Time's Laughingstocks, and Other Verses

We shall see her no more
   On the balcony,
Smiling, while hurt, at the roar
   As of surging sea
From the stormy sturdy band
   Who have doomed her lord’s cause,
Though she waves her little hand
   As it were applause.

Here will be candidates yet,
   And candidates’ wives,
Fervid with zeal to set
   Their ideals on our lives:
Here will come market-men
   On the market-days,
Here will clash now and then
   More such party assays.

January 1906.

I

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!

II

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.

Here by the baring bough
   Raking up leaves,
Often I ponder how
   Springtime deceives,—
I, an old woman now,
   Raking up leaves.

Here in the avenue
   Raking up leaves,
Lords’ ladies pass in view,
   Until one heaves
Sighs at life’s russet hue,
   Raking up leaves!

Just as my shape you see
   Raking up leaves,
I saw, when fresh and free,
   Those memory weaves
Into grey ghosts by me,
   Raking up leaves.

1901.

Close up the casement, draw the blind,
   Shut out that stealing moon,
She wears too much the guise she wore
   Before our lutes were strewn
With years-deep dust, and names we read
   On a white stone were hewn.

Step not out on the dew-dashed lawn
   To view the Lady’s Chair,
Immense Orion’s glittering form,
   The Less and Greater Bear:
Stay in; to such sights we were drawn
   When faded ones were fair.

Brush not the bough for midnight scents
   That come forth lingeringly,
And wake the same sweet sentiments
   They breathed to you and me
When living seemed a laugh, and love
   All it was said to be.

1904.

I

Who now remembers Almack’s balls—
   Willis’s sometime named—
In those two smooth-floored upper halls
   For faded ones so famed?
Where as we trod to trilling sound
The fancied phantoms stood around,
   Or joined us in the maze,
Of the powdered Dears from Georgian years,
Whose dust lay in sightless sealed-up biers,
   The fairest of former days.

II

III

Who now recalls those crowded rooms
   Of old yclept “The Argyle,”
Where to the deep Drum-polka’s booms
   We hopped in standard style?
Whither have danced those damsels now!
Is Death the partner who doth moue
   Their wormy chaps and bare?
Do their spectres spin like sparks within
The smoky halls of the Prince of Sin
   To a thunderous Jullien air?

They hail me as one living,
   But don’t they know
That I have died of late years,
   Untombed although?

I am but a shape that stands here,
   A pulseless mould,
A pale past picture, screening
   Ashes gone cold.

Not at a minute’s warning,
   Not in a loud hour,
For me ceased Time’s enchantments
   In hall and bower.

There was no tragic transit,
   No catch of breath,
When silent seasons inched me
   On to this death . . .

—A Troubadour-youth I rambled
   With Life for lyre,
The beats of being raging
   In me like fire.

When passed my friend, my kinsfolk
   Through the Last Door,
And left me standing bleakly,
   I died yet more;

And when my Love’s heart kindled
   In hate of me,
Wherefore I knew not, died I
   One more degree.

And if when I died fully
   I cannot say,
And changed into the corpse-thing
   I am to-day;

Yet is it that, though whiling
   The time somehow
In walking, talking, smiling,
   I live not now.

In five-score summers!  All new eyes,
New minds, new modes, new fools, new wise;
New woes to weep, new joys to prize;

With nothing left of me and you
In that live century’s vivid view
Beyond a pinch of dust or two;

A century which, if not sublime,
Will show, I doubt not, at its prime,
A scope above this blinkered time.

—Yet what to me how far above?
For I would only ask thereof
That thy worm should be my worm, Love!

16 Westbourne Park Villas, 1867.

I lingered through the night to break of day,
Nor once did sleep extend a wing to me,
Intently busied with a vast array
Of epithets that should outfigure thee.

Full-featured terms—all fitless—hastened by,
And this sole speech remained: “That maiden mine!”—
Debarred from due description then did I
Perceive the indefinite phrase could yet define.

