Томас Харди (Гарди)
Time's Laughingstocks, and Other Verses

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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 there
Banished 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 small
That, 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 drifting
Dead-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 endowment
Of 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 sample
Of earth’s poor average kind,
   Lit up by no ample
Enrichments of mien or mind.
      I covered my eyes
      As to cover the thought,
      And unrecognize
      What the morn had taught.

   O vision appalling
When 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 sand
Where 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 pain
The 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 yours
Ere 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 turned
To the shadowy corner that none could see,
You paused for our parting, – plaintively;
Though overnight had come words that burned
My fond frail happiness out of me.

And then I kissed you, – despite my thought
That our spell must end when reflection came
On what you had deemed me, whose one long aim
Had been to serve you; that what I sought
Lay not in a heart that could breathe such blame.

But yet I kissed you; whereon you again
As 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 we
In this sweet-bitter pastime:
The love-light shines the last time
   Between you, Dear, and me.

   There shall remain no trace
Of 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 feeling
Some 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 confession
Why, at that first sweet concession,
   She had sighed.

It was in our May, remember;
And though now I near November,
   And abide
Till my appointed change, unfretting,
Sometimes I sit half regretting
   That she sighed.

“IN THE NIGHT SHE CAME”

I told her when I left one day
That whatsoever weight of care
Might 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 paid
My 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 upbraid
With 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 lose
A worthy pair, who helped advance
      Sound parish views.”

THE DAWN AFTER THE DANCE

Here is your parents’ dwelling with its curtained windows telling
Of no thought of us within it or of our arrival here;
Their slumbers have been normal after one day more of formal
Matrimonial commonplace and household life’s mechanic gear.

I would be candid willingly, but dawn draws on so chillingly
As 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 spinning
Of 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 thing
That 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 brighter
Came to pass with us inevitably while slipped the shortening year.
And there stands your father’s dwelling with its blind bleak windows telling
That the vows of man and maid are frail as filmy gossamere.

Weymouth, 1869.

THE SUN ON THE LETTER

I drew the letter out, while gleamed
The sloping sun from under a roof
Of cloud whose verge rose visibly.
The burning ball flung rays that seemed

Stretched like a warp without a woof
Across the levels of the lea
To where I stood, and where they beamed
As brightly on the page of proof

That she had shown her false to me
As if it had shown her true – had teemed
With passionate thought for my behoof
Expressed 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 flit
From 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 near
For welcomes, fellowships, and flow
   Of sally, song, and cheer;

That spigots are pulled and viols strung;
   That soon will arise the sound
Of 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 hermitage
That 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 vanities
Should 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 thin
For naught! Those moils you fear for me
   I find most pleasure in!”

THE VOICE OF THE THORN

I

When the thorn on the down
Quivers naked and cold,
And the mid-aged and old
Pace the path there to town,
In these words dry and drear
It seems to them sighing:
“O winter is trying
To sojourners here!”

II

When it stands fully tressed
On a hot summer day,
And the ewes there astray
Find its shade a sweet rest,
By the breath of the breeze
It inquires of each farer:
“Who would not be sharer
Of shadow with these?”

III

But by day or by night,
And in winter or summer,
Should I be the comer
Along that lone height,
In its voicing to me
Only one speech is spoken:
“Here once was nigh broken
A heart, and by thee.”

FROM HER IN THE COUNTRY

I thought and thought of thy crass clanging town
To folly, till convinced such dreams were ill,
I held my heart in bond, and tethered down
Fancy 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 me
Than all man’s urban shows; and then I stood
Urging new zest for bird, and bush, and tree;

And strove to feel my nature brought it forth
Of instinct, or no rural maid was I;
But it was vain; for I could not see worth
Enough 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 forgetfulness
That such a payment ever was his due

(His long thought notwithstanding), so did I
At our last meeting waive your proffered kiss
With quick divergent talk of scenery nigh,
By such suspension to enhance my bliss.

And as his looks in consternation fall
When, gathering that the debt is lightly deemed,
The debtor makes as not to pay at all,
So faltered I, when your intention seemed

Converted by my false uneagerness
To 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 space

Your soft sweet mien, your gestures, as do we,
And with a copyist’s hand but set them down,
Glowing yet more to dream our ecstasy
When 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 fly
The wild conviction welling up in him

That 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 see
Any 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 again
Your 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 due
To springs that then were sealed up utterly?

1867.

THE MINUTE BEFORE MEETING

The grey gaunt days dividing us in twain
Seemed hopeless hills my strength must faint to climb,
But they are gone; and now I would detain
The few clock-beats that part us; rein back Time,

And live in close expectance never closed
In change for far expectance closed at last,
So harshly has expectance been imposed
On my long need while these slow blank months passed.

And knowing that what is now about to be
Will all have been in O, so short a space!
I read beyond it my despondency
When more dividing months shall take its place,
Thereby denying to this hour of grace
A full-up measure of felicity.

1871.

HE ABJURES LOVE

At last I put off love,
   For twice ten years
The daysman of my thought,
   And hope, and doing;
Being ashamed thereof,
   And faint of fears
And desolations, wrought
In his pursuing,

Since first in youthtime those
   Disquietings
That 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.