Thomas Hardy

A Load of brushes and baskets and cradles and chairs Labours along the street in the rain: With it a man, a woman, a pony with whiteybrown hairs. The man foots in front of

“No not where I shall make my own; But dig his grave just by The woman’s with the initialed stone – As near as he can lie – After whose death he seemed to

Some say the spot is banned; that the pillar Cross-and-Hand Attests to a deed of hell; But of else than of bale is the mystic tale That ancient Vale-folk tell. Ere Cernel’s Abbey ceased

A star looks down at me, And says: “Here I and you Stand each in our degree: What do you mean to do,- Mean to do?” I say: “For all I know, Wait, and

A bird sings the selfsame song, With never a fault in its flow, That we listened to here those long Long years ago. A pleasing marvel is how A strain of such rapturous rote

Knight, a true sister-love This heart retains; Ask me no other love, That way lie pains! Calm must I view thee come, Calm see thee go; Tale-telling tears of thine I must not know

‘There is not much that I can do, For I’ve no money that’s quite my own!’ Spoke up the pitying child A little boy with a violin At the station before the train came

UPON a noon I pilgrimed through A pasture, mile by mile, Unto the place where I last saw My dead Love’s living smile. And sorrowing I lay me down Upon the heated sod: It

SHOW thee as I thought thee 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

at news of her death Not a line of her writing have I Not a thread of her hair, No mark of her late time as dame in her dwelling, whereby I may picture

I They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest Uncoffined just as found: His landmark is a kopje-crest That breaks the veldt around; And foreign constellations west Each night above his mound. II Young Hodge

I rose at night and visited The Cave of the Unborn, And crowding shapes surrounded me For tidings of the life to be, Who long had prayed the silent Head To speed their advent

Pale beech and pine-tree blue, Set in one clay, Bough to bough cannot you Bide out your day? When the rains skim and skip, Why mar sweet comradeship, Blighting with poison-drip Neighborly spray? Heart-halt

I sat in the Muses’ Hall at the mid of the day, And it seemed to grow still, and the people to pass away, And the chiselled shapes to combine in a haze of

I said to Love, “It is not now as in old days When men adored thee and thy ways All else above; Named thee the Boy, the Bright, the One Who spread a heaven

Queer are the ways of a man I know: He comes and stands In a careworn craze, And looks at the sands And in the seaward haze With moveless hands And face and gaze,

I My ardours for emprize nigh lost Since Life has bared its bones to me, I shrink to seek a modern coast Whose riper times have yet to be; Where the new regions claim

Here we broached the Christmas barrel, Pushed up the charred log-ends; Here we sang the Christmas carol, And called in friends. Time has tired me since we met here When the folk now dead

(E. L. G.) BENEATH a knap where flown Nestlings play, Within walls of weathered stone, Far away From the files of formal houses, By the bough the firstling browses, Lives a Sweet: no merchants

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

The church flings forth a battled shade Over the moon-blanched sward: The church; my gift; whereto I paid My all in hand and hoard; Lavished my gains With stintless pains To glorify the Lord.

Well, World, you have kept faith with me, Kept faith with me; Upon the whole you have proved to be Much as you said you were. Since as a child I used to lie

I There dwells a mighty pair – Slow, statuesque, intense – Amid the vague Immense: None can their chronicle declare, Nor why they be, nor whence. ,h II Mother of all things made, Matchless

I say, “She was as good as fair,” When standing by her mound; “Such passing sweetness,” I declare, “No longer treads the ground.” I say, “What living Love can catch Her bloom and bonhomie,

WHEN Lawyers strive to heal a breach, And Parsons practise what they preach; Then Little Boney he’ll pounce down, And march his men on London town! Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lorum, Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lay! When Justices hold equal

I He bends his travel-tarnished feet To where she wastes in clay: From day-dawn until eve he fares Along the wintry way; From day-dawn until eve repairs Unto her mound to pray. II “Are

