed; he stopped; he palteredAwhile with self, and faltered,“Why courting misadventure shoreward roam?To Molly, surely!  Seek the woods with her till times have altered;Charity favours home.“Else, my denyingHe would come she’ll read as lying —Think the Barrow-Beacon must have met my eyes —That my words were not unwareness, but deceit of her, while tryingMy life to jeopardize.“At home is stocked provision,And to-night, without suspicion,We might bear it with us to a covert near;Such sin, to save a childing wife, would earn it Christ’s remission,Though none forgive it here!”While thus he, thinking,A little bird, quick drinkingAmong the crowfoot tufts the river bore,Was tangled in their stringy arms, and fluttered, well-nigh sinking,Near him, upon the moor.He stepped in, reached, and seized it,And, preening, had released itBut that a thought of Holy Writ occurred,And Signs Divine ere battle, till it seemed him Heaven had pleased itAs guide to send the bird.“O Lord, direct me!..Doth Duty now expect meTo march a-coast, or guard my weak ones near?Give this bird a flight according, that I thence know to elect meThe southward or the rear.”He loosed his clasp; when, rising,The bird – as if surmising —Bore due to southward, crossing by the Froom,And Durnover Great-Field and Fort, the soldier clear advising —Prompted he wist by Whom.Then on he pantedBy grim Mai-Don, and slantedUp the steep Ridge-way, hearkening betwixt whiles;Till, nearing coast and harbour, he beheld the shore-line plantedWith Foot and Horse for miles.Mistrusting not the omen,He gained the beach, where Yeomen,Militia, Fencibles, and Pikemen bold,With Regulars in thousands, were enmassed to meet the Foemen,Whose fleet had not yet shoaled.Captain and Colonel,Sere Generals, Ensigns vernal,Were there; of neighbour-natives, Michel, Smith,Meggs, Bingham, Gambier, Cunningham, roused by the hued nocturnalSwoop on their land and kith.But Buonaparte still tarried;His project had miscarried;At the last hour, equipped for victory,The fleet had paused; his subtle combinations had been parriedBy British strategy.Homeward returningAnon, no beacons burning,No alarms, the Volunteer, in modest bliss,Te Deum sang with wife and friends: “We praise Thee, Lord, discerningThat Thou hast helped in this!”

HER DEATH AND AFTER

’Twas a death-bed summons, and forth I wentBy the way of the Western Wall, so drearOn that winter night, and sought a gate —The home, by Fate,Of one I had long held dear.And there, as I paused by her tenement,And the trees shed on me their rime and hoar,I thought of the man who had left her lone —Him who made her his ownWhen I loved her, long before.The rooms within had the piteous shineThat home-things wear when there’s aught amiss;From the stairway floated the rise and fallOf an infant’s call,Whose birth had brought her to this.Her life was the price she would pay for that whine —For a child by the man she did not love.“But let that rest for ever,” I said,And bent my treadTo the chamber up above.She took my hand in her thin white own,And smiled her thanks – though nigh too weak —And made them a sign to leave us thereThen faltered, ereShe could bring herself to speak.“’Twas to see you before I go – he’ll condoneSuch a natural thing now my time’s not much —When Death is so near it hustles henceAll passioned senseBetween woman and man as such!“My husband is absent.  As heretoforeThe City detains him.  But, in truth,He has not been kind.. I will speak no blame,But – the child is lame;O, I pray she may reach his ruth!“Forgive past days – I can say no more —Maybe if we’d wedded you’d now repine!.But I treated you ill.  I was punished.  Farewell!– Truth shall I tell?Would the child were yours and mine!“As a wife I was true.  But, such my uneaseThat, could I insert a deed back in Time,I’d make her yours, to secure your care;And the scandal bear,And the penalty for the crime!”– When I had left, and the swinging treesRang above me, as lauding her candid say,Another was I.  Her words were enough:Came smooth, came rough,I felt I could live my day.Next night she died; and her obsequiesIn the Field of Tombs, by the Via renowned,Had her husband’s heed.  His tendance spent,I often wentAnd pondered by her mound.All that year and the next year whiled,And I still went thitherward in the gloam;But the Town forgot her and her nook,And her husband tookAnother Love to his home.And the rumour flew that the lame lone childWhom she wished for its safety child of mine,Was treated ill when offspring cameOf the new-made dame,And marked a more vigorous line.A smarter grief within me wroughtThan even at loss of her so dear;Dead the being whose soul my soul suffused,Her child ill-used,I helpless to interfere!One eve as I stood at my spot of thoughtIn the white-stoned Garth, brooding thus her wrong,Her husband neared; and to shun his viewBy her hallowed mewI went from the tombs amongTo the Cirque of the Gladiators which faced —That haggard mark of Imperial Rome,Whose Pagan echoes mock the chimeOf our Christian time:It was void, and I inward clomb.Scarce night the sun’s gold touch displacedFrom the vast Rotund and the neighbouring deadWhen her husband followed; bowed; half-passed,With lip upcast;Then, halting, sullenly said:“It is noised that you visit my first wife’s tomb.Now, I gave her an honoured name to bearWhile living, when dead.  So I’ve claim to askBy what right you taskMy patience by vigiling there?“There’s decency even in death, I assume;Preserve it, sir, and keep away;For the mother of my first-born youShow mind undue!– Sir, I’ve nothing more to say.”A desperate stroke discerned I then —God pardon – or pardon not – the lie;She had sighed that she wished (lest the child should pineOf slights) ’twere mine,So I said: “But the father I.“That you thought it yours is the way of men;But I won her troth long ere your day:You learnt how, in dying, she summoned me?’Twas in fealty.– Sir, I’ve nothing more to say,“Save that, if you’ll hand me my little maid,I’ll take her, and rear her, and spare you toil.Think it more than a friendly act none can;I’m a lonely man,While you’ve a large pot to boil.“If not, and you’ll put it to ball or blade —To-night, to-morrow night, anywhen —I’ll meet you here.. But think of it,And in season fitLet me hear from you again.”– Well, I went away, hoping; but nought I heardOf my stroke for the child, till there greeted meA little voice that one day cameTo my window-frameAnd babbled innocently:“My father who’s not my own, sends wordI’m to stay here, sir, where I belong!”Next a writing came: “Since the child was the fruitOf your lawless suit,Pray take her, to right a wrong.”And I did.  And I gave the child my love,And the child loved me, and estranged us none.But compunctions loomed; for I’d harmed the deadBy what I’d saidFor the good of the living one.– Yet though, God wot, I am sinner enough,And unworthy the woman who drew me so,Perhaps this wrong for her darling’s goodShe forgives, or would,If only she could know!

