PAGE 21

THE RUINED MAID

"O 'Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!

Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?

And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?"

"O didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she.

"You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,

Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;

And now you've gay bracelets and bright feathers three!"

"Yes: that's how we dress when we're ruined," said she.

 "At home in the barton you said thee' and thou,'

And thik oon,' and theäs oon,' and t'other'; but now

Your talking quite fits 'ee for high compa-ny!" 

"Some polish is gained with one's ruin," said she.

"Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak

But now I'm bewitched by your delicate cheek,

And your little gloves fit as on any la-dy!" 

"We never do work when we're ruined," said she.

 "You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream,

And you'd sigh, and you'd sock; but at present you seem

To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!" 

"True. One's pretty lively when ruined," said she.

"I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown,

And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!" 

"My dear, a raw country girl, such as you be,

Cannot quite expect that. You ain't ruined," said she.

-o0o-

 THE LAST CHRYSANTHEMUM

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 each frond and whorl
That all he could for flowers was being done,
Why did it not uncurl?

It must have felt that fervid call
Although it took no heed,
Waking but now, when leaves like corpses fall,
And saps all retrocede.

Too late its beauty, lonely thing,
The season's shine is spent,
Nothing remains for it but shivering
In tempests turbulent.

Had it a reason for delay,
Dreaming in witlessness
That for a bloom so delicately gay
Winter would stay its stress?

I talk as if the thing were born
With sense to work its mind;
Yet it is but one mask of many worn
By the Great Face behind.

-o0o-

MAD JUDY

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 and the sons
         Gathered them to wed,
And we like-intending ones
         Danced till dawn was red,
She would rock and mutter, "More
Comers to this stony shore!"

When old Headsman Death laid hands
         On a babe or twain,
She would feast, and by her brands
         Sing her songs again.
What she liked we let her do,
Judy was insane, we knew.  

-o0o-

THE JOG-TROT PAIR

Who were the twain that trod this track
So many times together
Hither and back,
In spells of certain and uncertain weather?

Commonplace in conduct they
Who wandered to and fro here
Day by day:
Two that few dwellers troubled themselves to know here.

The very gravel-path was prim
That daily they would follow:
Borders trim:
Never a wayward sprout, or hump, or hollow.

Trite usages in tamest style
Had tended to their plighting."It's just worth while,
Perhaps," they had said. "And saves much sad good-nighting."

And petty seemed the happenings
That ministered to their joyance:
Simple things,
Onerous to satiate souls, increased their buoyance.

Who could those common people be,
Of days the plainest, barest?
They were we;
Yes; happier than the cleverest, smartest, rarest.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

PAGE 20

PATHS OF FORMER TIME

No; no;
It must not be so:
They are the ways we do not go.

Still chew
The kine, and moo
In the meadows we used to wander through;

Still purl
The rivulets and curl
Towards the weirs with a musical swirl;

Haymakers
As in former years
Rake rolls into heaps that the pitchfork rears;

Wheels crack
On the turfy track
The waggon pursues with its toppling pack.

"Why then shun -
Since summer's not done -
All this because of the lack of one?"

Had you been
Sharer of that scene
You would not ask while it bites in keen

Why it is so
We can no more go
By the summer paths we used to know!

-o0o-

WAGTAIL AND BABY

A baby watched a ford, whereto
A wagtail came for drinking;
A blaring bull went wading through,
The wagtail showed no shrinking.

A stallion splashed his way across,
The birdie nearly sinking;
He gave his plumes a twitch and toss,
And held his own unblinking.

Next saw the baby round the spot
A mongrel slowly slinking;
The wagtail gazed, but faltered not
In dip and sip and prinking.

A perfect gentleman then neared;
The wagtail, in a winking,
With terror rose and disappeared;
The baby fell a-thinking.