How great my grief, my joys how few, Since first it was my fate to know thee! – Have the slow years not brought to view How great my grief, my joys how few,

Why did you give no hint that night That quickly after the morrow’s dawn, And calmly, as if indifferent quite, You would close your term here, up and be gone Where I could not

O life with the sad seared face, I weary of seeing thee, And thy draggled cloak, and thy hobbling pace, And thy too-forced pleasantry! I know what thou would’st tell Of Death, Time, Destiny

I It bends far over Yell’ham Plain, And we, from Yell’ham Height, Stand and regard its fiery train, So soon to swim from sight. II It will return long years hence, when As now

Here is the ancient floor, Footworn and hollowed and thin, Here was the former door Where the dead feet walked in. She sat here in her chair, Smiling into the fire; He who played

Long have I framed weak phantasies of Thee, O Willer masked and dumb! Who makest Life become, – As though by labouring all-unknowingly, Like one whom reveries numb. How much of consciousness informs Thy

O epic-famed, god-haunted Central Sea, Heave careless of the deep wrong done to thee When from Torino’s track I saw thy face first flash on me. And multimarbled Genova the Proud, Gleam all unconscious

As I drive to the junction of lane and highway, And the drizzle bedrenches the waggonette, I look behind at the fading byway, And see on its slope, now glistening wet, Distinctly yet Myself

I At last! In sight of home again, Of home again; No more to range and roam again As at that bygone time? No more to go away from us And stay from us?

“ALIVE?” And I leapt in my wonder, Was faint of my joyance, And grasses and grove shone in garments Of glory to me. “She lives, in a plenteous well-being, To-day as aforehand; The dead

I Last year I called this world of gain-givings The darkest thinkable, and questioned sadly If my own land could heave its pulse less gladly, So charged it seemed with circumstance whence springs The

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

(After passing Sirmione, April 1887.) Sirmio, thou dearest dear of strands That Neptune strokes in lake and sea, With what high joy from stranger lands Doth thy old friend set foot on thee! Yea,

I MARK the months in liveries dank and dry, The day-tides many-shaped and hued; I see the nightfall shades subtrude, And hear the monotonous hours clang negligently by. I view the evening bonfires of

‘Whenever I plunge my arm, like this, In a basin of water, I never miss The sweet sharp sense of a fugitive day Fetched back from its thickening shroud of gray. Hence the only

When the wasting embers redden the chimney-breast, And Life’s bare pathway looms like a desert track to me, And from hall and parlour the living have gone to their rest, My perished people who

The Fire at Tranter Sweatley’s THEY had long met o’ Zundays her true love and she And at junketings, maypoles, and flings; But she bode wi’ a thirtover uncle, and he Swore by noon

I Dear Lizbie Browne, Where are you now? In sun, in rain? – Or is your brow Past joy, past pain, Dear Lizbie Browne? II Sweet Lizbie Browne How you could smile, How you

When battles were fought With a chivalrous sense of should and ought, In spirit men said, “End we quick or dead, Honour is some reward! Let us fight fair for our own best or

Who, then, was Cestius, And what is he to me? – Amid thick thoughts and memories multitudinous One thought alone brings he. I can recall no word Of anything he did; For me he

I There is a house with ivied walls, And mullioned windows worn and old, And the long dwellers in those halls Have souls that know but sordid calls, And dote on gold. II In

“O lonely workman, standing there In a dream, why do you stare and stare At her grave, as no other grave where there?” “If your great gaunt eyes so importune Her soul by the

Child, were I king, I’d yield my royal rule, My chariot, sceptre, vassal-service due, My crown, my porphyry-basined waters cool, My fleets, whereto the sea is but a pool, For a glance from you!