As common chests encasing wares of price
Are borne with tenderness through halls of state,
For what they cover, so the poor device
Of homely wording I could tolerate,
Knowing its unadornment held as freight
The sweetest image outside Paradise.

W. P. V.,
Summer: 1866.

Rain on the windows, creaking doors,
   With blasts that besom the green,
And I am here, and you are there,
   And a hundred miles between!

O were it but the weather, Dear,
   O were it but the miles
That summed up all our severance,
   There might be room for smiles.

But that thwart thing betwixt us twain,
   Which nothing cleaves or clears,
Is more than distance, Dear, or rain,
   And longer than the years!

1893.

We kissed at the barrier; and passing through
She left me, and moment by moment got
Smaller and smaller, until to my view
   She was but a spot;

A wee white spot of muslin fluff
That down the diminishing platform bore
Through hustling crowds of gentle and rough
   To the carriage door.

Under the lamplight’s fitful glowers,
Behind dark groups from far and near,
Whose interests were apart from ours,
   She would disappear,

Then show again, till I ceased to see
That flexible form, that nebulous white;
And she who was more than my life to me
   Had vanished quite . . .

—“And why, young man, must eternally fly
A joy you’ll repeat, if you love her well?”
—O friend, nought happens twice thus; why,
   I cannot tell!

These people have not heard your name;
No loungers in this placid place
Have helped to bruit your beauty’s fame.

The grey Cathedral, towards whose face
Bend eyes untold, has met not yours;
Your shade has never swept its base,

Your form has never darked its doors,
Nor have your faultless feet once thrown
A pensive pit-pat on its floors.

Along the street to maids well known
Blithe lovers hum their tender airs,
But in your praise voice not a tone.

—Since nought bespeaks you here, or bears,
As I, your imprint through and through,
Here might I rest, till my heart shares
The spot’s unconsciousness of you!

Salisbury.

I say, “I’ll seek her side
   Ere hindrance interposes;”
   But eve in midnight closes,
And here I still abide.

When darkness wears I see
   Her sad eyes in a vision;
   They ask, “What indecision
Detains you, Love, from me?—

“The creaking hinge is oiled,
   I have unbarred the backway,
   But you tread not the trackway;
And shall the thing be spoiled?

“Far cockcrows echo shrill,
   The shadows are abating,
   And I am waiting, waiting;
But O, you tarry still!”

I met her, as we had privily planned,
Where passing feet beat busily:
She whispered: “Father is at hand!
   He wished to walk with me.”

His presence as he joined us there
Banished our words of warmth away;
We felt, with cloudings of despair,
   What Love must lose that day.

Her crimson lips remained unkissed,
Our fingers kept no tender hold,
His lack of feeling made the tryst
   Embarrassed, stiff, and cold.

A cynic ghost then rose and said,
“But is his love for her so small
That, nigh to yours, it may be read
   As of no worth at all?

“You love her for her pink and white;
But what when their fresh splendours close?
His love will last her in despite
   Of Time, and wrack, and foes.”

Weymouth.

   When night was lifting,
And dawn had crept under its shade,
   Amid cold clouds drifting
Dead-white as a corpse outlaid,
      With a sudden scare
      I seemed to behold
      My Love in bare
      Hard lines unfold.

   Yea, in a moment,
An insight that would not die
   Killed her old endowment
Of charm that had capped all nigh,
      Which vanished to none
      Like the gilt of a cloud,
      And showed her but one
      Of the common crowd.

   O vision appalling
When the one believed-in thing
   Is seen falling, falling,
With all to which hope can cling.
      Off: it is not true;
      For it cannot be
      That the prize I drew
      Is a blank to me!

Weymouth, 1869.

Here are the tracks upon the sand
Where stood last evening she and I—
Pressed heart to heart and hand to hand;
The morning sun has baked them dry.

I kissed her wet face—wet with rain,
For arid grief had burnt up tears,
While reached us as in sleeping pain
The distant gurgling of the weirs.

