Thomas Hardy

“ And said: “True love is dust to me;
I cannot kiss: I tire of thee!”
(That she might scorn him was he fain,
To put her sooner out of pain;
For incensed love breathes quick and dies,
When famished love a-lingering lies.) ”

“ CHANGE and chancefulness in my flowering youthtime,
Set me sun by sun near to one unchosen;
Wrought us fellowly, and despite divergence,
Friends interblent us.
"Cherish him can I while the true one forthcome—
Come the rich fulfiller of my prevision;
Life is roomy yet, and the odds unbounded." ”

“ As my relic; yet haply the best of her—fined in my brain
It may be the more
That no line of her writing have I,
Nor a thread of her hair,
No mark of her late time as dame in her dwelling, whereby
I may picture her there. ”

“ O Tim, my own Tim I must call 'ee—I will!
⁠All the world ha' turned round on me so!
Can you help her who loved 'ee, though acting so ill?
Can you pity her misery—feel for her still?
When worse than her body so quivering and chill
⁠Is her heart in its winter o' woe! ”

“ Hers couldst thou wholly be,
My light in thee would outglow all in others;
She would relive to me.
But niggard Nature's trick of birth
Bars, lest she overjoy,
Renewal of the loved on earth
Save with alloy. ”

“ Flames spread, and red vlankers, wi' might and wi' main,
⁠And round beams, thatch, and chimley-tun roar.
Young Tim away yond, rafted up by the light,
⁠Through brimble and underwood tears,
Till he comes to the orchet, when crooping thereright
In the lewth of a codlin-tree, bivering wi' fright,
Wi' on'y her night-rail to screen her from sight,
⁠His lonesome young Barbree appears. ”

“ PERHAPS, long hence, when I have passed away,
Some other's feature, accent, thought like mine.
Will carry you back to what I used to say,
And bring some memory of your love's decline.
Then you may pause awhile and think, "Poor jade!" ”

“ 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. ”

“ And as I thought my spirit ranged on and on
In footless traverse through ghast heights of sky,
To the last chambers of the monstrous Dome,
Where stars the brightest here to darkness die:
Then, any spot on our own Earth seemed Home! ”

“ What your daily doings are;
Who are wedded, born, divided; if your lives beat slow or swift.
"Curious not the least are we if our intents you make or mar,
If you quire to our old tune.
If the City stage still passes, if the weirs still roar afar."
—Thus, with very gods' composure, freed those crosses late and soon
Which, in life, the Trine allow
(Why, none witteth) , and ignoring all that haps beneath the moon,
William Dewy, Tranter Reuben, Farmer Ledlow late at plough,
Robert's kin, and John's, and Ned's,
And the Squire, and Lady Susan, murmur mildly to me now. ”

“ WHEN we as strangers sought
Their catering care,
Veiled smiles bespoke their thought
Of what we were.
They warmed as they opined
Us more than friends—
That we had all resigned
For love's dear ends. ”

“ That home-things wear which the housewife miss;
From the stairway floated the rise and fall
Of 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. ”

“ Over tedious riddles solved years ago:
And some words played between us to and fro—
⁠On which lost the more by our love.
The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing
Alive enough to have strength to die ”

“ THOUGH I waste watches framing words to fetter
⁠Some spirit to mine own in clasp and kiss,
Out of the night there looms a sense 'twere better
⁠To fail obtaining whom one fails to miss.
For winning love we win the risk of losing,
⁠And losing love is as one's life were riven ”

“ Of me and mine diminish day by day,
And yield their space to shine of smugger things;
Till I shape to thee but in fitful gleams,
And then in far and feeble visitings,
And then surcease. Truth will be truth alway. ”

“ THE years have gathered grayly
⁠Since I danced upon this leaze
With one who kindled gayly
⁠Love's fitful ecstasies!
But despite the term as teacher,
⁠I remain what I was then
In each essential feature
⁠Of the fantasies of men. ”

“ And mirage-mists their Shining Land,
⁠Is a drear destiny.
Why thus my soul should be consigned
⁠To infelicity,
Why always I must feel as blind
⁠To sights my brethren see,
Why joys they've found I cannot find,
⁠Abides a mystery. ”

“ True to the wind that kissed ere canker came;
Despised by souls of Now, who would disjoint
The mind from memory, and make Life all aim,
My old dexterities of hue quite gone,
And nothing left for Love to look upon. ”

“ And on them stirs, in lippings mere
(As if once clear in call,
But now scarce breathed at all) —
"We wonder, ever wonder, why we find us here!
"Has some Vast Imbecility,
Mighty to build and blend,
But impotent to tend,
Framed us in jest, and left us now to hazardry?
"Or come we of an Automaton
Unconscious of our pains? . . .
Or are we live remains
Of Godhead dying downwards, brain and eye now gone? ”

“ 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 thought
In the white-stoned Garth, brooding thus her wrong,
Her husband neared ”

“ Wherein my Love may greet me, I my Love,
⁠When he shall know thereof?"
⁠"This, too, is ill,"
⁠He answered still,
The man who swayed her like a shade.
"An hour will come when sight of such sweet nook
Would bring a bitterness too sharp to brook,
When brighter eyes have won away his look ”