I do not see the hills around, Nor mark the tints the copses wear; I do not note the grassy ground And constellated daisies there. I hear not the contralto note Of cuckoos hid

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

THE sun had wheeled from Grey’s to Dammer’s Crest, And still I mused on that Thing imminent: At length I sought the High-street to the West. The level flare raked pane and pediment And

WHEN I look forth at dawning, pool, Field, flock, and lonely tree, All seem to look at me Like chastened children sitting silent in a school; Their faces dulled, constrained, and worn, As though

“Ah, are you digging on my grave, My loved one? planting rue?” “No: yesterday he went to wed One of the brightest wealth has bred. ‘It cannot hurt her now,’ he said, ‘That I

Where once we danced, where once we sang, Gentlemen, The floors are sunken, cobwebs hang, And cracks creep; worms have fed upon The doors. Yea, sprightlier times were then Than now, with harps and

I I heard a small sad sound, And stood awhile among the tombs around: “Wherefore, old friends,” said I, “are you distrest, Now, screened from life’s unrest?” II “O not at being here; But

I wayed by star and planet shine Towards the dear one’s home At Kingsbere, there to make her mine When the next sun upclomb. I edged the ancient hill and wood Beside the Ikling

I In days when men had joy of war, A God of Battles sped each mortal jar; The peoples pledged him heart and hand, From Israel’s land to isles afar. II His crimson form,

I WILL be faithful to thee; aye, I will! And Death shall choose me with a wondering eye That he did not discern and domicile One his by right ever since that last Good-bye!

(A Reminiscence, 1893) She wore a ‘terra-cotta’ dress, And we stayed, because of the pelting storm, Within the hansom’s dry recess, Though the horse had stopped; yea, motionless We sat on, snug and warm.

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 of broken lyres, And all mankind

I towered far, and lo! I stood within The presence of the Lord Most High, Sent thither by the sons of earth, to win Some answer to their cry. “The Earth, say’st thou? The

THEY bear him to his resting-place In slow procession sweeping by; I follow at a stranger’s space; His kindred they, his sweetheart I. Unchanged my gown of garish dye, Though sable-sad is their attire;

(at a Cathedral Service) THAT from this bright believing band An outcast I should be, That faiths by which my comrades stand Seem fantasies to me, And mirage-mists their Shining Land, Is a drear

(Lines on the loss of the “Titanic”) I In a solitude of the sea Deep from human vanity, And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she. II Steel chambers, late the

Had he and I but met By some old ancient inn, We should have set us down to wet Right many a nipperkin! But ranged as infantry, And staring face to face, I shot

December 1899 I She sits in the tawny vapour That the Thames-side lanes have uprolled, Behind whose webby fold-on-fold Like a waning taper The street-lamp glimmers cold. A messenger’s knock cracks smartly, Flashed news

I “O Lord, why grievest Thou? – Since Life has ceased to be Upon this globe, now cold As lunar land and sea, And humankind, and fowl, and fur Are gone eternally, All is

‘TWAS a death-bed summons, and forth I went By the way of the Western Wall, so drear On that winter night, and sought a gate The home, by Fate, Of one I had long

(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

They are not those who used to feed us When we were young they cannot be – These shapes that now bereave and bleed us? They are not those who used to feed us,

I traced the Circus whose gray stones incline Where Rome and dim Etruria interjoin, Till came a child who showed an ancient coin That bore the image of a Constantine. She lightly passed; nor

And your sunny years with a gracious wife Have brought you a daughter dear. “I watched her to-day; a more comely maid, As she danced in her muslin bowed with blue, Round a Hintock

O sweet To-morrow! – After to-day There will away This sense of sorrow. Then let us borrow Hope, for a gleaming Soon will be streaming, Dimmed by no gray – No gray! While the

I Never 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

Pet was never mourned as you, Purrer of the spotless hue, Plumy tail, and wistful gaze While you humoured our queer ways, Or outshrilled your morning call Up the stairs and through the hall

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

I Here’s the mould of a musical bird long passed from light, Which over the earth before man came was winging; There’s a contralto voice I heard last night, That lodges with me still

I “O Time, whence comes the Mother’s moody look amid her labours, As of one who all unwittingly has wounded where she loves? Why weaves she not her world-webs to according lutes and tabors,