“I have married him—yes; feel that ring;
’Tis a week ago that he put it on . . .
A dutiful daughter does this thing,
And resignation succeeds anon!

“But that I body and soul was yours
Ere he’d possession, he’ll never know.
He’s a confident man.  ‘The husband scores,’
He says, ‘in the long run’ . . . Now, Dear, go!”

In the vaulted way, where the passage turned
To the shadowy corner that none could see,
You paused for our parting,—plaintively;
Though overnight had come words that burned
My fond frail happiness out of me.

And then I kissed you,—despite my thought
That our spell must end when reflection came
On what you had deemed me, whose one long aim
Had been to serve you; that what I sought
Lay not in a heart that could breathe such blame.

But yet I kissed you; whereon you again
As of old kissed me.  Why, why was it so?
Do you cleave to me after that light-tongued blow?
If you scorned me at eventide, how love then?
The thing is dark, Dear.  I do not know.

That was once her casement,
   And the taper nigh,
Shining from within there,
   Beckoned, “Here am I!”

Now, as then, I see her
   Moving at the pane;
Ah; ’tis but her phantom
   Borne within my brain!—

Foremost in my vision
   Everywhere goes she;
Change dissolves the landscapes,
   She abides with me.

Shape so sweet and shy, Dear,
   Who can say thee nay?
Never once do I, Dear,
   Wish thy ghost away.

   Indulge no more may we
In this sweet-bitter pastime:
The love-light shines the last time
   Between you, Dear, and me.

   There shall remain no trace
Of what so closely tied us,
And blank as ere love eyed us
   Will be our meeting-place.

   The flowers and thymy air,
Will they now miss our coming?
The dumbles thin their humming
   To find we haunt not there?

   Though fervent was our vow,
Though ruddily ran our pleasure,
Bliss has fulfilled its measure,
   And sees its sentence now.

   Ache deep; but make no moans:
Smile out; but stilly suffer:
The paths of love are rougher
   Than thoroughfares of stones.

Little head against my shoulder,
Shy at first, then somewhat bolder,
   And up-eyed;
Till she, with a timid quaver,
Yielded to the kiss I gave her;
   But, she sighed.

That there mingled with her feeling
Some sad thought she was concealing
   It implied.
—Not that she had ceased to love me,
None on earth she set above me;
   But she sighed.

She could not disguise a passion,
Dread, or doubt, in weakest fashion
   If she tried:
Nothing seemed to hold us sundered,
Hearts were victors; so I wondered
   Why she sighed.

It was in our May, remember;
And though now I near November,
   And abide
Till my appointed change, unfretting,
Sometimes I sit half regretting
   That she sighed.

I told her when I left one day
That whatsoever weight of care
Might strain our love, Time’s mere assault
   Would work no changes there.
And in the night she came to me,
   Toothless, and wan, and old,
With leaden concaves round her eyes,
   And wrinkles manifold.

I tremblingly exclaimed to her,
“O wherefore do you ghost me thus!
I have said that dull defacing Time
   Will bring no dreads to us.”
“And is that true of you?” she cried
   In voice of troubled tune.
I faltered: “Well . . . I did not think
   You would test me quite so soon!”

   Yes; we’ll wed, my little fay,
   And you shall write you mine,
And in a villa chastely gray
   We’ll house, and sleep, and dine.
   But those night-screened, divine,
   Stolen trysts of heretofore,
We of choice ecstasies and fine
      Shall know no more.

   The formal faced cohue
   Will then no more upbraid
With smiting smiles and whisperings two
   Who have thrown less loves in shade.
   We shall no more evade
   The searching light of the sun,
Our game of passion will be played,
      Our dreaming done.

   When down to dust we glide
   Men will not say askance,
As now: “How all the country side
   Rings with their mad romance!”
   But as they graveward glance
   Remark: “In them we lose
A worthy pair, who helped advance
      Sound parish views.”

