Chapter 3

One eve as I stood at my spot of thought In the white-stoned Garth, brooding thus her wrong, Her husband neared; and to shun his view By her hallowed mew I went from the tombs among

To the Cirque of the Gladiators which faced— That haggard mark of Imperial Rome, Whose Pagan echoes mock the chime Of our Christian time: It was void, and I inward clomb.

Scarce night the sun’s gold touch displaced From the vast Rotund and the neighbouring dead When her husband followed; bowed; half-passed, With lip upcast; Then, halting, sullenly said:

“It is noised that you visit my first wife’s tomb. Now, I gave her an honoured name to bear While living, when dead. So I’ve claim to ask By what right you task My patience by vigiling there?

“There’s decency even in death, I assume; Preserve it, sir, and keep away; For the mother of my first-born you Show mind undue! —Sir, I’ve nothing more to say.”

A desperate stroke discerned I then— God pardon—or pardon not—the lie; She had sighed that she wished (lest the child should pine Of slights) ’twere mine, So I said: “But the father I.

“That you thought it yours is the way of men; But I won her troth long ere your day: You learnt how, in dying, she summoned me? ’Twas in fealty. —Sir, I’ve nothing more to say,

“Save that, if you’ll hand me my little maid, I’ll take her, and rear her, and spare you toil. Think it more than a friendly act none can; I’m a lonely man, While you’ve a large pot to boil.

“If not, and you’ll put it to ball or blade— To-night, to-morrow night, anywhen— I’ll meet you here . . . But think of it, And in season fit Let me hear from you again.”

—Well, I went away, hoping; but nought I heard Of my stroke for the child, till there greeted me A little voice that one day came To my window-frame And babbled innocently:

“My father who’s not my own, sends word I’m to stay here, sir, where I belong!” Next a writing came: “Since the child was the fruit Of your lawless suit, Pray take her, to right a wrong.”

And I did. And I gave the child my love, And the child loved me, and estranged us none. But compunctions loomed; for I’d harmed the dead By what I’d said For the good of the living one.

—Yet though, God wot, I am sinner enough, And unworthy the woman who drew me so, Perhaps this wrong for her darling’s good She forgives, or would, If only she could know!

[Picture: Sketch of tree-lined path]

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[Picture: Sketch of a decorative stave of music]

THE DANCE AT THE PHŒNIX

TO Jenny came a gentle youth From inland leazes lone, His love was fresh as apple-blooth By Parrett, Yeo, or Tone. And duly he entreated her To be his tender minister, And call him aye her own.

Fair Jenny’s life had hardly been A life of modesty; At Casterbridge experience keen Of many loves had she From scarcely sixteen years above; Among them sundry troopers of The King’s-Own Cavalry.

But each with charger, sword, and gun, Had bluffed the Biscay wave; And Jenny prized her gentle one For all the love he gave. She vowed to be, if they were wed, His honest wife in heart and head From bride-ale hour to grave.

Wedded they were. Her husband’s trust In Jenny knew no bound, And Jenny kept her pure and just, Till even malice found No sin or sign of ill to be In one who walked so decently The duteous helpmate’s round.

Two sons were born, and bloomed to men, And roamed, and were as not: Alone was Jenny left again As ere her mind had sought A solace in domestic joys, And ere the vanished pair of boys Were sent to sun her cot.

She numbered near on sixty years, And passed as elderly, When, in the street, with flush of fears, One day discovered she, From shine of swords and thump of drum. Her early loves from war had come, The King’s-Own Cavalry.

She turned aside, and bowed her head Anigh Saint Peter’s door; “Alas for chastened thoughts!” she said; “I’m faded now, and hoar, And yet those notes—they thrill me through, And those gay forms move me anew As in the years of yore!” . . .

’Twas Christmas, and the Phœnix Inn Was lit with tapers tall, For thirty of the trooper men Had vowed to give a ball As “Theirs” had done (’twas handed down) When lying in the selfsame town Ere Buonaparté’s fall.

That night the throbbing “Soldier’s Joy,” The measured tread and sway Of “Fancy-Lad” and “Maiden Coy,” Reached Jenny as she lay Beside her spouse; till springtide blood Seemed scouring through her like a flood That whisked the years away.

She rose, and rayed, and decked her head Where the bleached hairs ran thin; Upon her cap two bows of red She fixed with hasty pin; Unheard descending to the street, She trod the flags with tune-led feet, And stood before the Inn.

Save for the dancers’, not a sound Disturbed the icy air; No watchman on his midnight round Or traveller was there; But over All-Saints’, high and bright, Pulsed to the music Sirius white, The Wain by Bullstake Square.

