Chapter 5

O ’twas a charm to draw within Thereafter, where But she was; care For one thing only, her hid there!

But so it chanced, without myself I had to look, And then I took More heed of what I had long forsook:

The boats, the sands, the esplanade, The laughing crowd; Light-hearted, loud Greetings from some not ill-endowed;

The evening sunlit cliffs, the talk, Hailings and halts, The keen sea-salts, The band, the Morgenblätter Waltz.

Still, when at night I drew inside Forward she came, Sad, but the same As when I first had known her name.

Then rose a time when, as by force, Outwardly wooed By contacts crude, Her image in abeyance stood . . .

At last I said: This outside life Shall not endure; I’ll seek the pure Thought-world, and bask in her allure.

Myself again I crept within, Scanned with keen care The temple where She’d shone, but could not find her there.

I sought and sought. But O her soul Has not since thrown Upon my own One beam! Yea, she is gone, is gone.

_From an old note_.

THE GLIMPSE

SHE sped through the door And, following in haste, And stirred to the core, I entered hot-faced; But I could not find her, No sign was behind her. “Where is she?” I said: —“Who?” they asked that sat there; “Not a soul’s come in sight.” —“A maid with red hair.” —“Ah.” They paled. “She is dead. People see her at night, But you are the first On whom she has burst In the keen common light.”

It was ages ago, When I was quite strong: I have waited since,—O, I have waited so long! —Yea, I set me to own The house, where now lone I dwell in void rooms Booming hollow as tombs! But I never come near her, Though nightly I hear her. And my cheek has grown thin And my hair has grown gray With this waiting therein; But she still keeps away!

THE PEDESTRIAN AN INCIDENT OF 1883

“SIR, will you let me give you a ride? _Nox Venit_, and the heath is wide.” —My phaeton-lantern shone on one Young, fair, even fresh, But burdened with flesh: A leathern satchel at his side, His breathings short, his coat undone.

’Twas as if his corpulent figure slopped With the shake of his walking when he stopped, And, though the night’s pinch grew acute, He wore but a thin Wind-thridded suit, Yet well-shaped shoes for walking in, Artistic beaver, cane gold-topped.

“Alas, my friend,” he said with a smile, “I am daily bound to foot ten mile— Wet, dry, or dark—before I rest. Six months to live My doctors give Me as my prospect here, at best, Unless I vamp my sturdiest!”

His voice was that of a man refined, A man, one well could feel, of mind, Quite winning in its musical ease; But in mould maligned By some disease; And I asked again. But he shook his head; Then, as if more were due, he said:—

“A student was I—of Schopenhauer, Kant, Hegel,—and the fountained bower Of the Muses, too, knew my regard: But ah—I fear me The grave gapes near me! . . . Would I could this gross sheath discard, And rise an ethereal shape, unmarred!”

How I remember him!—his short breath, His aspect, marked for early death, As he dropped into the night for ever; One caught in his prime Of high endeavour; From all philosophies soon to sever Through an unconscienced trick of Time!

“WHO’S IN THE NEXT ROOM?”

“WHO’S in the next room?—who? I seemed to see Somebody in the dawning passing through, Unknown to me.” “Nay: you saw nought. He passed invisibly.”

“Who’s in the next room?—who? I seem to hear Somebody muttering firm in a language new That chills the ear.” “No: you catch not his tongue who has entered there.”

“Who’s in the next room?—who? I seem to feel His breath like a clammy draught, as if it drew From the Polar Wheel.” “No: none who breathes at all does the door conceal.”

“Who’s in the next room?—who? A figure wan With a message to one in there of something due? Shall I know him anon?” “Yea he; and he brought such; and you’ll know him anon.”

AT A COUNTRY FAIR

At a bygone Western country fair I saw a giant led by a dwarf With a red string like a long thin scarf; How much he was the stronger there The giant seemed unaware.

And then I saw that the giant was blind, And the dwarf a shrewd-eyed little thing; The giant, mild, timid, obeyed the string As if he had no independent mind, Or will of any kind.