-o0o-

THE GLIMPSE

She sped through the door
And, following in haste,
And stirred to the core,
I entered hot-faced;
But I could not find her,
No sign was behind her.
"Where is she?" I said:
"Who?" they asked that sat there;
"Not a soul's come in sight."
"A maid with red hair."
"Ah." They paled. "She is dead.
People see her at night,
But you are the first
On whom she has burst
In the keen common light."

It was ages ago,
When I was quite strong:
I have waited since, - O,
I have waited so long!
- Yea, I set me to own
The house, where now lone
I dwell in void rooms
Booming hollow as tombs!
But I never come near her,
Though nightly I hear her.
And my cheek has grown thin
And my hair has grown gray
With this waiting therein;
But she still keeps away!

-o0o-

THE OLD NEIGHBOUR AND THE NEW

Twas to greet the new rector I called I here,
But in the arm-chair I see
My old friend, for long years installed here,
Who palely nods to me.

The new man explains what he's planning
In a smart and cheerful tone,
And I listen, the while that I'm scanning
The figure behind his own.

The newcomer urges things on me;
I return a vague smile thereto,
The olden face gazing upon me
Just as it used to do!

And on leaving I scarcely remember
Which neighbour to-day I have seen,
The one carried out in September,
Or him who but entered yestreen.

-o0o-

BLOG NEWS :- "The Eternal Venus" blog comes to an end tomorrow and its place is taken by "My Own Selection of  British Art of the 19th Century." The latter is a continuation of "My Own Selection of Pre-Raphaelite Paintings" with a new name and a much wider scope. The first post is on Saturday and the address is - http://myownselection.blogspot.com

PAGE 19

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  

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

PAGE 18

Afterwards

When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay,
And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings,
Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbours say,
“He was a man who used to notice such things.”

If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid's soundless blink,
The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alight
Upon the wind-warped upland thorn, a gazer may think,
“To him this must have been a familiar sight.”

If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm,
When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn,
One may say, “He strove that such innocent creatures should come to no harm,
But he could do little for them; and now he is gone.”

If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the door,
Watching the full-starred heavens that winter sees,
Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no more,
“He was one who had an eye for such mysteries.”

And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom
And a crossing breeze cuts a pause in its outrollings,
Till they rise again, as they were a new bell's boom,
“He hears it not now, but used to notice such things”

-o0o-

Tess’s Lament

I would that folk forgot me quite,
   Forgot me quite!
I would that I could shrink from sight,
   And no more see the sun.
Would it were time to say farewell,
To claim my nook, to need my knell,
Time for them all to stand and tell
   Of my day's work as done.

Ah! dairy where I lived so long,
   I lived so long;
Where I would rise up stanch and strong,
   And lie down hopefully.
'Twas there within the chimney-seat
He watched me to the clock's slow beat -
Loved me, and learnt to call me sweet,
   And whispered words to me.

And now he's gone; and now he's gone; -
   And now he's gone!
The flowers we potted p'rhaps are thrown
   To rot upon the farm.
And where we had our supper-fire
May now grow nettle, dock, and briar,
And all the place be mould and mire
   So cozy once and warm.

And it was I who did it all,
   Who did it all;
'Twas I who made the blow to fall
   On him who thought no guile.
Well, it is finished - past, and he
Has left me to my misery,
And I must take my Cross on me
   For wronging him awhile.

 How gay we looked that day we wed,
   That day we wed!
"May joy be with ye!" all o'm said
   A-standing by the durn.
I wonder what they say o's now,
And if they know my lot; and how
She feels who milks my favourite cow,
   And takes my place at churn!

It wears me out to think of it,
   To think of it;
I cannot bear my fate as writ,
   I'd have my life unbe;
Would turn my memory to a blot,
Make every relic of me rot,
My doings be as they were not,
   And what they've brought to me!

-o0o-

The Darkling Thrush

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 that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

-o0o-

Faintheart in a Railway Train

At nine in the morning there passed a church,
At ten there passed me by the sea,
At twelve a town of smoke and smirch,
At two a forest of oak and birch,
And then, on a platform, she.

