PAGE 38

I KNEW A LADY

I knew a lady when the days

Grew long, and evenings goldened;

But I was not emboldened

By her prompt eyes and winning ways.

And when old Winter nipt the haws,

"Another's wife I'll be,

And then you'll care for me,"

She said, "and think how sweet I was!"

And soon she shone as another's wife:

As such I often met her,

And sighed, "How I regret her!

My folly cuts me like a knife!"

And then, today, her husband came,

And moaned, "Why did you flout her?

Well could I do without her!

For both our burdens you are to blame!"

-o0o-

I WAS THE MIDMOST

I was the midmost of my world
When first I frisked me free,
For though within its circuit gleamed
But a small company,
And I was immature, they seemed
To bend their looks on me.

She was the midmost of my world
When I went further forth,
And hence it was that, whether I turned
To south, east, west, or north,
Beams of an all-day Polestar burned
From that new axe of earth.

Where now is midmost in my world?
I trace it not at all:
No midmost shows it here, or there,
When wistful voices call
"We are fain! We are fain!" from everywhere
On Earth's bewildering ball.

-o0o-

A PARTING-SCENE

The two pale women cried,

But the man seemed to suffer more,
Which he strove hard to hide,
They stayed in the waiting-room, behind the door,
Till startled by the entering engine-roar,
As if they could not bear to have unfurled
Their misery to the eyes of all the world.

A soldier and his young wife
Were the couple; his mother the third,
Who had seen the seams of life.
He was sailing for the East I later heard.
They kissed long, but they did not speak a word;
Then, strained, he went. To the elder the wife in tears
"Too long; too long!" burst out. ('Twas for five years,)

-o0o-

SNOW IN THE SUBURBS

Every branch big with it,
Bent every twig with it;
Every fork like a white web-foot;
Every street and pavement mute:
Some flakes have lost their way, and grope back upward, when
Meeting those meandering down they turn and descend again.
The palings are glued together like a wall,
And there is no waft of wind with the fleecy fall.

A sparrow enters the tree,
Whereon immediately
A snow-lump thrice his own slight size
Descends on him and showers his head and eyes,
And overturns him,
And near inurns him,
And lights on a nether twig, when its brush
Starts off a volley of other lodging lumps with a rush.

The steps are a blanched slope,
Up which, with feeble hope,
A black cat comes, wide-eyed and thin;
And we take him in.

-o0o-

The Thomas Hardy Poetry Page is normally updated every Thursday

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PAGE 37

AN UNKINDLY MAY

A shepherd stands by a gate in a white smock-frock;

He holds the gate ajar, intently counting his flock.

The sour spring wind is blurting boisterous-wise,

And bears on it dirty clouds across the skies;

Plantation timbers creak like rusty cranes,

And pigeons and rooks, dishevelled by late rains,

Are like gaunt vultures, sodden and unkempt,

And songbirds do not end what they attempt;

The buds have tried to open, but quite failing

Have pinched themselves together in their quailing.

The sun frowns whitely in eye-trying flaps

Through passing cloud-holes, mimicking audible taps.

"Nature, you're not commendable today!"

I think, "Better tomorrow," she seems to say.

That shepherd still stands in that white smock-frock,

Unnoting all things save the counting his flock.

-o0o-

SONG TO AN OLD BURDEN

The feet have left the wormholed flooring,

That danced to the ancient air,

The fiddler, all-ignoring,

Sleeps by the gray-grassed cello-player;

Shall I then foot around around around, 

As once I footed there!

The voice is heard to the room no longer

That trilled, none sweetlier,

To gentle steps or stronger,

Where now the dust-draped cobwebs stir;

Shall I then sing again again again,

As once I sang with her!

The eyes that beamed out rapid brightness

Have longtime found their close,

The cheeks have wanned to whiteness

That used to sort with summer rose;

Shall I then joy anew anew anew,

As once I joyed in those!

O what's to me this tedious Maying,

What's to me this June?

O why should viols be playing

To catch and reel and rigadoon?

Shall I sing, dance around around around,

When phantoms call the tune!