Here is your parents’ dwelling with its curtained windows telling
Of no thought of us within it or of our arrival here;
Their slumbers have been normal after one day more of formal
Matrimonial commonplace and household life’s mechanic gear.

I would be candid willingly, but dawn draws on so chillingly
As to render further cheerlessness intolerable now,
So I will not stand endeavouring to declare a day for severing,
But will clasp you just as always—just the olden love avow.

Yes; last night we danced I know, Dear, as we did that year ago, Dear,
When a new strange bond between our days was formed, and felt, and heard;
Would that dancing were the worst thing from the latest to the first thing
That the faded year can charge us with; but what avails a word!

That which makes man’s love the lighter and the woman’s burn no brighter
Came to pass with us inevitably while slipped the shortening year . . .
And there stands your father’s dwelling with its blind bleak windows telling
That the vows of man and maid are frail as filmy gossamere.

Weymouth, 1869.

I drew the letter out, while gleamed
The sloping sun from under a roof
Of cloud whose verge rose visibly.

The burning ball flung rays that seemed
Stretched like a warp without a woof
Across the levels of the lea

To where I stood, and where they beamed
As brightly on the page of proof
That she had shown her false to me

As if it had shown her true—had teemed
With passionate thought for my behoof
Expressed with their own ardency!

The cold moon hangs to the sky by its horn,
   And centres its gaze on me;
The stars, like eyes in reverie,
Their westering as for a while forborne,
   Quiz downward curiously.

Old Robert draws the backbrand in,
   The green logs steam and spit;
The half-awakened sparrows flit
From the riddled thatch; and owls begin
   To whoo from the gable-slit.

Yes; far and nigh things seem to know
   Sweet scenes are impending here;
That all is prepared; that the hour is near
For welcomes, fellowships, and flow
   Of sally, song, and cheer;

That spigots are pulled and viols strung;
   That soon will arise the sound
Of measures trod to tunes renowned;
That She will return in Love’s low tongue
   My vows as we wheel around.

I busied myself to find a sure
      Snug hermitage
That should preserve my Love secure
      From the world’s rage;
Where no unseemly saturnals,
   Or strident traffic-roars,
Or hum of intervolved cabals
   Should echo at her doors.

I laboured that the diurnal spin
      Of vanities
Should not contrive to suck her in
      By dark degrees,
And cunningly operate to blur
   Sweet teachings I had begun;
And then I went full-heart to her
   To expound the glad deeds done.

I

When the thorn on the down
Quivers naked and cold,
And the mid-aged and old
Pace the path there to town,
In these words dry and drear
It seems to them sighing:
“O winter is trying
To sojourners here!”

II

When it stands fully tressed
On a hot summer day,
And the ewes there astray
Find its shade a sweet rest,
By the breath of the breeze
It inquires of each farer:
“Who would not be sharer
Of shadow with these?”

But by day or by night,
And in winter or summer,
Should I be the comer
Along that lone height,
In its voicing to me
Only one speech is spoken:
“Here once was nigh broken
A heart, and by thee.”

I thought and thought of thy crass clanging town
To folly, till convinced such dreams were ill,
I held my heart in bond, and tethered down
Fancy to where I was, by force of will.

I said: How beautiful are these flowers, this wood,
One little bud is far more sweet to me
Than all man’s urban shows; and then I stood
Urging new zest for bird, and bush, and tree;

And strove to feel my nature brought it forth
Of instinct, or no rural maid was I;
But it was vain; for I could not see worth
Enough around to charm a midge or fly,

And mused again on city din and sin,
Longing to madness I might move therein!

16 W. P. V., 1866.

As some bland soul, to whom a debtor says
“I’ll now repay the amount I owe to you,”
In inward gladness feigns forgetfulness
That such a payment ever was his due

(His long thought notwithstanding), so did I
At our last meeting waive your proffered kiss
With quick divergent talk of scenery nigh,
By such suspension to enhance my bliss.