She knocked, but found her further stride Checked by a sergeant tall: “Gay Granny, whence come you?” he cried; “This is a private ball.” —“No one has more right here than me! Ere you were born, man,” answered she, “I knew the regiment all!”

“Take not the lady’s visit ill!” Upspoke the steward free; “We lack sufficient partners still, So, prithee let her be!” They seized and whirled her ’mid the maze, And Jenny felt as in the days Of her immodesty.

Hour chased each hour, and night advanced; She sped as shod with wings; Each time and every time she danced— Reels, jigs, poussettes, and flings: They cheered her as she soared and swooped, (She’d learnt ere art in dancing drooped From hops to slothful swings).

The favourite Quick-step “Speed the Plough”— (Cross hands, cast off, and wheel)— “The Triumph,” “Sylph,” “The Row-dow-dow,” Famed “Major Malley’s Reel,” “The Duke of York’s,” “The Fairy Dance,” “The Bridge of Lodi” (brought from France), She beat out, toe and heel.

The “Fall of Paris” clanged its close, And Peter’s chime told four, When Jenny, bosom-beating, rose To seek her silent door. They tiptoed in escorting her, Lest stroke of heel or clink of spur Should break her goodman’s snore.

The fire that late had burnt fell slack When lone at last stood she; Her nine-and-fifty years came back; She sank upon her knee Beside the durn, and like a dart A something arrowed through her heart In shoots of agony.

Their footsteps died as she leant there, Lit by the morning star Hanging above the moorland, where The aged elm-rows are; And, as o’ernight, from Pummery Ridge To Maembury Ring and Standfast Bridge No life stirred, near or far.

Though inner mischief worked amain, She reached her husband’s side; Where, toil-weary, as he had lain Beneath the patchwork pied When yestereve she’d forthward crept, And as unwitting, still he slept Who did in her confide.

A tear sprang as she turned and viewed His features free from guile; She kissed him long, as when, just wooed, She chose his domicile. She felt she could have given her life To be the single-hearted wife That she had been erstwhile.

Time wore to six. Her husband rose And struck the steel and stone; He glanced at Jenny, whose repose Seemed deeper than his own. With dumb dismay, on closer sight, He gathered sense that in the night, Or morn, her soul had flown.

When told that some too mighty strain For one so many-yeared Had burst her bosom’s master-vein, His doubts remained unstirred. His Jenny had not left his side Betwixt the eve and morning-tide: —The King’s said not a word.

Well! times are not as times were then, Nor fair ones half so free; And truly they were martial men, The King’s-Own Cavalry. And when they went from Casterbridge And vanished over Mellstock Ridge, ’Twas saddest morn to see.

[Picture: Two lines of military men on horses]

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[Picture: Sketch of wooden panel]

THE CASTERBRIDGE CAPTAINS (KHYBER PASS, 1842)

A TRADITION OF J. B. L—, T. G. B—, AND J. L—.

THREE captains went to Indian wars, And only one returned: Their mate of yore, he singly wore The laurels all had earned.

At home he sought the ancient aisle Wherein, untrumped of fame, The three had sat in pupilage, And each had carved his name.

The names, rough-hewn, of equal size, Stood on the panel still; Unequal since.—“’Twas theirs to aim, Mine was it to fulfil!”

—“Who saves his life shall lose it, friends!” Outspake the preacher then, Unweeting he his listener, who Looked at the names again.

That he had come and they’d been stayed, ’Twas but the chance of war: Another chance, and they’d sat here, And he had lain afar.

Yet saw he something in the lives Of those who’d ceased to live That sphered them with a majesty Which living failed to give.

Transcendent triumph in return No longer lit his brain; Transcendence rayed the distant urn Where slept the fallen twain.

[Picture: Sketch of comet]

A SIGN-SEEKER

I MARK the months in liveries dank and dry, The noontides many-shaped and hued; I see the nightfall shades subtrude, And hear the monotonous hours clang negligently by.

I view the evening bonfires of the sun On hills where morning rains have hissed; The eyeless countenance of the mist Pallidly rising when the summer droughts are done.

I have seen the lightning-blade, the leaping star, The cauldrons of the sea in storm, Have felt the earthquake’s lifting arm, And trodden where abysmal fires and snow-cones are.

I learn to prophesy the hid eclipse, The coming of eccentric orbs; To mete the dust the sky absorbs, To weigh the sun, and fix the hour each planet dips.

I witness fellow earth-men surge and strive; Assemblies meet, and throb, and part; Death’s soothing finger, sorrow’s smart; —All the vast various moils that mean a world alive.