-o0o-

EVENING SHADOWS

The shadows of my chimneys stretch afar
Across the plot, and on to the privet bower,
And even the shadows of their smokings show,
And nothing says just now that where they are
They will in future stretch at this same hour,
Though in my earthen cyst I shall not know.

And at this time the neighbouring Pagan mound,
Whose myths the Gospel news now supersede,
Upon the greensward also throws its shade,
And nothing says such shade will spread around
Even as today when men will no more heed
The Gospel news than when the mound was made.

-o0o-

HE INADVERTENTLY CURES HIS LOVE-PAINS

I said: "O let me sing the praise
Of her who sweetly racks my days, -
Her I adore;
Her lips, her eyes, her moods, her ways."

In miseries of pulse and pang
I strung my harp, and straightway sang
As none before: -
To wondrous words my quavers rang!

Thus I let heartaches lilt my verse,
Which suaged and soothed, and made disperse
The smarts I bore
To stagnance like a sepulchre's.

But, eased, the days that thrilled ere then
Lost value; and I ask, O when,
And how, restore
Those old sweet agonies again.

-o0o-

The Thomas Hardy Poetry Page is normally updated every Thursday

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PAGE 36

THE SECOND VISIT

Clack, clack, clack, went the mill-wheel as I came,

And she was on the bridge with the thin hand-rail,

And the miller at the door, and the ducks at mill-tail;

I come again years after, and all there seems the same.

And so indeed it is: the apple-tree'd old house,

And the deep mill-pond, and the wet wheel clacking,

And a woman on the bridge, and white ducks quacking,

And the miller at the door, powdered pale from boots to brows.

But it's not the same miller whom long ago I knew,

Nor are they the same apples, nor the same drops that dash

Over the wet wheel, nor the ducks below that splash,

Nor the woman who to fond plaints replied, "You know I do!"

-o=0=o-

HE NEVER EXPECTED MUCH

A consideration on my eighty-sixth birthday

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

Upon the leaze and watch the sky,

Never, I own, expected I

That life would all be fair.

'Twas then you said, and since have said,

Times since have said,

In that mysterious voice you shed

From clouds and hills around;

"Many have loved me desperately,

Many with smooth serenity,

While some have shown contempt of me

Till they dropped underground.

"I do not promise overmuch,

Child; overmuch;

Just neutral-tinted haps and such,"

You said to minds like mine.

Wise warning for your credit's sake!

Which I for one failed not to take,

And hence could stem such strain and ache

As each year might assign.

-o=0=o-

SILENCES

There is a silence of a copse or croft

When the wind sinks dumb,

And of a belfry-loft

When the tenor after tolling stops its hum.

And there's the silence of a lonely pond

Where a man was drowned,

Nor nigh nor yond

A newt, frog, toad, to make the merest sound.

But the rapt silence of an empty house

Where oneself was born,

Dwelt, held carouse

With friends, is of all silences most forlorn!

Past are remembered songs and music-strains

Once audible there:

Roof, rafters, panes

Look absent-thoughted, tranced, or locked in prayer.

It seems no power on earth can waken it

Or rouse its rooms,

Or its past permit

The present to stir a torpor like a tomb's.

-o=0=o-

 SHORTENING DAYS AT THE HOMESTEAD

The first fire since the summer is lit, and is smoking into the room:

The sun-rays thread it through, like woof-lines in a loom.

Sparrows spurt from the hedge, whom misgivings appal

That winter did not leave last year for ever, after all.

Like shock-headed urchins, spiny-haired,

Stand pollard willows, their twigs just bared.

Who is this coming with pondering pace,

Black and ruddy, with white embossed,

His eyes being black, and ruddy his face

And the marge of his hair like morning frost?

It's the cider-maker,

And apple-treeshaker,

And behind him on wheels, in readiness,

His mill, and tubs, and vat, and press.

-o=0=o-

The Thomas Hardy Poetry Page is normally updated every Thursday

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

PAGE 35

THE OXEN

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.