And as his looks in consternation fall
When, gathering that the debt is lightly deemed,
The debtor makes as not to pay at all,
So faltered I, when your intention seemed

Converted by my false uneagerness
To putting off for ever the caress.

W. P. V., 1865–67.

Did he who drew her in the years ago—
Till now conceived creator of her grace—
With telescopic sight high natures know,
Discern remote in Time’s untravelled space

Your soft sweet mien, your gestures, as do we,
And with a copyist’s hand but set them down,
Glowing yet more to dream our ecstasy
When his Original should be forthshown?

For, kindled by that animated eye,
Whereto all fairnesses about thee brim,
And by thy tender tones, what wight can fly
The wild conviction welling up in him

That he at length beholds woo, parley, plead,
The “very, very Rosalind” indeed!

8 Adelphi Terrace, 21st April 1867.

I read your name when you were strange to me,
Where it stood blazoned bold with many more;
I passed it vacantly, and did not see
Any great glory in the shape it wore.

O cruelty, the insight barred me then!
Why did I not possess me with its sound,
And in its cadence catch and catch again
Your nature’s essence floating therearound?

Could that man be this I, unknowing you,
When now the knowing you is all of me,
And the old world of then is now a new,
And purpose no more what it used to be—
A thing of formal journeywork, but due
To springs that then were sealed up utterly?

1867.

The grey gaunt days dividing us in twain
Seemed hopeless hills my strength must faint to climb,
But they are gone; and now I would detain
The few clock-beats that part us; rein back Time,

And live in close expectance never closed
In change for far expectance closed at last,
So harshly has expectance been imposed
On my long need while these slow blank months passed.

And knowing that what is now about to be
Will all have been in O, so short a space!
I read beyond it my despondency
When more dividing months shall take its place,
Thereby denying to this hour of grace
A full-up measure of felicity.

1871.

At last I put off love,
   For twice ten years
The daysman of my thought,
   And hope, and doing;
Being ashamed thereof,
   And faint of fears
And desolations, wrought
In his pursuing,

Since first in youthtime those
   Disquietings
That heart-enslavement brings
   To hale and hoary,
Became my housefellows,
   And, fool and blind,
I turned from kith and kind
   To give him glory.

Too many times ablaze
   With fatuous fires,
Enkindled by his wiles
   To new embraces,
Did I, by wilful ways
   And baseless ires,
Return the anxious smiles
   Of friendly faces.

No more will now rate I
   The common rare,
The midnight drizzle dew,
   The gray hour golden,
The wind a yearning cry,
   The faulty fair,
Things dreamt, of comelier hue
   Than things beholden! . . .

—I speak as one who plumbs
   Life’s dim profound,
One who at length can sound
   Clear views and certain.
But—after love what comes?
   A scene that lours,
A few sad vacant hours,
   And then, the Curtain.

1883.

(MINOR KEY)

I

Let me enjoy the earth no less
Because the all-enacting Might
That fashioned forth its loveliness
Had other aims than my delight.

II

About my path there flits a Fair,
Who throws me not a word or sign;
I’ll charm me with her ignoring air,
And laud the lips not meant for mine.

III

From manuscripts of moving song
Inspired by scenes and dreams unknown
I’ll pour out raptures that belong
To others, as they were my own.

And some day hence, towards Paradise,
And all its blest—if such should be—
I will lift glad, afar-off eyes,
Though it contain no place for me.

I
The Ballad-Singer

Sing, Ballad-singer, raise a hearty tune;
Make me forget that there was ever a one
I walked with in the meek light of the moon
   When the day’s work was done.

Rhyme, Ballad-rhymer, start a country song;
Make me forget that she whom I loved well
Swore she would love me dearly, love me long,
   Then—what I cannot tell!

Sing, Ballad-singer, from your little book;
Make me forget those heart-breaks, achings, fears;
Make me forget her name, her sweet sweet look—
   Make me forget her tears.

These market-dames, mid-aged, with lips thin-drawn,
   And tissues sere,
Are they the ones we loved in years agone,
   And courted here?