THE DANCE AT THE PHŒNIX

To Jenny came a gentle youthFrom inland leazes lone,His love was fresh as apple-bloothBy Parrett, Yeo, or Tone.And duly he entreated herTo be his tender minister,And call him aye her own.Fair Jenny’s life had hardly beenA life of modesty;At Casterbridge experience keenOf many loves had sheFrom scarcely sixteen years above;Among them sundry troopers ofThe King’s-Own Cavalry.But each with charger, sword, and gun,Had bluffed the Biscay wave;And Jenny prized her gentle oneFor all the love he gave.She vowed to be, if they were wed,His honest wife in heart and headFrom bride-ale hour to grave.Wedded they were.  Her husband’s trustIn Jenny knew no bound,And Jenny kept her pure and just,Till even malice foundNo sin or sign of ill to beIn one who walked so decentlyThe duteous helpmate’s round.Two sons were born, and bloomed to men,And roamed, and were as not:Alone was Jenny left againAs ere her mind had soughtA solace in domestic joys,And ere the vanished pair of boysWere sent to sun her cot.She numbered near on sixty years,And passed as elderly,When, in the street, with flush of fears,One day discovered she,From shine of swords and thump of drum.Her early loves from war had come,The King’s-Own Cavalry.She turned aside, and bowed her headAnigh Saint Peter’s door;“Alas for chastened thoughts!” she said;“I’m faded now, and hoar,And yet those notes – they thrill me through,And those gay forms move me anewAs in the years of yore!”.’Twas Christmas, and the Phœnix InnWas lit with tapers tall,For thirty of the trooper menHad vowed to give a ballAs “Theirs” had done (’twas handed down)When lying in the selfsame townEre Buonaparté’s fall.That night the throbbing “Soldier’s Joy,”The measured tread and swayOf “Fancy-Lad” and “Maiden Coy,”Reached Jenny as she layBeside her spouse; till springtide bloodSeemed scouring through her like a floodThat whisked the years away.She rose, and rayed, and decked her headWhere the bleached hairs ran thin;Upon her cap two bows of redShe fixed with hasty pin;Unheard descending to the street,She trod the flags with tune-led feet,And stood before the Inn.Save for the dancers’, not a soundDisturbed the icy air;No watchman on his midnight roundOr traveller was there;But over All-Saints’, high and bright,Pulsed to the music Sirius white,The Wain by Bullstake Square.She knocked, but found her further strideChecked by a sergeant tall:“Gay Granny, whence come you?” he cried;“This is a private ball.”– “No one has more right here than me!Ere you were born, man,” answered she,“I knew the regiment all!”“Take not the lady’s visit ill!”   Upspoke the steward free;“We lack sufficient partners still,So, prithee let her be!”They seized and whirled her ’mid the maze,And Jenny felt as in the daysOf her immodesty.Hour chased each hour, and night advanced;She sped as shod with wings;Each time and every time she danced —Reels, jigs, poussettes, and flings:They cheered her as she soared and swooped,(She’d learnt ere art in dancing droopedFrom hops to slothful swings).The favourite Quick-step “Speed the Plough” —(Cross hands, cast off, and wheel) —“The Triumph,” “Sylph,” “The Row-dow-dow,”Famed “Major Malley’s Reel,”“The Duke of York’s,” “The Fairy Dance,”“The Bridge of Lodi” (brought from France),She beat out, toe and heel.The “Fall of Paris” clanged its close,And Peter’s chime told four,When Jenny, bosom-beating, roseTo seek her silent door.They tiptoed in escorting her,Lest stroke of heel or clink of spurShould break her goodman’s snore.The fire that late had burnt fell slackWhen lone at last stood she;Her nine-and-fifty years came back;She sank upon her kneeBeside the durn, and like a dartA something arrowed through her heartIn shoots of agony.Their footsteps died as she leant there,Lit by the morning starHanging above the moorland, whereThe aged elm-rows are;And, as o’ernight, from Pummery RidgeTo Maembury Ring and Standfast BridgeNo life stirred, near or far.Though inner mischief worked amain,She reached her husband’s side;Where, toil-weary, as he had lainBeneath the patchwork piedWhen yestereve she’d forthward crept,And as unwitting, still he sleptWho did in her confide.A tear sprang as she turned and viewedHis features free from guile;She kissed him long, as when, just wooed,She chose his domicile.She felt she could have given her lifeTo be the single-hearted wifeThat she had been erstwhile.Time wore to six.  