Wherever the dwarf decided to go At his heels the other trotted meekly, (Perhaps—I know not—reproaching weakly) Like one Fate bade that it must be so, Whether he wished or no.

Various sights in various climes I have seen, and more I may see yet, But that sight never shall I forget, And have thought it the sorriest of pantomimes, If once, a hundred times!

THE MEMORIAL BRASS: 186–

“WHY do you weep there, O sweet lady, Why do you weep before that brass?— (I’m a mere student sketching the mediaeval) Is some late death lined there, alas?— Your father’s? . . . Well, all pay the debt that paid he!”

“Young man, O must I tell!—My husband’s! And under His name I set mine, and my _death_!— Its date left vacant till my heirs should fill it, Stating me faithful till my last breath.” —“Madam, that you are a widow wakes my wonder!”

“O wait! For last month I—remarried! And now I fear ’twas a deed amiss. We’ve just come home. And I am sick and saddened At what the new one will say to this; And will he think—think that I should have tarried?

“I may add, surely,—with no wish to harm him— That he’s a temper—yes, I fear! And when he comes to church next Sunday morning, And sees that written . . . O dear, O dear!” —“Madam, I swear your beauty will disarm him!”

HER LOVE-BIRDS

WHEN I looked up at my love-birds That Sunday afternoon, There was in their tiny tune A dying fetch like broken words, When I looked up at my love-birds That Sunday afternoon.

When he, too, scanned the love-birds On entering there that day, ’Twas as if he had nought to say Of his long journey citywards, When he, too, scanned the love-birds, On entering there that day.

And billed and billed the love-birds, As ’twere in fond despair At the stress of silence where Had once been tones in tenor thirds, And billed and billed the love-birds As ’twere in fond despair.

O, his speech that chilled the love-birds, And smote like death on me, As I learnt what was to be, And knew my life was broke in sherds! O, his speech that chilled the love-birds, And smote like death on me!

PAYING CALLS

I WENT by footpath and by stile Beyond where bustle ends, Strayed here a mile and there a mile And called upon some friends.

On certain ones I had not seen For years past did I call, And then on others who had been The oldest friends of all.

It was the time of midsummer When they had used to roam; But now, though tempting was the air, I found them all at home.

I spoke to one and other of them By mound and stone and tree Of things we had done ere days were dim, But they spoke not to me.

THE UPPER BIRCH-LEAVES

Warm yellowy-green In the blue serene, How they skip and sway On this autumn day! They cannot know What has happened below,— That their boughs down there Are already quite bare, That their own will be When a week has passed,— For they jig as in glee To this very last.

But no; there lies At times in their tune A note that cries What at first I fear I did not hear: “O we remember At each wind’s hollo— Though life holds yet— We go hence soon, For ’tis November; —But that you follow You may forget!”

“IT NEVER LOOKS LIKE SUMMER”

“IT never looks like summer here On Beeny by the sea.” But though she saw its look as drear, Summer it seemed to me.

It never looks like summer now Whatever weather’s there; But ah, it cannot anyhow, On Beeny or elsewhere!

BOSCASTLE, _March_ 8, 1913.

EVERYTHING COMES

“THE house is bleak and cold Built so new for me! All the winds upon the wold Search it through for me; No screening trees abound, And the curious eyes around Keep on view for me.”

“My Love, I am planting trees As a screen for you Both from winds, and eyes that tease And peer in for you. Only wait till they have grown, No such bower will be known As I mean for you.”

“Then I will bear it, Love, And will wait,” she said. —So, with years, there grew a grove. “Skill how great!” she said. “As you wished, Dear?”—“Yes, I see! But—I’m dying; and for me ’Tis too late,” she said.

THE MAN WITH A PAST

THERE was merry-making When the first dart fell As a heralding,— Till grinned the fully bared thing, And froze like a spell— Like a spell.

Innocent was she, Innocent was I, Too simple we! Before us we did not see, Nearing, aught wry— Aught wry!

I can tell it not now, It was long ago; And such things cow; But that is why and how Two lives were so— Were so.

Yes, the years matured, And the blows were three That time ensured On her, which she dumbly endured; And one on me— One on me.