Are these the muslined pink young things to whom
   We vowed and swore
In nooks on summer Sundays by the Froom,
   Or Budmouth shore?

Do they remember those gay tunes we trod
   Clasped on the green;
Aye; trod till moonlight set on the beaten sod
   A satin sheen?

They must forget, forget!  They cannot know
   What once they were,
Or memory would transfigure them, and show
   Them always fair.

Black’on frowns east on Maidon,
   And westward to the sea,
But on neither is his frown laden
   With scorn, as his frown on me!

At dawn my heart grew heavy,
   I could not sip the wine,
I left the jocund bevy
   And that young man o’ mine.

The roadside elms pass by me,—
   Why do I sink with shame
When the birds a-perch there eye me?
   They, too, have done the same!

IV
The Market-Girl

But chancing to trace her sunburnt grace that morning as I passed nigh,
I went and I said “Poor maidy dear!—and will none of the people buy?”
And so it began; and soon we knew what the end of it all must be,
And I found that though no others had bid, a prize had been won by me.

V
The Inquiry

And are ye one of Hermitage—
Of Hermitage, by Ivel Road,
And do ye know, in Hermitage
A thatch-roofed house where sengreens grow?
And does John Waywood live there still—
He of the name that there abode
When father hurdled on the hill
   Some fifteen years ago?

In years agone at Hermitage
This faded face was counted fair,
None fairer; and at Hermitage
We swore to wed when he should thrive.
But never a chance had he or I,
And waiting made his wish outwear,
And Time, that dooms man’s love to die,
   Preserves a maid’s alive.

VI
A Wife Waits

Will’s at the dance in the Club-room below,
   Where the tall liquor-cups foam;
I on the pavement up here by the Bow,
   Wait, wait, to steady him home.

Will and his partner are treading a tune,
   Loving companions they be;
Willy, before we were married in June,
   Said he loved no one but me;

Note.—“The Bow” (line 3).  The old name for the curved corner by the cross-streets in the middle of Casterbridge.

VII
After the Fair

The singers are gone from the Cornmarket-place
      With their broadsheets of rhymes,
The street rings no longer in treble and bass
      With their skits on the times,
And the Cross, lately thronged, is a dim naked space
   That but echoes the stammering chimes.

From Clock-corner steps, as each quarter ding-dongs,
      Away the folk roam
By the “Hart” and Grey’s Bridge into byways and “drongs,”
      Or across the ridged loam;
The younger ones shrilling the lately heard songs,
   The old saying, “Would we were home.”

And midnight clears High Street of all but the ghosts
      Of its buried burghees,
From the latest far back to those old Roman hosts
      Whose remains one yet sees,
Who loved, laughed, and fought, hailed their friends, drank their toasts
   At their meeting-times here, just as these!

1902.

Note.—“The Chimes” (line 6) will be listened for in vain here at midnight now, having been abolished some years ago.

I

I pitched my day’s leazings in Crimmercrock Lane,
To tie up my garter and jog on again,
When a dear dark-eyed gentleman passed there and said,
In a way that made all o’ me colour rose-red,
   “What do I see—
   O pretty knee!”
And he came and he tied up my garter for me.

II

III

Yet now I’ve beside me a fine lissom lad,
And my slip’s nigh forgot, and my days are not sad;
My own dearest joy is he, comrade, and friend,
He it is who safe-guards me, on him I depend;
   No sorrow brings he,
   And thankful I be
That his daddy once tied up my garter for me!

Note.—“Leazings” (line 1).—Bundle of gleaned corn.

You turn your back, you turn your back,
   And never your face to me,
Alone you take your homeward track,
   And scorn my company.

What will you do when Charley’s seen
   Dewbeating down this way?
—You’ll turn your back as now, you mean?
   Nay, Carrey Clavel, nay!

You’ll see none’s looking; put your lip
   Up like a tulip, so;
And he will coll you, bend, and sip:
   Yes, Carrey, yes; I know!

