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Epeisodia

Past the hills that peep
Where the leaze is smiling,
On and on beguiling
Crisply-cropping sheep;
Under boughs of brushwood
Linking tree and tree
In a shade of lushwood,
There caressed we!

Hemmed by city walls
That outshut the sunlight,
In a foggy dun light,
Where the footstep falls
With a pit-pat wearisome
In its cadency
On the flagstones drearisome
There pressed we!

Where in wild-winged crowds
Blown birds show their whiteness
Up against the lightness
Of the clammy clouds;
By the random river
Pushing to the sea,
Under bents that quiver
There rest we.

-o0o-

The Workbox

“See, here's the workbox, little wife,
 That I made of polished oak.”
He was a joiner, of village life;
 She came of borough folk.

He holds the present up to her
 As with a smile she nears
And answers to the proferer,
 ''Twill last all my sewing years!"

“I warrant it will. And longer too.
 Tis a scantling that I got
Off poor John Wayward's coffin, who
 Died of they knew not what.

“The shingled pattern that seems to cease
 Against your box's rim
Continues right on in the piece
 That's underground with him.

“And while I worked it made me think
 Of timber's varied doom;
One inch where people eat and drink,
 The next inch in a tomb.

“But why do you look so white, my dear,
 And turn aside your face?
You knew not that good lad, I fear,
 Though he came from your native place?”

“How could I know that good young man,
 Though he came from my native town,
When he must have left there earlier than
 I was a woman grown?”

“Ah, no. I should have understood!
 It shocked you that I gave
To you one end of a piece of wood
 Whose other is in a grave?”

“Don't, dear, despise my intellect,
 Mere accidental things
Of that sort never have effect
 On my imaginings.”

Yet still her lips were limp and wan,
 Her face still held aside,
As if she had known not only John,
 But known of what he died.

-o0o-

The Cave of the Unborn

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 morn.

Their eyes were lit with artless trust;
Hope thrilled their every tone:
"A place the loveliest, is it not?
A pure delight, a beauty-spot
Where all is gentle, pure and just
And darkness is unknown?"

My heart was anguished for their sake;
I could not frame a word;
But they descried my sunken face
And seemed to read therein, and trace
The news which Pity would not break
Nor Truth leave unaverred.

And as I silently retired
I turned and watched them still:
And they came helter-skelter out,
Driven forward like a rabble rout
Into the world they had so desired,
By the all-immanent Will.

-o0o-

Weathers

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 Traveller's Rest,

And maids come forth sprig-muslin drest,
And citizens dream of the south and west,
And so do I.

This is the weather the shepherd shuns,
And so do I;
When beeches drip in browns and duns,
And thresh and ply;
And hill-hid tides throb, throe on throe,
And meadow rivulets overflow,
And drops on gate bars hang in a row,
And rooks in families homeward go,
And so do I.

-o0o-

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE START OF THE NEW BLOG ANNOUNCED HERE LAST WEEK HAS  BEEN POSTPONED.

THE THOMAS HARDY POETRY PAGE WILL  BE UPDATED EVERY THURSDAY  

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