"Now they are all on their knees,"

An elder said as we sat in a flock

By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where

They dwelt in their strawy pen,

Nor did it occur to one of us there

To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave

In these years! Yet, I feel,

If someone said on Christmas Eve

"Come; see the oxen kneel

"In the lonely barton by yonder coomb

Our childhood used to know,"

I should go with him in the gloom

Hoping it might be so.

-o0o-

CHRISTMASTIDE

The rain-shafts splintered on me

As despondently I strode;

The twilight gloomed upon me

And bleared the blank high-road.

Each bush gave forth, when blown on

By gusts in shower and shower,

A sigh, as it were sown on

In handfuls by a sower.

A cheerful voice called nigh me,

"A merry Christmas, friend!"

There rose a figure by me,

Walking with townward trend,

A sodden tramp's, who, breaking

Into thin song, bore straight

Ahead, direction taking

Toward the Casual's gate.

(The Casual's gate was the entrance to the workhouse in Dorchester)

-o0o-

An Epigram (Christmas 1924)

"Peace upon earth!" was said. We sing it,

And pay a million priests to bring it.

After two thousand years of mass

We've got as far as poison-gas.

-o0o-

THE NEXT POST HERE WILL BE ON THURSDAY 9TH JANUARY

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PAGE 34

                            A TRAMPWOMAN'S TRAGEDY                        

1

From Wynyard's Gap the livelong day,

The livelong day,

We beat afoot the northward way

We had travelled times before.

The sun-blaze burning on our backs,

Our shoulders sticking to our packs,

By fosseway, fields, and turnpike tracks

We skirted sad Sedge-Moor.

2

         Full twenty miles we jaunted on,

We jaunted on, — 

My fancy-man, and jeering John,

And Mother Lee, and I.

And, as the sun drew down to west,

We climbed the toilsome Polden crest,

And saw, of landskip sights the best,

The inn that beamed thereby.

  3

Ay, side by side

Through the Great Forest, Blackmoor wide,

And where the Parret ran.

We'd faced the gusts on Mendip ridge,

Had crossed the Yeo unhelped by bridge,

Been stung by every Marshwood midge,
I and my fancy-man.

4

       Lone inns we loved, my man and I,

My man and I;

'King's Stag', 'Windwhistle' high and dry,

'The Horse' on Hintock Green,

The cosy house at Wynyard's Gap,

'The Hut', renowned on Bredy Knap,

And many another wayside tap

Where folk might sit unseen.

              5                   

O deadly day,

O deadly day! — 

I teased my fancy man in play

And wanton idleness.

I walked alongside jeering John,

I laid his hand my waist upon;

I would not bend my glances on

My lover's dark distress.

                               
6

Thus Poldon top at last we won,

At last we won,

And gained the inn at sink of sun

Far-famed as 'Marshal's Elm'.

Beneath us figured tor and lea,

From Mendip to the western sea — 

I doubt if any finer sight there be

Within this royal realm.

                7                 

Inside the settle all a-row —
All four a-row
We sat, I next to John, to show
That he had wooed and won.
And then he took me on his knee,
And swore it was his turn to be
My favoured mate, and Mother Lee
Passed to my former one.
                               
8

Then in a voice I had never heard,
I had never heard,
My only love to me: 'One word,
My lady, if you please!
Whose is the child you are like to bear? —
His? After all my months o' care?'
Gods knows 'twas not! But, O despair!
I nodded — still to tease.

                9                

Then he sprung, and with his knife —
And with his knife,
He let out jeering Johnny's life,
Yes; there at set of sun.
The slant ray through the window nigh
Gilded John's blood and glazing eye,
Ere scarcely Mother Lee and I
Knew that the deed was done.

                10                

The taverns tell the gloomy tale,
The gloomy tale,
How that at Ivel-Chester jail
My love, my sweetheart swung;
Though stained till now by no misdeed
Save one horse ta'en in time of need;
(Blue Jimmy stole right many a steed
Ere his last fling he flung.)

11

Thereaft I walked the world alone
Alone, alone!
On his death-day I gave my groan
And dropt his dead-born child.
'Twas nigh the jail, beneath a tree,
None tending me; for Mother Lee
Had died at Glaston, leaving me
Unfriended on the wild.