I wanted to marry, but father said, “No—
’Tis weakness in women to give themselves so;
If you care for your freedom you’ll listen to me,
Make a spouse in your pocket, and let the men be.”

I spake on’t again and again: father cried,
“Why—if you go husbanding, where shall I bide?
For never a home’s for me elsewhere than here!”
And I yielded; for father had ever been dear.

But now father’s gone, and I feel growing old,
And I’m lonely and poor in this house on the wold,
And my sweetheart that was found a partner elsewhere,
And nobody flings me a thought or a care.

Down Wessex way, when spring’s a-shine,
   The blackbird’s “pret-ty de-urr!”
In Wessex accents marked as mine
   Is heard afar and near.

He flutes it strong, as if in song
   No R’s of feebler tone
Than his appear in “pretty dear,”
   Have blackbirds ever known.

Yet they pipe “prattie deerh!” I glean,
   Beneath a Scottish sky,
And “pehty de-aw!” amid the treen
   Of Middlesex or nigh.

While some folk say—perhaps in play—
   Who know the Irish isle,
’Tis “purrity dare!” in treeland there
   When songsters would beguile.

Yes, in this clime at pairing time,
   As soon as eyes can see her
At dawn of day, the proper way
   To call is “pret-ty de-urr!”

   Sing; how ’a would sing!
   How ’a would raise the tune
When we rode in the waggon from harvesting
      By the light o’ the moon!

   Dance; how ’a would dance!
   If a fiddlestring did but sound
She would hold out her coats, give a slanting glance,
      And go round and round.

   Laugh; how ’a would laugh!
   Her peony lips would part
As if none such a place for a lover to quaff
      At the deeps of a heart.

   Julie, O girl of joy,
   Soon, soon that lover he came.
Ah, yes; and gave thee a baby-boy,
      But never his name . . .

   “I suppose,” with a laugh, she said,
   “I should blush that I’m not a wife;
But how can it matter, so soon to be dead,
      What one does in life!”

   When we sat making the mourning
   By her death-bed side, said she,
“Dears, how can you keep from your lovers, adorning
      In honour of me!”

   Bubbling and brightsome eyed!
   But now—O never again.
She chose her bearers before she died
      From her fancy-men.

Note.—It is, or was, a common custom in Wessex, and probably other country places, to prepare the mourning beside the death-bed, the dying person sometimes assisting, who also selects his or her bearers on such occasions.

“Coats” (line 7).—Old name for petticoats.

I

   One mile more is
   Where your door is
      Mother mine!—
   Harvest’s coming,
   Mills are strumming,
      Apples fine,
And the cider made to-year will be as wine.

II

   Yet, not viewing
   What’s a-doing
      Here around
   Is it thrills me,
   And so fills me
      That I bound
Like a ball or leaf or lamb along the ground.

   Tremble not now
   At your lot now,
      Silly soul!
   Hosts have sped them
   Quick to wed them,
      Great and small,
Since the first two sighing half-hearts made a whole.

IV

   Yet I wonder,
   Will it sunder
      Her from me?
   Will she guess that
   I said “Yes,”—that
      His I’d be,
Ere I thought she might not see him as I see!

V

   Old brown gable,
   Granary, stable,
      Here you are!
   O my mother,
   Can another
      Ever bar
Mine from thy heart, make thy nearness seem afar?

The fiddler knows what’s brewing
   To the lilt of his lyric wiles:
The fiddler knows what rueing
   Will come of this night’s smiles!

He sees couples join them for dancing,
   And afterwards joining for life,
He sees them pay high for their prancing
   By a welter of wedded strife.

He twangs: “Music hails from the devil,
   Though vaunted to come from heaven,
For it makes people do at a revel
   What multiplies sins by seven.

“There’s many a heart now mangled,
   And waiting its time to go,
Whose tendrils were first entangled
   By my sweet viol and bow!”

“Can anything avail
Beldame, for my hid grief?—
Listen: I’ll tell the tale,
It may bring faint relief!—

“I came where I was not known,
In hope to flee my sin;
And walking forth alone
A young man said, ‘Good e’en.’

“In gentle voice and true
He asked to marry me;
‘You only—only you
Fulfil my dream!’ said he.

“We married o’ Monday morn,
In the month of hay and flowers;
My cares were nigh forsworn,
And perfect love was ours.

“And I awake in the night,
And think of months gone by,
And of that cause of flight
Hidden from my Love’s eye.

“Discovery borders near,
And then! . . . But something stirred?—
My husband—he is here!
Heaven—has he overheard?”—

“Yes; I have heard, sweet Nan;
I have known it all the time.
I am not a particular man;
Misfortunes are no crime:

“And what with our serious need
Of sons for soldiering,
That accident, indeed,
To maids, is a useful thing!”

Why didn’t you say you was promised, Rose-Ann?
   Why didn’t you name it to me,
Ere ever you tempted me hither, Rose-Ann,
   So often, so wearifully?

O why did you let me be near ’ee, Rose-Ann,
   Talking things about wedlock so free,
And never by nod or by whisper, Rose-Ann,
   Give a hint that it wasn’t to be?

Down home I was raising a flock of stock ewes,
   Cocks and hens, and wee chickens by scores,
And lavendered linen all ready to use,
   A-dreaming that they would be yours.

Never once did you say you was promised, Rose-Ann,
   Never once did I dream it to be;
And it cuts to the heart to be treated, Rose-Ann,
   As you in your scorning treat me!

Gruffly growled the wind on Toller downland broad and bare,
And lonesome was the house, and dark; and few came there.

“Now don’t ye rub your eyes so red; we’re home and have no cares;
Here’s a skimmer-cake for supper, peckled onions, and some pears;
I’ve got a little keg o’ summat strong, too, under stairs:
—What, slight your husband’s victuals?  Other brides can tackle theirs!”

The wind of winter mooed and mouthed their chimney like a horn,
And round the house and past the house ’twas leafless and lorn.

Gruffly growled the wind on Toller downland broad and bare,
And lonesome was the house and dark; and few came there.

“I didn’t think such furniture as this was all you’d own,
And great black beams for ceiling, and a floor o’ wretched stone,
And nasty pewter platters, horrid forks of steel and bone,
And a monstrous crock in chimney.  ’Twas to me quite unbeknown!”

Rattle rattle went the door; down flapped a cloud of smoke,
As shifting north the wicked wind assayed a smarter stroke.

“Now sit ye by the fire, poppet; put yourself at ease:
And keep your little thumb out of your mouth, dear, please!
And I’ll sing to ’ee a pretty song of lovely flowers and bees,
And happy lovers taking walks within a grove o’ trees.”

“Now, don’t ye gnaw your handkercher; ’twill hurt your little tongue,
And if you do feel spitish, ’tis because ye are over young;
But you’ll be getting older, like us all, ere very long,
And you’ll see me as I am—a man who never did ’ee wrong.”

Straight from Whit’sheet Hill to Benvill Lane the blusters pass,
Hitting hedges, milestones, handposts, trees, and tufts of grass.

“Well, had I only known, my dear, that this was how you’d be,
I’d have married her of riper years that was so fond of me.
But since I can’t, I’ve half a mind to run away to sea,
And leave ’ee to go barefoot to your d—d daddee!”

Up one wall and down the other—past each window-pane—
Prance the gusts, and then away down Crimmercrock’s long lane.

Gruffly growled the wind on Toller Down, so bleak and bare,
And lonesome was the house and dark; and few came there.

“That’s right, my Heart!  And though on haunted Toller Down we be,
And the wind swears things in chimley, we’ll to supper merrily!
So don’t ye tap your shoe so pettish-like; but smile at me,
And ye’ll soon forget to sock and sigh for dear daddee!”

December 1901.