He often would ask us That, when he died, After playing so many To their last rest, If out of us any Should here abide, And it would not task us, We would with

Moments the mightiest pass calendared, And when the Absolute In backward Time outgave the deedful word Whereby all life is stirred: “Let one be born and throned whose mould shall constitute The norm of

Once more the cauldron of the sun Smears the bookcase with winy red, And here my page is, and there my bed, And the apple-tree shadows travel along. Soon their intangible track will be

IN vision I roamed the flashing Firmament, So fierce in blazon that the Night waxed wan, As though with an awed sense of such ostent; And as I thought my spirit ranged on and

I LONGED to love a full-boughed beech And be as high as he: I stretched an arm within his reach, And signalled unity. But with his drip he forced a breach, And tried to

To Jenny came a gentle youth From inland leazes lone; His love was fresh as apple-blooth By Parrett, Yeo, or Tone. And duly he entreated her To be his tender minister, And call him

“Thou shalt be Nothing.” Omar Khayyam. “Tombless, with no remembrance.” W. Shakespeare. Dead shalt thou lie; and nought Be told of thee or thought, For thou hast plucked not of the Muses’ tree: And

We two kept house, the Past and I, The Past and I; I tended while it hovered nigh, Leaving me never alone. It was a spectral housekeeping Where fell no jarring tone, As strange,

In the third-class seat sat the journeying boy, And the roof-lamp’s oily flame Played down on his listless form and face, Bewrapt past knowing to what he was going, Or whence he came. In

This is the weather the cuckoo likes, And so do I; When showers betumble the chestnut spikes, And nestlings fly; And the little brown nightingale bills his best, And they sit outside at ‘The

The day is turning ghost, And scuttles from the kalendar in fits and furtively, To join the anonymous host Of those that throng oblivion; ceding his place, maybe, To one of like degree. I

They had long met o’ Zundays her true love and she And at junketings, maypoles, and flings; But she bode wi’ a thirtover uncle, and he Swore by noon and by night that her

By Corporal Tullidge. See “The Trumpet-Major” In Memory of S. C. (Pensioner). Died 184- WE trenched, we trumpeted and drummed, And from our mortars tons of iron hummed Ath’art the ditch, the month we

UPON a poet’s page I wrote Of old two letters of her name; Part seemed she of the effulgent thought Whence that high singer’s rapture came. When now I turn the leaf the same

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 we Humoured her infirmity. When the daughters

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

Bother Bulleys, let us sing From the dawn till evening! – For we know not that we go not When the day’s pale pinions fold Unto those who sang of old. When I flew

South of the Line, inland from far Durban, A mouldering soldier lies your countryman. Awry and doubled up are his gray bones, And on the breeze his puzzled phantom moans Nightly to clear Canopus:

WHEN, soul in soul reflected, We breathed an жthered 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!

WHEN you paced forth, to wait maternity, A dream of other offspring held my mind, Compounded of us twain as Love designed; Rare forms, that corporate now will never be! Should I, too, wed

WILLIAM Dewy, Tranter Reuben, Farmer Ledlow late at plough, Robert’s kin, and John’s, and Ned’s, And the Squire, and Lady Susan, lie in Mellstock churchyard now! “Gone,” I call them, gone for good, that

These numbered cliffs and gnarls of masonry Outskeleton Time’s central city, Rome; Whereof each arch, entablature, and dome Lies bare in all its gaunt anatomy. And cracking frieze and rotten metope Express, as though

Much wonder I here long low-laid – That this dead wall should be Betwixt the Maker and the made, Between Thyself and me! For, say one puts a child to nurse, He eyes it

I As 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. II Yet

We walked where Victor Jove was shrined awhile, And passed to Livia’s rich red mural show, Whence, thridding cave and Criptoportico, We gained Caligula’s dissolving pile. And each ranked ruin tended to beguile The

Song of the Soldiers What of the faith and fire within us Men who march away Ere the barn-cocks say Night is growing gray, To hazards whence no tears can win us; What of