A radiant stranger, who saw not me,
I said, “Get out to her do I dare?”
But I kept my seat in my search for a plea,
And the wheels moved on. O could it but be
That I had alighted there!

-o0o-

FROM NEXT WEEK ONWARDS THIS BLOG WILL BE UPDATED ON THURSDAYS.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

PAGE 17

An August Midnight

A shaded lamp and a waving blind,
And the beat of a clock from a distant floor:
On this scene enter -winged, horned, and spined -
A longlegs, a moth, and a dumbledore;
While 'mid my page there idly stands
A sleepy fly, that rubs its hands . . .

Thus meet we five, in this still place,
At this point of time, at this point in space.
- My guests besmear my new-penned line,
Or bang at the lamp and fall supine.
"God's humblest, they!" I muse. Yet why?
They know Earth-secrets that know not I.

-o0o-

At the Piano

A Woman was playing,
    A man looking on;
    And the mould of her face,
    And her neck, and her hair,
    Which the rays fell upon
    Of the two candles there,
Sent him mentally straying
    In some fancy-place
    Where pain had no trace.
A cowled Apparition
    Came pushing between;
    And her notes seemed to sigh;
    And the lights to burn pale,
    As a spell numbed the scene.
    But the maid saw no bale,
And the man no monition;
    And Time laughed awry,
    And the Phantom hid nigh.

-o0o-

The High School Lawn

Gray prinked with rose,
White tipped with blue,
Shoes with gay hose,
Sleeves of chrome hue;
Fluffed frills of white,
Dark bordered light;
Such shimmerings through
Trees of emerald green are eyed
This afternoon, from the road outside.

They whirl around:
Many laughters run
With a cascade's sound;
Then a mere one.
A bell: they flee:
Silence then: -
So it will be
Some day again
With them, - with me.

-o0o-

A Week

On Monday night I closed my door,
And thought you were not as heretofore,
And little cared if we met no more.

I seemed on Tuesday night to trace
Something beyond mere commonplace
In your ideas, and heart, and face.

On Wednesday I did not opine
Your life would ever be one with mine,
Though if it were we should well combine.

On Thursday noon I liked you well,
And fondly felt that we must dwell
Not far apart, whatever befell.

On Friday it was with a thrill
In gazing towards your distant vill
I owned you were my dear one still.

I saw you wholly to my mind
On Saturday - even one who shrined
All that was best of womankind.

As wing-clipt seagull for the sea
On Sunday night I longed for thee,
Without whom life were waste to me!

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

MORE POETRY NEXT FRIDAY

PAGE 16

The Convergence of the Twain 

(lines on the loss of the Titanic)

In a solitude of the sea            
Deep from human vanity,
And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.
     
Steel chambers, late the pyres            
Of her salamandrine fires,
Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.
      
Over the mirrors meant            
To glass the opulent
The sea-worm crawls - grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.

      
Jewels in joy designed            
To ravish the sensuous mind
Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind.
         
Dim moon-eyed fishes near            
Gaze at the gilded gear
And query: "What does this vaingloriousness down here?" 
     
Well: while was fashioning            
This creature of cleaving wing,
The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything
        
Prepared a sinister mate            
For her - so gaily great -
A Shape of Ice, for the time far and dissociate.
        
And as the smart ship grew            
In stature, grace, and hue,
In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.
        
Alien they seemed to be;            
No mortal eye could see
The intimate welding of their later history,

        
Or sign that they were bent            
By paths coincident
On being anon twin halves of one august event,
        
Till the Spinner of the Years            
Said "Now!" And each one hears,
And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.

-o0o-

The Farm Woman’s Winter

If seasons all were summers,
And leaves would never fall,
And hopping casement-comers
Were foodless not at all,
And fragile folk might be here
That white winds bid depart;
Then one I used to see here
Would warm my wasted heart!