Her husband roseAnd struck the steel and stone;He glanced at Jenny, whose reposeSeemed deeper than his own.With dumb dismay, on closer sight,He gathered sense that in the night,Or morn, her soul had flown.When told that some too mighty strainFor one so many-yearedHad burst her bosom’s master-vein,His doubts remained unstirred.His Jenny had not left his sideBetwixt the eve and morning-tide:– The King’s said not a word.Well! times are not as times were then,Nor fair ones half so free;And truly they were martial men,The King’s-Own Cavalry.And when they went from CasterbridgeAnd vanished over Mellstock Ridge,’Twas saddest morn to see.

THE CASTERBRIDGE CAPTAINS

(KHYBER PASS, 1842)

A Tradition of J. B. L – , T. G. B – , AND J. L – Three captains went to Indian wars,And only one returned:Their mate of yore, he singly woreThe laurels all had earned.At home he sought the ancient aisleWherein, untrumped of fame,The three had sat in pupilage,And each had carved his name.The names, rough-hewn, of equal size,Stood on the panel still;Unequal since. – “’Twas theirs to aim,Mine was it to fulfil!”– “Who saves his life shall lose it, friends!”Outspake the preacher then,Unweeting he his listener, whoLooked at the names again.That he had come and they’d been stayed,’Twas but the chance of war:Another chance, and they’d sat here,And he had lain afar.Yet saw he something in the livesOf those who’d ceased to liveThat sphered them with a majestyWhich living failed to give.Transcendent triumph in returnNo longer lit his brain;Transcendence rayed the distant urnWhere slept the fallen twain.

A SIGN-SEEKER

I mark the months in liveries dank and dry,The noontides many-shaped and hued;I see the nightfall shades subtrude,And hear the monotonous hours clang negligently by.I view the evening bonfires of the sunOn hills where morning rains have hissed;The eyeless countenance of the mistPallidly rising when the summer droughts are done.I have seen the lightning-blade, the leaping star,The cauldrons of the sea in storm,Have felt the earthquake’s lifting arm,And trodden where abysmal fires and snow-cones are.I learn to prophesy the hid eclipse,The coming of eccentric orbs;To mete the dust the sky absorbs,To weigh the sun, and fix the hour each planet dips.I witness fellow earth-men surge and strive;Assemblies meet, and throb, and part;Death’s soothing finger, sorrow’s smart;– All the vast various moils that mean a world alive.But that I fain would wot of shuns my sense —Those sights of which old prophets tell,Those signs the general word so well,Vouchsafed to their unheed, denied my long suspense.In graveyard green, behind his monumentTo glimpse a phantom parent, friend,Wearing his smile, and “Not the end!”Outbreathing softly: that were blest enlightenment;Or, if a dead Love’s lips, whom dreams revealWhen midnight imps of King DecayDelve sly to solve me back to clay,Should leave some print to prove her spirit-kisses real;Or, when Earth’s Frail lie bleeding of her Strong,If some Recorder, as in Writ,Near to the weary scene should flitAnd drop one plume as pledge that Heaven inscrolls the wrong.– There are who, rapt to heights of trancéd trust,These tokens claim to feel and see,Read radiant hints of times to be —Of heart to heart returning after dust to dust.Such scope is granted not to lives like mine..I have lain in dead men’s beds, have walkedThe tombs of those with whom I’d talked,Called many a gone and goodly one to shape a sign,And panted for response.  But none replies;No warnings loom, nor whisperingsTo open out my limitings,And Nescience mutely muses: When a man falls he lies.