HE FEARS HIS GOOD FORTUNE

THERE was a glorious time At an epoch of my prime; Mornings beryl-bespread, And evenings golden-red; Nothing gray: And in my heart I said, “However this chanced to be, It is too full for me, Too rare, too rapturous, rash, Its spell must close with a crash Some day!”

The radiance went on Anon and yet anon, And sweetness fell around Like manna on the ground. “I’ve no claim,” Said I, “to be thus crowned: I am not worthy this:— Must it not go amiss?— Well . . . let the end foreseen Come duly!—I am serene.” —And it came.

HE WONDERS ABOUT HIMSELF

NO use hoping, or feeling vext, Tugged by a force above or under Like some fantocine, much I wonder What I shall find me doing next!

Shall I be rushing where bright eyes be? Shall I be suffering sorrows seven? Shall I be watching the stars of heaven, Thinking one of them looks like thee?

Part is mine of the general Will, Cannot my share in the sum of sources Bend a digit the poise of forces, And a fair desire fulfil?

_Nov._ 1893.

JUBILATE

“THE very last time I ever was here,” he said, “I saw much less of the quick than I saw of the dead.” —He was a man I had met with somewhere before, But how or when I now could recall no more.

“The hazy mazy moonlight at one in the morning Spread out as a sea across the frozen snow, Glazed to live sparkles like the great breastplate adorning The priest of the Temple, with Urim and Thummim aglow.

“The yew-tree arms, glued hard to the stiff stark air, Hung still in the village sky as theatre-scenes When I came by the churchyard wall, and halted there At a shut-in sound of fiddles and tambourines.

“And as I stood hearkening, dulcimers, haut-boys, and shawms, And violoncellos, and a three-stringed double-bass, Joined in, and were intermixed with a singing of psalms; And I looked over at the dead men’s dwelling-place.

“Through the shine of the slippery snow I now could see, As it were through a crystal roof, a great company Of the dead minueting in stately step underground To the tune of the instruments I had before heard sound.

“It was ‘Eden New,’ and dancing they sang in a chore, ‘We are out of it all!—yea, in Little-Ease cramped no more!’ And their shrouded figures pacing with joy I could see As you see the stage from the gallery. And they had no heed of me.

“And I lifted my head quite dazed from the churchyard wall And I doubted not that it warned I should soon have my call. But—” . . . Then in the ashes he emptied the dregs of his cup, And onward he went, and the darkness swallowed him up.

HE REVISITS HIS FIRST SCHOOL

I SHOULD not have shown in the flesh, I ought to have gone as a ghost; It was awkward, unseemly almost, Standing solidly there as when fresh, Pink, tiny, crisp-curled, My pinions yet furled From the winds of the world.

After waiting so many a year To wait longer, and go as a sprite From the tomb at the mid of some night Was the right, radiant way to appear; Not as one wanzing weak From life’s roar and reek, His rest still to seek:

Yea, beglimpsed through the quaint quarried glass Of green moonlight, by me greener made, When they’d cry, perhaps, “There sits his shade In his olden haunt—just as he was When in Walkingame he Conned the grand Rule-of-Three With the bent of a bee.”

But to show in the afternoon sun, With an aspect of hollow-eyed care, When none wished to see me come there, Was a garish thing, better undone. Yes; wrong was the way; But yet, let me say, I may right it—some day.

“I THOUGHT, MY HEART”

I THOUGHT, my Heart, that you had healed Of those sore smartings of the past, And that the summers had oversealed All mark of them at last. But closely scanning in the night I saw them standing crimson-bright Just as she made them: Nothing could fade them; Yea, I can swear That there they were— They still were there!

Then the Vision of her who cut them came, And looking over my shoulder said, “I am sure you deal me all the blame For those sharp smarts and red; But meet me, dearest, to-morrow night, In the churchyard at the moon’s half-height, And so strange a kiss Shall be mine, I wis, That you’ll cease to know If the wounds you show Be there or no!”

