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

(Near Tooting Common)

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      I

      While rain, with eve in partnership,

       Descended darkly, drip, drip, drip,

       Beyond the last lone lamp I passed

       Walking slowly, whispering sadly,

       Two linked loiterers, wan, downcast:

       Some heavy thought constrained each face,

       And blinded them to time and place.

      II

      The pair seemed lovers, yet absorbed

       In mental scenes no longer orbed

       By love’s young rays. Each countenance

       As it slowly, as it sadly

       Caught the lamplight’s yellow glance

       Held in suspense a misery

       At things which had been or might be.

      III

      When I retrod that watery way

       Some hours beyond the droop of day,

       Still I found pacing there the twain

       Just as slowly, just as sadly,

       Heedless of the night and rain.

       One could but wonder who they were

       And what wild woe detained them there.

      IV

      Though thirty years of blur and blot

       Have slid since I beheld that spot,

       And saw in curious converse there

       Moving slowly, moving sadly

       That mysterious tragic pair,

       Its olden look may linger on—

       All but the couple; they have gone.

      V

      Whither? Who knows, indeed … And yet

       To me, when nights are weird and wet,

       Without those comrades there at tryst

       Creeping slowly, creeping sadly,

       That lone lane does not exist.

       There they seem brooding on their pain,

       And will, while such a lane remain.

THE FACE AT THE CASEMENT

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      If ever joy leave

       An abiding sting of sorrow,

       So befell it on the morrow

       Of that May eve …

      The travelled sun dropped

       To the north-west, low and lower,

       The pony’s trot grew slower,

       And then we stopped.

      “This cosy house just by

       I must call at for a minute,

       A sick man lies within it

       Who soon will die.

      “He wished to marry me,

       So I am bound, when I drive near him,

       To inquire, if but to cheer him,

       How he may be.”

      A message was sent in,

       And wordlessly we waited,

       Till some one came and stated

       The bulletin.

      And that the sufferer said,

       For her call no words could thank her;

       As his angel he must rank her

       Till life’s spark fled.

      Slowly we drove away,

       When I turned my head, although not

       Called; why so I turned I know not

       Even to this day.

      And lo, there in my view

       Pressed against an upper lattice

       Was a white face, gazing at us

       As we withdrew.

      And well did I divine

       It to be the man’s there dying,

       Who but lately had been sighing

       For her pledged mine.

      Then I deigned a deed of hell;

       It was done before I knew it;

       What devil made me do it

       I cannot tell!

      Yes, while he gazed above,

       I put my arm about her

       That he might see, nor doubt her

       My plighted Love.

      The pale face vanished quick,

       As if blasted, from the casement,

       And my shame and self-abasement

       Began their prick.

      And they prick on, ceaselessly,

       For that stab in Love’s fierce fashion

       Which, unfired by lover’s passion,

       Was foreign to me.

      She smiled at my caress,

       But why came the soft embowment

       Of her shoulder at that moment

       She did not guess.

      Long long years has he lain

       In thy garth, O sad Saint Cleather:

       What tears there, bared to weather,

       Will cleanse that stain!

      Love is long-suffering, brave,

       Sweet, prompt, precious as a jewel;

       But O, too, Love is cruel,

       Cruel as the grave.

LOST LOVE

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      I play my sweet old airs—

       The airs he knew

       When our love was true—

       But he does not balk

       His determined walk,

       And passes up the stairs.

      I sing my songs once more,

       And presently hear

       His footstep near

       As if it would stay;

       But he goes his way,

       And shuts a distant door.

      So I wait for another morn

       And another night

       In this soul-sick blight;

       And I wonder much

       As I sit, why such

       A woman as I was born!

“MY SPIRIT WILL NOT HAUNT THE MOUND”

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