Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with Miscellaneous Pieces. Томас Харди

we ache,

       While still we scan

       Round our frail faltering progress for some path or plan.

      By briefest meeting something sure is won;

       It will have been:

       Nor God nor Daemon can undo the done,

       Unsight the seen,

       Make muted music be as unbegun,

       Though things terrene

       Groan in their bondage till oblivion supervene.

      So, to the one long-sweeping symphony

       From times remote

       Till now, of human tenderness, shall we

       Supply one note,

       Small and untraced, yet that will ever be

       Somewhere afloat

       Amid the spheres, as part of sick Life’s antidote.

THE DIFFERENCE

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      I

      Sinking down by the gate I discern the thin moon,

       And a blackbird tries over old airs in the pine,

       But the moon is a sorry one, sad the bird’s tune,

       For this spot is unknown to that Heartmate of mine.

      II

      Did my Heartmate but haunt here at times such as now,

       The song would be joyous and cheerful the moon;

       But she will see never this gate, path, or bough,

       Nor I find a joy in the scene or the tune.

THE SUN ON THE BOOKCASE

       (Student’s Love-song)

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      Once more the cauldron of the sun

       Smears the bookcase with winy red,

       And here my page is, and there my bed,

       And the apple-tree shadows travel along.

       Soon their intangible track will be run,

       And dusk grow strong

       And they be fled.

      Yes: now the boiling ball is gone,

       And I have wasted another day …

       But wasted—wasted, do I say? Is it a waste to have imaged one Beyond the hills there, who, anon, My great deeds done Will be mine alway?

“WHEN I SET OUT FOR LYONNESSE”

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      When I set out for Lyonnesse,

       A hundred miles away,

       The rime was on the spray,

       And starlight lit my lonesomeness

       When I set out for Lyonnesse

       A hundred miles away.

      What would bechance at Lyonnesse

       While I should sojourn there

       No prophet durst declare,

       Nor did the wisest wizard guess

       What would bechance at Lyonnesse

       While I should sojourn there.

      When I came back from Lyonnesse

       With magic in my eyes,

       None managed to surmise

       What meant my godlike gloriousness,

       When I came back from Lyonnesse

       With magic in my eyes.

A THUNDERSTORM IN TOWN

       (A Reminiscence)

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      She wore a new “terra-cotta” dress,

       And we stayed, because of the pelting storm,

       Within the hansom’s dry recess,

       Though the horse had stopped; yea, motionless

       We sat on, snug and warm.

      Then the downpour ceased, to my sharp sad pain,

       And the glass that had screened our forms before

       Flew up, and out she sprang to her door:

       I should have kissed her if the rain

       Had lasted a minute more.

THE TORN LETTER

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      I

      I tore your letter into strips

       No bigger than the airy feathers

       That ducks preen out in changing weathers

       Upon the shifting ripple-tips.

      II

      In darkness on my bed alone

       I seemed to see you in a vision,

       And hear you say: “Why this derision

       Of one drawn to you, though unknown?”

      III

      Yes, eve’s quick mood had run its course,

       The night had cooled my hasty madness;

       I suffered a regretful sadness

       Which deepened into real remorse.

      IV

      I thought what pensive patient days

       A soul must know of grain so tender,

       How much of good must grace the sender

       Of such sweet words in such bright phrase.

      V

      Uprising then, as things unpriced

       I sought each fragment, patched and mended;

       The midnight whitened ere I had ended

       And gathered words I had sacrificed.

      VI

      But some, alas, of those I threw

       Were past my search, destroyed for ever:

       They were your name and place; and never

       Did I regain those clues to you.

      VII

      I learnt I had missed, by rash unheed,

       My track; that, so the Will decided,

       In life, death, we should be divided,

       And at the sense I ached indeed.

      VIII

      That ache for you, born long ago,

       Throbs on; I never could outgrow it.

       What a revenge, did you but know it!

       But that, thank God, you do not know.

BEYOND THE LAST