MY CICELY

(17–)

“Alive?” – And I leapt in my wonder,Was faint of my joyance,And grasses and grove shone in garmentsOf glory to me.“She lives, in a plenteous well-being,To-day as aforehand;The dead bore the name – though a rare one —The name that bore she.”She lived.. I, afar in the cityOf frenzy-led factions,Had squandered green years and maturerIn bowing the kneeTo Baals illusive and specious,Till chance had there voiced meThat one I loved vainly in nonageHad ceased her to be.The passion the planets had scowled on,And change had let dwindle,Her death-rumour smartly reliftedTo full apogee.I mounted a steed in the dawningWith acheful remembrance,And made for the ancient West HighwayTo far Exonb’ry.Passing heaths, and the House of Long Sieging,I neared the thin steepleThat tops the fair fane of Poore’s oldenEpiscopal see;And, changing anew my onbearer,I traversed the downlandWhereon the bleak hill-graves of ChieftainsBulge barren of tree;And still sadly onward I followedThat Highway the Icen,Which trails its pale riband down WessexO’er lynchet and lea.Along through the Stour-bordered Forum,Where Legions had wayfared,And where the slow river upglassesIts green canopy,And by Weatherbury Castle, and thencefromThrough Casterbridge held IStill on, to entomb her my visionSaw stretched pallidly.No highwayman’s trot blew the night-windTo me so life-weary,But only the creak of the gibbetsOr waggoners’ jee.Triple-ramparted Maidon gloomed graylyAbove me from southward,And north the hill-fortress of Eggar,And square Pummerie.The Nine-Pillared Cromlech, the Bride-streams,The Axe, and the OtterI passed, to the gate of the cityWhere Exe scents the sea;Till, spent, in the graveacre pausing,I learnt ’twas not my LoveTo whom Mother Church had just murmuredA last lullaby.– “Then, where dwells the Canon’s kinswoman,My friend of aforetime?” —(’Twas hard to repress my heart-heavingsAnd new ecstasy.)“She wedded.” – “Ah!” – “Wedded beneath her —She keeps the stage-hostelTen miles hence, beside the great Highway —The famed Lions-Three.“Her spouse was her lackey – no option’Twixt wedlock and worse things;A lapse over-sad for a ladyOf her pedigree!”I shuddered, said nothing, and wanderedTo shades of green laurel:Too ghastly had grown those first tidingsSo brightsome of blee!For, on my ride hither, I’d haltedAwhile at the Lions,And her – her whose name had once openedMy heart as a key —I’d looked on, unknowing, and witnessedHer jests with the tapsters,Her liquor-fired face, her thick accentsIn naming her fee.“O God, why this seeming derision!”I cried in my anguish:“O once Loved, O fair Unforgotten —That Thing – meant it thee!“Inurned and at peace, lost but sainted,Were grief I could compass;Depraved – ’tis for Christ’s poor dependentA cruel decree!”I backed on the Highway; but passed notThe hostel.  Within thereToo mocking to Love’s re-expressionWas Time’s repartee!Uptracking where Legions had wayfared,By cromlechs unstoried,And lynchets, and sepultured Chieftains,In self-colloquy,A feeling stirred in me and strengthenedThat she was not my Love,But she of the garth, who lay rapt inHer long reverie.And thence till to-day I persuade meThat this was the true one;That Death stole intact her young dearnessAnd innocency.Frail-witted, illuded they call me;I may be.  ’Tis betterTo dream than to own the debasementOf sweet Cicely.Moreover I rate it unseemlyTo hold that kind HeavenCould work such device – to her ruinAnd my misery.So, lest I disturb my choice vision,I shun the West Highway,Even now, when the knaps ring with rhythmsFrom blackbird and bee;And feel that with slumber half-consciousShe rests in the church-hay,Her spirit unsoiled as in youth-timeWhen lovers were we.