FRAGMENT

AT last I entered a long dark gallery, Catacomb-lined; and ranged at the side Were the bodies of men from far and wide Who, motion past, were nevertheless not dead.

“The sense of waiting here strikes strong; Everyone’s waiting, waiting, it seems to me; What are you waiting for so long?— What is to happen?” I said.

“O we are waiting for one called God,” said they, “(Though by some the Will, or Force, or Laws; And, vaguely, by some, the Ultimate Cause;) Waiting for him to see us before we are clay. Yes; waiting, waiting, for God _to know it_” . . .

“To know what?” questioned I. “To know how things have been going on earth and below it: It is clear he must know some day.” I thereon asked them why.

“Since he made us humble pioneers Of himself in consciousness of Life’s tears, It needs no mighty prophecy To tell that what he could mindlessly show His creatures, he himself will know.

“By some still close-cowled mystery We have reached feeling faster than he, But he will overtake us anon, If the world goes on.”

MIDNIGHT ON THE GREAT WESTERN

In the third-class seat sat the journeying boy, And the roof-lamp’s oily flame Played down on his listless form and face, Bewrapt past knowing to what he was going, Or whence he came.

In the band of his hat the journeying boy Had a ticket stuck; and a string Around his neck bore the key of his box, That twinkled gleams of the lamp’s sad beams Like a living thing.

What past can be yours, O journeying boy Towards a world unknown, Who calmly, as if incurious quite On all at stake, can undertake This plunge alone?

Knows your soul a sphere, O journeying boy, Our rude realms far above, Whence with spacious vision you mark and mete This region of sin that you find you in, But are not of?

HONEYMOON TIME AT AN INN

AT the shiver of morning, a little before the false dawn, The moon was at the window-square, Deedily brooding in deformed decay— The curve hewn off her cheek as by an adze; At the shiver of morning a little before the false dawn So the moon looked in there.

Her speechless eyeing reached across the chamber, Where lay two souls opprest, One a white lady sighing, “Why am I sad!” To him who sighed back, “Sad, my Love, am I!” And speechlessly the old moon conned the chamber, And these two reft of rest.

While their large-pupilled vision swept the scene there, Nought seeming imminent, Something fell sheer, and crashed, and from the floor Lay glittering at the pair with a shattered gaze, While their large-pupilled vision swept the scene there, And the many-eyed thing outleant.

With a start they saw that it was an old-time pier-glass Which had stood on the mantel near, Its silvering blemished,—yes, as if worn away By the eyes of the countless dead who had smirked at it Ere these two ever knew that old-time pier-glass And its vague and vacant leer.

As he looked, his bride like a moth skimmed forth, and kneeling Quick, with quivering sighs, Gathered the pieces under the moon’s sly ray, Unwitting as an automaton what she did; Till he entreated, hasting to where she was kneeling, “Let it stay where it lies!”

“Long years of sorrow this means!” breathed the lady As they retired. “Alas!” And she lifted one pale hand across her eyes. “Don’t trouble, Love; it’s nothing,” the bridegroom said. “Long years of sorrow for us!” murmured the lady, “Or ever this evil pass!”

And the Spirits Ironic laughed behind the wainscot, And the Spirits of Pity sighed. “It’s good,” said the Spirits Ironic, “to tickle their minds With a portent of their wedlock’s after-grinds.” And the Spirits of Pity sighed behind the wainscot, “It’s a portent we cannot abide!

“More, what shall happen to prove the truth of the portent?” —“Oh; in brief, they will fade till old, And their loves grow numbed ere death, by the cark of care.” —“But nought see we that asks for portents there?— ’Tis the lot of all.”—“Well, no less true is a portent That it fits all mortal mould.”

THE ROBIN

WHEN up aloft I fly and fly, I see in pools The shining sky, And a happy bird Am I, am I!

When I descend Towards their brink I stand, and look, And stoop, and drink, And bathe my wings, And chink and prink.

When winter frost Makes earth as steel I search and search But find no meal, And most unhappy Then I feel.

But when it lasts, And snows still fall, I get to feel No grief at all, For I turn to a cold stiff Feathery ball!