“ When I early sought thee,
⁠Omen-scouting,
⁠All undoubting
Love alone had wrought thee—
Wrought thee for my pleasure,
Planned thee as a measure
⁠For expounding
⁠And resounding
Glad things that men treasure. ”

“ Your griefs, and, sharing them, renew my pain. . . .
It goes, like murky bird or buccaneer
That shapes its lawless figure on the main,
And each new impulse tends to make outflee
The unseemly instinct that had lodgment here ”

“ And at midnight when the noon-heat breathes it back from walls and leads,
p. 156They’ve a way of whispering to me—fellow-wight who yet abide—
In the muted, measured note
Of a ripple under archways, or a lone cave’s stillicide:
“We have triumphed: this achievement turns the bane to antidote,
Unsuccesses to success,
—Many thought-worn eves and morrows to a morrow free of thought.
“No more need we corn and clothing, feel of old terrestrial stress;
Chill detraction stirs no sigh;
Fear of death has even bygone us: death gave all that we possess.” ”

“ WHEN, soul in soul reflected,
We breathed an æthered air,
When we neglected
All things elsewhere,
And left the friendly friendless
To keep our love aglow,
We deemed it endless ...
—We did not know! ”

“ Ungrasped, though helped by nigh-regarding eyes;
Canst thou then hate me as an envier
Who see unrecked what I so dearly prize?
Believe me, Lost One, Love is lovelier
The more it shapes its moan in selfish-wise. ”

“ Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.
But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain,
And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?
—Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,
And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan. . . . ”

“ A tremor stirred her tender lips,
⁠Which parted to dissuade:
“That cannot be, O friend," she cried;
⁠“Think, I am but a Shade!
"A Shade but in its mindful ones
⁠Has immortality;
By living, me you keep alive,
⁠By dying you slay me. ”

“ A little hempen string, and a post whereon to swing,
⁠Are implements enough for me!
To-morrow is my working day,
⁠Simple shepherds all—
⁠To-morrow is a working day for me:
For the farmer's sheep is slain, and the lad who did it ta'en,
⁠And on his soul may God ha' mer-cy! ”

“ As to a nest;
Dreaming that sylvan peace
Offered the harrowed ease—
Nature a soft release
From men's unrest.
But, having entered in,
Great growths and small
Show them to men akin—
Combatants all! ”

“ Or, when Earth’s Frail lie bleeding of her Strong,
If some Recorder, as in Writ,
Near to the weary scene should flit
And 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.
p. 132Such scope is granted not to lives like mine . . . ”

“ 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!" ”

“ THE SLOW NATURE
(AN INCIDENT OF FROOM VALLEY)
"THY husband—poor, poor Heart!—is dead—
Dead, out by Moreford Rise;
A bull escaped the barton-shed,
Gored him, and there he lies!"
—"Ha, ha—go away! 'Tis a tale, methink,
Thou joker Kit!" laughed she. ”

“ And twilight cloaked the croft.
'Twas hard to realize on
This snug side the mute horizon
That beyond it hostile armaments might steer,
Save from seeing in the porchway a fair woman weep with eyes on
A harnessed Volunteer. ”

“ Pray speak
Love fills no cupboard. You'll need daily bread."
"We've nothing, sire," said she, “and nothing seek,
'Twere base in me to rob my lord unware;
Our hands will earn a pittance week by week." ”

“ Tim bringing up breakfast and dinner and tea—
⁠Till the news of her hiding got vent.
Then followed the custom-kept rout, shout, and flare
Of a skimmington-ride through the naiborhood, ere
⁠Folk had proof o' wold Sweatley's decay.
Whereupon decent people all stood in a stare,
Saying Tim and his lodger should risk it, and pair:
So he took her to church. An' some laughing lads there
Cried to Tim, “After Sweatley!" She said, "I declare
⁠I stand as a maiden to-day!" ”

“ Although we know no laugh lay there.
⁠We walked where shy birds stood
⁠Watching us, wonder-dumb;
⁠Their friendship met our mood;
⁠We cried: "We'll often come:
We'll come morn, noon, eve, everywhen!" ”

“ 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 drooped
⁠From hops to slothful swings) .
The favorite Quick-step "Speed the Plough"—
⁠ (Cross hands, cast off, and wheel) —
"The Triumph," "Sylph," "The Row-dow dow." ”

“ The 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 begin
To lead him treacherously. ”

“ The Nine-Pillared Cromlech, the Bride-streams,
The Axe, and the Otter
I passed, to the gate of the city
Where Exe scents the sea;
Till, spent, in the graveacre pausing,
I learnt 'twas not my Love
To whom Mother Church had just murmured
A last lullaby.
"Then, where dwells the Canon's kinswoman,
My friend of aforetime?"—
('Twas hard to repress my heart-heavings
And new ecstasy.)
"She wedded."—"Ah!"—"Wedded beneath her—
She keeps the stage-hostel
Ten miles hence, beside the great Highway
The famed Lions-Three. ”