But that I fain would wot of shuns my sense— Those sights of which old prophets tell, Those signs the general word so well, Vouchsafed to their unheed, denied my long suspense.

In graveyard green, behind his monument To glimpse a phantom parent, friend, Wearing his smile, and “Not the end!” Outbreathing softly: that were blest enlightenment;

Or, if a dead Love’s lips, whom dreams reveal When midnight imps of King Decay Delve sly to solve me back to clay, Should leave some print to prove her spirit-kisses real;

Or, when Earth’s Frail lie bleeding of her Strong, If some Recorder, as in Writ, Near to the weary scene should flit And drop one plume as pledge that Heaven inscrolls the wrong.

—There are who, rapt to heights of trancéd trust, These tokens claim to feel and see, Read radiant hints of times to be— Of heart to heart returning after dust to dust.

Such scope is granted not to lives like mine . . . I have lain in dead men’s beds, have walked The tombs of those with whom I’d talked, Called many a gone and goodly one to shape a sign,

And panted for response. But none replies; No warnings loom, nor whisperings To open out my limitings, And Nescience mutely muses: When a man falls he lies.

[Picture: Sketch of person on horseback in wide landscape]

MY CICELY (17–)

“ALIVE?”—And I leapt in my wonder, Was faint of my joyance, And grasses and grove shone in garments Of glory to me.

“She lives, in a plenteous well-being, To-day as aforehand; The dead bore the name—though a rare one— The name that bore she.”

She lived . . . I, afar in the city Of frenzy-led factions, Had squandered green years and maturer In bowing the knee

To Baals illusive and specious, Till chance had there voiced me That one I loved vainly in nonage Had ceased her to be.

The passion the planets had scowled on, And change had let dwindle, Her death-rumour smartly relifted To full apogee.

I mounted a steed in the dawning With acheful remembrance, And made for the ancient West Highway To far Exonb’ry.

Passing heaths, and the House of Long Sieging, I neared the thin steeple That tops the fair fane of Poore’s olden Episcopal see;

And, changing anew my onbearer, I traversed the downland Whereon the bleak hill-graves of Chieftains Bulge barren of tree;

And still sadly onward I followed That Highway the Icen, Which trails its pale riband down Wessex O’er lynchet and lea.

Along through the Stour-bordered Forum, Where Legions had wayfared, And where the slow river upglasses Its green canopy,

And by Weatherbury Castle, and thencefrom Through Casterbridge held I Still on, to entomb her my vision Saw stretched pallidly.

No highwayman’s trot blew the night-wind To me so life-weary, But only the creak of the gibbets Or waggoners’ jee.

Triple-ramparted Maidon gloomed grayly Above me from southward, And north the hill-fortress of Eggar, And square Pummerie.

The Nine-Pillared Cromlech, the Bride-streams, The Axe, and the Otter I passed, to the gate of the city Where Exe scents the sea;

Till, spent, in the graveacre pausing, I learnt ’twas not my Love To whom Mother Church had just murmured A last lullaby.

—“Then, where dwells the Canon’s kinswoman, My friend of aforetime?”— (’Twas hard to repress my heart-heavings And new ecstasy.)

“She wedded.”—“Ah!”—“Wedded beneath her— She keeps the stage-hostel Ten miles hence, beside the great Highway— The famed Lions-Three.

“Her spouse was her lackey—no option ’Twixt wedlock and worse things; A lapse over-sad for a lady Of her pedigree!”

I shuddered, said nothing, and wandered To shades of green laurel: Too ghastly had grown those first tidings So brightsome of blee!

For, on my ride hither, I’d halted Awhile at the Lions, And her—her whose name had once opened My heart as a key—

I’d looked on, unknowing, and witnessed Her jests with the tapsters, Her liquor-fired face, her thick accents In naming her fee.

“O God, why this seeming derision!” I cried in my anguish: “O once Loved, O fair Unforgotten— That Thing—meant it thee!

“Inurned and at peace, lost but sainted, Were grief I could compass; Depraved—’tis for Christ’s poor dependent A cruel decree!”

I backed on the Highway; but passed not The hostel. Within there Too mocking to Love’s re-expression Was Time’s repartee!

Uptracking where Legions had wayfared, By cromlechs unstoried, And lynchets, and sepultured Chieftains, In self-colloquy,

A feeling stirred in me and strengthened That _she_ was not my Love, But she of the garth, who lay rapt in Her long reverie.

And thence till to-day I persuade me That this was the true one; That Death stole intact her young dearness And innocency.

Frail-witted, illuded they call me; I may be. ’Tis better To dream than to own the debasement Of sweet Cicely.