One frail, who, bravely tilling
Long hours in gripping gusts,
Was mastered by their chilling,
And now his ploughshare rusts.
So savage winter catches
The breath of limber things,
And what I love he snatches,
And what I love not, brings.
 

-o0o-

The Chimes play “Life’s a Bumper”

"Awake! I'm off to cities far away,"
I said; and rose, on peradventures bent.
The chimes played "Life's a Bumper!" on that day
To the measure of my walking as I went:
Their sweetness frisked and floated on the lea,
As they played out "Life's a Bumper!" there to me.

"Awake!" I said. "I go to take a bride!"

- The sun arose behind me ruby-red
As I journeyed townwards from the countryside,
The chiming bells saluting near ahead.
Their sweetness swelled in tripping tings of glee
As they played out "Life's a Bumper!" there to me.
 

"Again arise." I seek a turfy slope,
And go forth slowly on an autumn noon,
And there I lay her who has been my hope,
And think, "O may I follow hither soon!"
While on the wind the chimes come cheerily,
Playing out "Life's a Bumper!" there to me.
 

-o0o-

Birds at Winter Nightfall

Around the house the flakes fly faster,
And all the berries now are gone
From holly and cotoneaster
Around the house. The flakes fly! - faster
Shutting indoors that crumb-outcaster
We used to see upon the lawn
Around the house. The flakes fly faster,
And all the berries now are gone!

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o- 

 MORE POEMS NEXT FRIDAY

PAGE 15

At the Word “Farewell”

She looked like a bird from a cloud
On the clammy lawn,
Moving alone, bare-browed
In the dim of dawn.
The candles alight in the room
For my parting meal
Made all things withoutdoors loom
Strange, ghostly, unreal.

The hour itself was a ghost,
And it seemed to me then
As of chances the chance furthermost
I should see her again.
I beheld not where all was so fleet
That a Plan of the past
Which had ruled us from birthtime to meet
Was in working at last:

No prelude did I there perceive
To a drama at all,
Or foreshadow what fortune might weave
From beginnings so small;
But I rose as if quicked by a spur
I was bound to obey,
And stepped through the casement to her
Still alone in the gray.

"I am leaving you - Farewell!" I said,
As I followed her on
By an alley bare boughs overspread;
"I soon must be gone!"
Even then the scale might have been turned
Against love by a feather,
- But crimson one cheek of hers burned
When we came in together.

-o0o-

We Sat at the Window

We sat at the window looking out,
And the rain came down like silken strings
That Swithin's day. Each gutter and spout
Babbled unchecked in the busy way
Of witless things:
Nothing to read, nothing to see
Seemed in that room for her and me
On Swithin's day.

We were irked by the scene, by our own selves; yes
For I did not know, nor did she infer
How much there was to read and guess
By her in me, and to see and crown
By me in her.
Wasted were two souls in their prime,
And great was the waste, that July time
When the rain came down.

-o0o- 

Where the Picnic Was

Where we made the fire,
In the summer time,
Of branch and briar
On the hill to the sea
I slowly climb
Through winter mire,
And scan and trace
The forsaken place
Quite readily.

Now a cold wind blows,
And the grass is gray,
But the spot still shows
As a burnt circle--aye,
And stick-ends, charred,
Still strew the sward
Whereon I stand,
Last relic of the band
Who came that day!

Yes, I am here
Just as last year,
And the sea breathes brine
From its strange straight line
Up hither, the same
As when we four came.
- But two have wandered far
From this grassy rise
Into urban roar
Where no picnics are,
And one - has shut her eyes
For evermore.

-o0o-

A Sheep Fair

The day arrives of the autumn fair,
And torrents fall,
Though sheep in throngs are gathered there,
Ten thousand all,
Sodden, with hurdles round them reared;
And, lot by lot, the pens are cleared,
And the auctioneer rings out his beard,
And wipes his book, bedrenched and smeared,
And rakes the rain from his face with the edge of his hand,
As torrents fall.
 

-o0o-

More poetry next Friday