               12                

And in the night as I lay weak,
As I lay weak,
The leaves a-falling on my cheek,
The red moon low declined —
The ghost of him I'd die to kiss
Rose up and said: 'Ah, tell me this!
Was the child mine, or was it his?
Speak, that I my rest may find!'

                13                

O doubt but I told him then,
I told him then,
That I had kept me from all men
Since we joined lips and swore.
Whereat he smiled, and thinned away
As the wind stirred to call up day . . .
— 'Tis past! And here alone I stray
Haunting the Western Moor.

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

PAGE 33

THE WEST-OF-WESSEX GIRL 

A very West-of-Wessex girl,

   As blithe as blithe could be,

   Was once well-known to me,

And she would laud her native town,

   And hope and hope that we

Might sometime study up and down

   Its charms in company.

But never I squired my Wessex girl

   In jaunts to Hoe or street

   When hearts were high in beat,

Nor saw her in the marbled ways

   Where market-people meet

That in her bounding early days

   Were friendly with her feet.

Yet now my West-of-Wessex girl,

   When midnight hammers slow

   From Andrew's, blow by blow,

As phantom draws me by the hand

   To the place - Plymouth Hoe -

Where side by side in life, as planned,

   We never were to go!

-o0o-

JUST THE SAME

I sat.  It all was past;
Hope never would hail again;
Fair days had ceased at a blast,
The world was a darkened den.

The beauty and dream were gone,
And the halo in which I had hied
So gaily gallantly on
Had suffered blot and died!

I went forth, heedless whither,
In a cloud too black for name:
- People frisked hither and thither;
The world was just the same.

-o0o-

THE VOICE OF THINGS

Forty Augusts - aye, and several more - ago,
   When I paced the headlands loosed from dull employ,
The waves huzza'd like a multitude below
   In the sway of an all-including joy
      Without cloy.

Blankly I walked there a double decade after,
   When thwarts had flung their toils in front of me,
And I heard the waters wagging in a long ironic laughter
   At the lot of men, and all the vapoury
      Things that be.

Wheeling change has set me again standing where
   Once I heard the waves huzza at Lammas-tide;
But they supplicate now - like a congregation there
   Who murmur the Confession - I outside,
      Prayer denied.

-o0o-

TO A WELL-NAMED DWELLING

Glad old house of lichened stonework,
What I owed you in my lone work,
   Noon and night!
Whensoever faint or ailing,
Letting go my grasp and failing,
   You lent light.

How by that fair title came you?
Did some forward eye so name you
   Knowing that one,
Sauntering down his century blindly,
Would remark your sound, so kindly,
   And be won?

Smile in sunlight, sleep in moonlight,
Bask in April, May, and June-light,
   Zephyr-fanned;
Let your chambers show no sorrow,
Blanching day, or stuporing morrow,
   While they stand.

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

PAGE 32

WHO'S IN THE NEXT ROOM?

"Who's in the next room? - who?

I seem to see

Somebody in the dawning passing through,

Unknown to me."

"Nay: you saw nought. He passed invisibly."

"Who's in the next room? - who?

I seem to hear

Somebody muttering firm in a language new

That chills my ear."

"No: you catch not his tongue who has entered there."

"Who's in the next room? - who?

I seem to feel

His breath like a clammy draught, as if it drew

From the Polar Wheel."

"No: none who breathes at all does the door conceal."

"Who's in the next room? - who?

A figure wan

With a message to one in there of something due?

Shall I know him anon?"

"Yea he; and he brought such; and you'll know him anon."

-o0o-

I SOMETIMES THINK

(For F. E. H)

I sometimes think as here I sit

Of things I have done,

Which seemed in doing not unfit

To face the sun;

Yet never a soul has paused a whit

On such - not one.

There was that eager strenuous press

To sow good seed;

There was that saving from distress

In the nick of need;

There were those words in the wilderness

Who cared to heed?

Yet can this be full true, or no?

For one did care,

And, spiriting into my house, to, fro,

Like wind on the stair,

Cares still, heeds all, and will, even though

I may despair.

-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-