“I ROSE AND WENT TO ROU’TOR TOWN” (_She_, _alone_)

I ROSE and went to Rou’tor Town With gaiety and good heart, And ardour for the start, That morning ere the moon was down That lit me off to Rou’tor Town With gaiety and good heart.

When sojourn soon at Rou’tor Town Wrote sorrows on my face, I strove that none should trace The pale and gray, once pink and brown, When sojourn soon at Rou’tor Town Wrote sorrows on my face.

The evil wrought at Rou’tor Town On him I’d loved so true I cannot tell anew: But nought can quench, but nought can drown The evil wrought at Rou’tor Town On him I’d loved so true!

THE NETTLES

THIS, then, is the grave of my son, Whose heart she won! And nettles grow Upon his mound; and she lives just below.

How he upbraided me, and left, And our lives were cleft, because I said She was hard, unfeeling, caring but to wed.

Well, to see this sight I have fared these miles, And her firelight smiles from her window there, Whom he left his mother to cherish with tender care!

It is enough. I’ll turn and go; Yes, nettles grow where lone lies he, Who spurned me for seeing what he could not see.

IN A WAITING-ROOM

ON a morning sick as the day of doom With the drizzling gray Of an English May, There were few in the railway waiting-room. About its walls were framed and varnished Pictures of liners, fly-blown, tarnished. The table bore a Testament For travellers’ reading, if suchwise bent.

I read it on and on, And, thronging the Gospel of Saint John, Were figures—additions, multiplications— By some one scrawled, with sundry emendations; Not scoffingly designed, But with an absent mind,— Plainly a bagman’s counts of cost, What he had profited, what lost; And whilst I wondered if there could have been Any particle of a soul In that poor man at all,

To cypher rates of wage Upon that printed page, There joined in the charmless scene And stood over me and the scribbled book (To lend the hour’s mean hue A smear of tragedy too) A soldier and wife, with haggard look Subdued to stone by strong endeavour; And then I heard From a casual word They were parting as they believed for ever.

But next there came Like the eastern flame Of some high altar, children—a pair— Who laughed at the fly-blown pictures there. “Here are the lovely ships that we, Mother, are by and by going to see! When we get there it’s ’most sure to be fine, And the band will play, and the sun will shine!”

It rained on the skylight with a din As we waited and still no train came in; But the words of the child in the squalid room Had spread a glory through the gloom.

THE CLOCK-WINDER

IT is dark as a cave, Or a vault in the nave When the iron door Is closed, and the floor Of the church relaid With trowel and spade.

But the parish-clerk Cares not for the dark As he winds in the tower At a regular hour The rheumatic clock, Whose dilatory knock You can hear when praying At the day’s decaying, Or at any lone while From a pew in the aisle.

Up, up from the ground Around and around In the turret stair He clambers, to where The wheelwork is, With its tick, click, whizz, Reposefully measuring Each day to its end That mortal men spend In sorrowing and pleasuring Nightly thus does he climb To the trackway of Time.

Him I followed one night To this place without light, And, ere I spoke, heard Him say, word by word, At the end of his winding, The darkness unminding:—

“So I wipe out one more, My Dear, of the sore Sad days that still be, Like a drying Dead Sea, Between you and me!”

Who she was no man knew: He had long borne him blind To all womankind; And was ever one who Kept his past out of view.

OLD EXCURSIONS

“WHAT’S the good of going to Ridgeway, Cerne, or Sydling Mill, Or to Yell’ham Hill, Blithely bearing Casterbridge-way As we used to do? She will no more climb up there, Or be visible anywhere In those haunts we knew.”

But to-night, while walking weary, Near me seemed her shade, Come as ’twere to upbraid This my mood in deeming dreary Scenes that used to please; And, if she did come to me, Still solicitous, there may be Good in going to these.

So, I’ll care to roam to Ridgeway, Cerne, or Sydling Mill, Or to Yell’ham Hill, Blithely bearing Casterbridge-way As we used to do, Since her phasm may flit out there, And may greet me anywhere In those haunts we knew.

_April_ 1913.