The Complete Poetical Works. Томас Харди

      She, To Him

       IV

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      This love puts all humanity from me;

       I can but maledict her, pray her dead,

       For giving love and getting love of thee—

       Feeding a heart that else mine own had fed!

      How much I love I know not, life not known,

       Save as some unit I would add love by;

       But this I know, my being is but thine own—

       Fused from its separateness by ecstasy.

      And thus I grasp thy amplitudes, of her

       Ungrasped, though helped by nigh-regarding eyes;

       Canst thou then hate me as an envier

       Who see unrecked what I so dearly prize?

       Believe me, Lost One, Love is lovelier

       The more it shapes its moan in selfish-wise.

      1866.

      Ditty

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      (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 meet,

       No man barters, no man sells

       Where she dwells.

      Upon that fabric fair

       “Here is she!”

       Seems written everywhere

       Unto me.

       But to friends and nodding neighbours,

       Fellow-wights in lot and labours,

       Who descry the times as I,

       No such lucid legend tells

       Where she dwells.

      Should I lapse to what I was

       Ere we met;

       (Such can not be, but because

       Some forget

       Let me feign it)—none would notice

       That where she I know by rote is

       Spread a strange and withering change,

       Like a drying of the wells

       Where she dwells.

      To feel I might have kissed—

       Loved as true—

       Otherwhere, nor Mine have missed

       My life through.

       Had I never wandered near her,

       Is a smart severe—severer

       In the thought that she is nought,

       Even as I, beyond the dells

       Where she dwells.

      And Devotion droops her glance

       To recall

       What bond-servants of Chance

       We are all.

       I but found her in that, going

       On my errant path unknowing,

       I did not out-skirt the spot

       That no spot on earth excels,

       —Where she dwells!

      1870.

      THE SERGEANT’S SONG

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      (1803)

      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 scales,

       And Rogues are only found in jails;

       Then Little Boney he’ll pounce down,

       And march his men on London town!

       Rollicum-rorum, &c.

      When Rich Men find their wealth a curse,

       And fill therewith the Poor Man’s purse;

       Then Little Boney he’ll pounce down,

       And march his men on London town!

       Rollicum-rorum, &c.

      When Husbands with their Wives agree,

       And Maids won’t wed from modesty;

       Then Little Boney he’ll pounce down,

       And march his men on London town!

       Rollicum-rorum, tol-tol-lorum,

       Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lay!

      1878.

      Valenciennes

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      (1793)

      By Corp’l 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 bombed

       The Town o’ Valencieën.

      ’Twas in the June o’ Ninety-dree

       (The Duke o’ Yark our then Commander been)

       The German Legion, Guards, and we

       Laid siege to Valencieën.

      This was the first time in the war

       That French and English spilled each other’s gore;

       —Few dreamt how far would roll the roar

       Begun at Valencieën!

      ’Twas said that we’d no business there

       A-topperèn the French for disagreën;

       However, that’s not my affair—

       We were at Valencieën.

      Such snocks and slats, since war began

       Never knew raw recruit or veteran: