“Wessex Poems”: First Edition, Crown 8vo, 1898.  New Edition 1903.
First Pocket Edition June 1907.  Reprinted January 1909, 1913

“Poems, Past and Present”: First edition 1901 (dated 1902)
Second Edition 1903.  First Pocket Edition June 1907
Reprinted January 1908, 1913, 1918, 1919

Of the miscellaneous collection of verse that follows, only four pieces have been published, though many were written long ago, and other partly written.  In some few cases the verses were turned into prose and printed as such, it having been unanticipated at that time that they might see the light.

Whenever an ancient and legitimate word of the district, for which there was no equivalent in received English, suggested itself as the most natural, nearest, and often only expression of a thought, it has been made use of, on what seemed good grounds.

The dates attached to some of the poems do not apply to the rough sketches given in illustration, which have been recently made, and, as may be surmised, are inserted for personal and local reasons rather than for their intrinsic qualities.

T. H.

September 1898.

Thwart my wistful way did a damsel saunter,
Fair, the while unformed to be all-eclipsing;
“Maiden meet,” held I, “till arise my forefelt
   Wonder of women.”

Long a visioned hermitage deep desiring,
Tenements uncouth I was fain to house in;
“Let such lodging be for a breath-while,” thought I,
   “Soon a more seemly.

“Then, high handiwork will I make my life-deed,
Truth and Light outshow; but the ripe time pending,
Intermissive aim at the thing sufficeth.”
   Thus I . . . But lo, me!

I marked her ruined hues,
Her custom-straitened views,
And asked, “Can there indwell
   My Amabel?”

I looked upon her gown,
Once rose, now earthen brown;
The change was like the knell
   Of Amabel.

I mused: “Who sings the strain
I sang ere warmth did wane?
Who thinks its numbers spell
   His Amabel?”—

Knowing that, though Love cease,
Love’s race shows undecrease;
All find in dorp or dell
   An Amabel.

—I felt that I could creep
To some housetop, and weep,
That Time the tyrant fell
   Ruled Amabel!

I said (the while I sighed
That love like ours had died),
“Fond things I’ll no more tell
   To Amabel,

1865.

If but some vengeful god would call to me
From up the sky, and laugh: “Thou suffering thing,
Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,
That thy love’s loss is my hate’s profiting!”

Then would I bear, and clench myself, and die,
Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;
Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I
Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.

1866.

In vision I roamed the flashing Firmament,
So fierce in blazon that the Night waxed wan,
As though with an awed sense of such ostent;
And as I thought my spirit ranged on and on

In footless traverse through ghast heights of sky,
To the last chambers of the monstrous Dome,
Where stars the brightest here to darkness die:
Then, any spot on our own Earth seemed Home!

1866.

When you paced forth, to wait maternity,
A dream of other offspring held my mind,
Compounded of us twain as Love designed;
Rare forms, that corporate now will never be!

Should I, too, wed as slave to Mode’s decree,
And each thus found apart, of false desire,
A stolid line, whom no high aims will fire
As had fired ours could ever have mingled we;

1866.

Snow-bound in woodland, a mournful word,
Dropt now and then from the bill of a bird,
Reached me on wind-wafts; and thus I heard,
   Wearily waiting:—

“I planned her a nest in a leafless tree,
But the passers eyed and twitted me,
And said: ‘How reckless a bird is he,
   Cheerily mating!’

“Ah, had I been like some I see,
Born to an evergreen nesting-tree,
None had eyed and twitted me,
   Cheerily mating!”

1866.

Your troubles shrink not, though I feel them less
Here, far away, than when I tarried near;
I even smile old smiles—with listlessness—
Yet smiles they are, not ghastly mockeries mere.

A thought too strange to house within my brain
Haunting its outer precincts I discern:
—That I will not show zeal again to learn
Your griefs, and sharing them, renew my pain . . .

1866.

We stood by a pond that winter day,
And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,
And a few leaves lay on the starving sod,
   —They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.

Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove
Over tedious riddles solved years ago;
And some words played between us to and fro—
   On which lost the more by our love.

Since then, keen lessons that love deceives,
And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me
Your face, and the God-curst sun, and a tree,
   And a pond edged with grayish leaves.

1867.

The two were silent in a sunless church,
Whose mildewed walls, uneven paving-stones,
And wasted carvings passed antique research;
And nothing broke the clock’s dull monotones.

She would have given a world to breathe “yes” truly,
So much his life seemed handing on her mind,
And hence she lied, her heart persuaded throughly
’Twas worth her soul to be a moment kind.

But the sad need thereof, his nearing death,
So mocked humanity that she shamed to prize
A world conditioned thus, or care for breath
Where Nature such dilemmas could devise.

1866.

Though I waste watches framing words to fetter
Some spirit to mine own in clasp and kiss,
Out of the night there looms a sense ’twere better
To fail obtaining whom one fails to miss.

For winning love we win the risk of losing,
And losing love is as one’s life were riven;
It cuts like contumely and keen ill-using
To cede what was superfluously given.

1866.

When you shall see me in the toils of Time,
My lauded beauties carried off from me,
My eyes no longer stars as in their prime,
My name forgot of Maiden Fair and Free;

When in your being heart concedes to mind,
And judgment, though you scarce its process know,
Recalls the excellencies I once enshrined,
And you are irked that they have withered so:

1866.

Perhaps, long hence, when I have passed away,
Some other’s feature, accent, thought like mine,
Will carry you back to what I used to say,
And bring some memory of your love’s decline.

Then you may pause awhile and think, “Poor jade!”
And yield a sigh to me—as ample due,
Not as the tittle of a debt unpaid
To one who could resign her all to you—

1866.

I will be faithful to thee; aye, I will!
And Death shall choose me with a wondering eye
That he did not discern and domicile
One his by right ever since that last Good-bye!

I have no care for friends, or kin, or prime
Of manhood who deal gently with me here;
Amid the happy people of my time
Who work their love’s fulfilment, I appear

My old dexterities of hue quite gone,
And nothing left for Love to look upon.

1866.

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.

1866.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Published in “The Trumpet-Major,” 1880.

   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:
   Stone-deaf therence went many a man
      Who served at Valencieën.

   And, sweatèn wi’ the bombardiers,
A shell was slent to shards anighst my ears:
   —’Twas nigh the end of hopes and fears
      For me at Valencieën!

   They bore my wownded frame to camp,
And shut my gapèn skull, and washed en cleän,
   And jined en wi’ a zilver clamp
      Thik night at Valencieën.

   “We’ve fetched en back to quick from dead;
But never more on earth while rose is red
   Will drum rouse Corpel!” Doctor said
      O’ me at Valencieën.

   I never hear the zummer hums
O’ bees; and don’ know when the cuckoo comes;
   But night and day I hear the bombs
      We threw at Valencieën . . .

   As for the Duke o’ Yark in war,
There be some volk whose judgment o’ en is mean;
   But this I say—a was not far
      From great at Valencieën.

   O’ wild wet nights, when all seems sad,
My wownds come back, as though new wownds I’d had;
   But yet—at times I’m sort o’ glad
      I fout at Valencieën.

1878–1897.

With Thoughts of Sergeant M— (Pensioner), who died 185–.

“Why, Sergeant, stray on the Ivel Way,
As though at home there were spectres rife?
From first to last ’twas a proud career!
And your sunny years with a gracious wife
   Have brought you a daughter dear.

“My daughter is now,” he again began,
“Of just such an age as one I knew
When we of the Line and Forlorn-hope van,
On an August morning—a chosen few—
   Stormed San Sebastian.

“She’s a score less three; so about was she—
The maiden I wronged in Peninsular days . . .
You may prate of your prowess in lusty times,
But as years gnaw inward you blink your bays,
   And see too well your crimes!

“We’d stormed it at night, by the vlanker-light
Of burning towers, and the mortar’s boom:
We’d topped the breach; but had failed to stay,
For our files were misled by the baffling gloom;
   And we said we’d storm by day.

“From the battened hornwork the cannoneers
Hove crashing balls of iron fire;
On the shaking gap mount the volunteers
In files, and as they mount expire
   Amid curses, groans, and cheers.

“Five hours did we storm, five hours re-form,
As Death cooled those hot blood pricked on;
Till our cause was helped by a woe within:
They swayed from the summit we’d leapt upon,
   And madly we entered in.

“On end for plunder, ’mid rain and thunder
That burst with the lull of our cannonade,
We vamped the streets in the stifling air—
Our hunger unsoothed, our thirst unstayed—
   And ransacked the buildings there.

“Afeard she fled, and with heated head
I pursued to the chamber she called her own;
—When might is right no qualms deter,
And having her helpless and alone
   I wreaked my will on her.

“She raised her beseeching eyes to me,
And I heard the words of prayer she sent
In her own soft language . . . Seemingly
I copied those eyes for my punishment
   In begetting the girl you see!

“And I nightly stray on the Ivel Way
As though at home there were spectres rife;
I delight me not in my proud career;
And ’tis coals of fire that a gracious wife
   Should have brought me a daughter dear!”

(As sung by Mr. Charles Charrington in the play of “The Three Wayfarers”)

            O my trade it is the rarest one,
Simple shepherds all—
      My trade is a sight to see;
For my customers I tie, and take ’em up on high,
   And waft ’em to a far countree!

To-morrow is my working day,
         Simple shepherds all—
      To-morrow is a working day for me:
For the farmer’s sheep is slain, and the lad who did it ta’en,
   And on his soul may God ha’ mer-cy!

Printed in “The Three Strangers,” 1883.

“I’ve news concerning her,” he said.  “Attend.
They fly to-night at the late moon’s first gleam:
Watch with thy steel: two righteous thrusts will end

Her shameless visions and his passioned dream.
I’ll watch with thee, to testify thy wrong—
To aid, maybe.—Law consecrates the scheme.”

I started, and we paced the flags along
Till I replied: “Since it has come to this
I’ll do it!  But alone.  I can be strong.”

Three hours past Curfew, when the Froom’s mild hiss
Reigned sole, undulled by whirr of merchandize,
From Pummery-Tout to where the Gibbet is,

And met in clasp so close I had but bent
My lifted blade upon them to have let
Their two souls loose upon the firmament.

But something held my arm.  “A moment yet
As pray-time ere you wantons die!” I said;
And then they saw me.  Swift her gaze was set

With eye and cry of love illimited
Upon her Heart-king.  Never upon me
Had she thrown look of love so thorough-sped! . . .

At once she flung her faint form shieldingly
On his, against the vengeance of my vows;
The which o’erruling, her shape shielded he.

And I may husband her, yet what am I
But licensed tyrant to this bonded pair?
Says Charity, Do as ye would be done by.” . . .

Hurling my iron to the bushes there,
I bade them stay.  And, as if brain and breast
Were passive, they walked with me to the stair.

Inside the house none watched; and on we prest
Before a mirror, in whose gleam I read
Her beauty, his,—and mine own mien unblest;

“We’ve nothing, sire,” said she; “and nothing seek.
’Twere base in me to rob my lord unware;
Our hands will earn a pittance week by week.”

And next I saw she’d piled her raiment rare
Within the garde-robes, and her household purse,
Her jewels, and least lace of personal wear;

And stood in homespun.  Now grown wholly hers,
I handed her the gold, her jewels all,
And him the choicest of her robes diverse.

And as I paused beneath the arch I saw
Their moonlit figures—slow, as in surprise—
Descend the slope, and vanish on the haw.

“‘Fool,’ some will say,” I thought.  “But who is wise,
Save God alone, to weigh my reasons why?”
—“Hast thou struck home?” came with the boughs’ night-sighs.

It was my friend.  “I have struck well.  They fly,
But carry wounds that none can cicatrize.”
—“Not mortal?” said he.  “Lingering—worse,” said I.

Scene: The Master-tradesmen’s Parlour at the Old Ship Inn, Casterbridge.  Evening.

“Old Norbert with the flat blue cap—
   A German said to be—
Why let your pipe die on your lap,
   Your eyes blink absently?”—

—“Ah! . . . Well, I had thought till my cheek was wet
   Of my mother—her voice and mien
When she used to sing and pirouette,
   And touse the tambourine

“My father was one of the German Hussars,
   My mother of Leipzig; but he,
Long quartered here, fetched her at close of the wars,
   And a Wessex lad reared me.

“And as I grew up, again and again
   She’d tell, after trilling that air,
Of her youth, and the battles on Leipzig plain
   And of all that was suffered there! . . .

“—’Twas a time of alarms.  Three Chiefs-at-arms
   Combined them to crush One,
And by numbers’ might, for in equal fight
   He stood the matched of none.

“City and plain had felt his reign
   From the North to the Middle Sea,
And he’d now sat down in the noble town
   Of the King of Saxony.

“October’s deep dew its wet gossamer threw
   Upon Leipzig’s lawns, leaf-strewn,
Where lately each fair avenue
   Wrought shade for summer noon.

“To westward two dull rivers crept
   Through miles of marsh and slough,
Whereover a streak of whiteness swept—
   The Bridge of Lindenau.

“Hard by, in the City, the One, care-tossed,
   Gloomed over his shrunken power;
And without the walls the hemming host
   Waxed denser every hour.

“Three sky-lights then from the girdling trine
   Told, ‘Ready!’  As they rose
Their flashes seemed his Judgment-Sign
   For bleeding Europe’s woes.

“’Twas seen how the French watch-fires that night
   Glowed still and steadily;
And the Three rejoiced, for they read in the sight
   That the One disdained to flee . . .

“—Five hundred guns began the affray
   On next day morn at nine;
Such mad and mangling cannon-play
   Had never torn human line.

“The first battle nighed on the low Southern side;
   The second by the Western way;
The nearing of the third on the North was heard:
   —The French held all at bay.

“Against the first band did the Emperor stand;
   Against the second stood Ney;
Marmont against the third gave the order-word:
   —Thus raged it throughout the day.

“Fifty thousand sturdy souls on those trampled plains and knolls,
   Who met the dawn hopefully,
And were lotted their shares in a quarrel not theirs,
   Dropt then in their agony.

“—The clash of horse and man which that day began,
   Closed not as evening wore;
And the morrow’s armies, rear and van,
   Still mustered more and more.

“From the City towers the Confederate Powers
   Were eyed in glittering lines,
And up from the vast a murmuring passed
   As from a wood of pines.

“‘’Tis well to cover a feeble skill
   By numbers!’ scoffèd He;
‘But give me a third of their strength, I’d fill
   Half Hell with their soldiery!’

“Hard had striven brave Ney, the true Bertrand,
   Victor, and Augereau,
Bold Poniatowski, and Lauriston,
   To stay their overthrow;

“But, as in the dream of one sick to death
   There comes a narrowing room
That pens him, body and limbs and breath,
   To wait a hideous doom,

“So to Napoleon, in the hush
   That held the town and towers
Through these dire nights, a creeping crush
   Seemed inborne with the hours.

“The nineteenth dawned.  Down street and Platz
   The wasted French sank back,
Stretching long lines across the Flats
   And on the bridge-way track;

“When there surged on the sky an earthen wave,
   And stones, and men, as though
Some rebel churchyard crew updrave
   Their sepulchres from below.

“To Heaven is blown Bridge Lindenau;
   Wrecked regiments reel therefrom;
And rank and file in masses plough
   The sullen Elster-Strom.

“The smart Macdonald swam therein,
   And barely won the verge;
Bold Poniatowski plunged him in
   Never to re-emerge.

“Then stayed the strife.  The remnants wound
   Their Rhineward way pell-mell;
And thus did Leipzig City sound
   An Empire’s passing bell;

“While in cavalcade, with band and blade,
   Came Marshals, Princes, Kings;
And the town was theirs . . . Ay, as simple maid,
   My mother saw these things!

“Si le maréchal Grouchy avait été rejoint par l’officier que Napoléon lui avait expédié la veille à dix heures du soir, toute question eût disparu.  Mais cet officier n’était point parvenu à sa destination, ainsi que le maréchal n’a cessé de l’affirmer toute sa vie, et il faut l’en croire, car autrement il n’aurait eu aucune raison pour hésiter.  Cet officier avait-il été pris? avait-il passé à l’ennemi?  C’est ce qu’on a toujours ignoré.”

—Thiers: Histoire de l’Empire.  “Waterloo.”

Good Father! . . . ’Twas an eve in middle June,
   And war was waged anew
By great Napoleon, who for years had strewn
   Men’s bones all Europe through.

The yestertide we’d heard the gloomy gun
   Growl through the long-sunned day
From Quatre-Bras and Ligny; till the dun
   Twilight suppressed the fray;

Albeit therein—as lated tongues bespoke—
   Brunswick’s high heart was drained,
And Prussia’s Line and Landwehr, though unbroke,
   Stood cornered and constrained.

And at next noon-time Grouchy slowly passed
   With thirty thousand men:
We hoped thenceforth no army, small or vast,
   Would trouble us again.

But what was this that broke our humble ease?
   What noise, above the rain,
Above the dripping of the poplar trees
   That smote along the pane?

—A call of mastery, bidding me arise,
   Compelled me to the door,
At which a horseman stood in martial guise—
   Splashed—sweating from every pore.

Had I seen Grouchy?  Yes?  Which track took he?
   Could I lead thither on?—
Fulfilment would ensure gold pieces three,
   Perchance more gifts anon.

“Engaging Blücher till the Emperor put
   Lord Wellington to flight,
And next the Prussians.  This to set afoot
   Is my emprise to-night.”

I joined him in the mist; but, pausing, sought
   To estimate his say.
Grouchy had made for Wavre; and yet, on thought,
   I did not lead that way.

I mused: “If Grouchy thus instructed be,
   The clash comes sheer hereon;
My farm is stript.  While, as for pieces three,
   Money the French have none.

By Joidoigne, near to east, as we ondrew,
   Dawn pierced the humid air;
And eastward faced I with him, though I knew
   Never marched Grouchy there.

Near Ottignies we passed, across the Dyle
   (Lim’lette left far aside),
And thence direct toward Pervez and Noville
   Through green grain, till he cried:

“I doubt thy conduct, man! no track is here—
   I doubt thy gagèd word!”
Thereat he scowled on me, and pranced me near,
   And pricked me with his sword.

—At length noon nighed; when west, from Saint-John’s-Mound,
   A hoarse artillery boomed,
And from Saint-Lambert’s upland, chapel-crowned,
   The Prussian squadrons loomed.

Then to the wayless wet gray ground he leapt;
   “My mission fails!” he cried;
“Too late for Grouchy now to intercept,
   For, peasant, you have lied!”

He turned to pistol me.  I sprang, and drew
   The sabre from his flank,
And ’twixt his nape and shoulder, ere he knew,
   I struck, and dead he sank.

—Two armies writhe in coils of red and blue,
   And brass and iron clang
From Goumont, past the front of Waterloo,
   To Pap’lotte and Smohain.

The Guard Imperial wavered on the height;
   The Emperor’s face grew glum;
“I sent,” he said, “to Grouchy yesternight,
   And yet he does not come!”

’Twas then, Good Father, that the French espied,
   Streaking the summer land,
The men of Blücher.  But the Emperor cried,
   “Grouchy is now at hand!”

By even, slain or struck, Michel the strong,
   Bold Travers, Dnop, Delord,
Smart Guyot, Reil-le, l’Heriter, Friant,
   Scattered that champaign o’er.

Fallen likewise wronged Duhesme, and skilled Lobau
   Did that red sunset see;
Colbert, Legros, Blancard! . . . And of the foe
   Picton and Ponsonby;

With Gordon, Canning, Blackman, Ompteda,
   L’Estrange, Delancey, Packe,
Grose, D’Oyly, Stables, Morice, Howard, Hay,
   Von Schwerin, Watzdorf, Boek,

The Guards’ last column yielded; dykes of dead
   Lay between vale and ridge,
As, thinned yet closing, faint yet fierce, they sped
   In packs to Genappe Bridge.

Safe was my stock; my capple cow unslain;
      Intact each cock and hen;
But Grouchy far at Wavre all day had lain,
   And thirty thousand men.

O Saints, had I but lost my earing corn
   And saved the cause once prized!
O Saints, why such false witness had I borne
   When late I’d sympathized! . . .

To Almighty God henceforth I stand confessed,
   And Virgin-Saint Marie;
O Michael, John, and Holy Ones in rest,
   Entreat the Lord for me!