Moreover I rate it unseemly To hold that kind Heaven Could work such device—to her ruin And my misery.

So, lest I disturb my choice vision, I shun the West Highway, Even now, when the knaps ring with rhythms From blackbird and bee;

And feel that with slumber half-conscious She rests in the church-hay, Her spirit unsoiled as in youth-time When lovers were we.

[Picture: Sketch of top of church tower]

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[Picture: Sketch of fields with trees]

HER IMMORTALITY

UPON a noon I pilgrimed through A pasture, mile by mile, Unto the place where I last saw My dead Love’s living smile.

And sorrowing I lay me down Upon the heated sod: It seemed as if my body pressed The very ground she trod.

I lay, and thought; and in a trance She came and stood me by— The same, even to the marvellous ray That used to light her eye.

“You draw me, and I come to you, My faithful one,” she said, In voice that had the moving tone It bore ere breath had fled.

She said: “’Tis seven years since I died: Few now remember me; My husband clasps another bride; My children’s love has she.

“My brethren, sisters, and my friends Care not to meet my sprite: Who prized me most I did not know Till I passed down from sight.”

I said: “My days are lonely here; I need thy smile alway: I’ll use this night my ball or blade, And join thee ere the day.”

A tremor stirred her tender lips, Which parted to dissuade: “That cannot be, O friend,” she cried; “Think, I am but a Shade!

“A Shade but in its mindful ones Has immortality; By living, me you keep alive, By dying you slay me.

“In you resides my single power Of sweet continuance here; On your fidelity I count Through many a coming year.”

—I started through me at her plight, So suddenly confessed: Dismissing late distaste for life, I craved its bleak unrest.

“I will not die, my One of all!— To lengthen out thy days I’ll guard me from minutest harms That may invest my ways!”

She smiled and went. Since then she comes Oft when her birth-moon climbs, Or at the seasons’ ingresses Or anniversary times;

But grows my grief. When I surcease, Through whom alone lives she, Ceases my Love, her words, her ways, Never again to be!

THE IVY-WIFE

I LONGED to love a full-boughed beech And be as high as he: I stretched an arm within his reach, And signalled unity. But with his drip he forced a breach, And tried to poison me.

I gave the grasp of partnership To one of other race— A plane: he barked him strip by strip From upper bough to base; And me therewith; for gone my grip, My arms could not enlace.

In new affection next I strove To coll an ash I saw, And he in trust received my love; Till with my soft green claw I cramped and bound him as I wove . . . Such was my love: ha-ha!

By this I gained his strength and height Without his rivalry. But in my triumph I lost sight Of afterhaps. Soon he, Being bark-bound, flagged, snapped, fell outright, And in his fall felled me!

A MEETING WITH DESPAIR

AS evening shaped I found me on a moor Which sight could scarce sustain: The black lean land, of featureless contour, Was like a tract in pain.

“This scene, like my own life,” I said, “is one Where many glooms abide; Toned by its fortune to a deadly dun— Lightless on every side.

I glanced aloft and halted, pleasure-caught To see the contrast there: The ray-lit clouds gleamed glory; and I thought, “There’s solace everywhere!”

Then bitter self-reproaches as I stood I dealt me silently As one perverse—misrepresenting Good In graceless mutiny.

Against the horizon’s dim-discernèd wheel A form rose, strange of mould: That he was hideous, hopeless, I could feel Rather than could behold.

“’Tis a dead spot, where even the light lies spent To darkness!” croaked the Thing. “Not if you look aloft!” said I, intent On my new reasoning.

“Yea—but await awhile!” he cried. “Ho-ho!— Look now aloft and see!” I looked. There, too, sat night: Heaven’s radiant show Had gone. Then chuckled he.

UNKNOWING

WHEN, soul in soul reflected, We breathed an æthered air, When we neglected All things elsewhere, And left the friendly friendless To keep our love aglow, We deemed it endless . . . —We did not know!

When, by mad passion goaded, We planned to hie away, But, unforeboded, The storm-shafts gray So heavily down-pattered That none could forthward go, Our lives seemed shattered . . . —We did not know!

When I found you, helpless lying, And you waived my deep misprise, And swore me, dying, In phantom-guise To wing to me when grieving, And touch away my woe, We kissed, believing . . . —We did not know!

But though, your powers outreckoning, You hold you dead and dumb, Or scorn my beckoning, And will not come; And I say, “’Twere mood ungainly To store her memory so:” I say it vainly— I feel and know!

FRIENDS BEYOND

WILLIAM DEWY, Tranter Reuben, Farmer Ledlow late at plough, Robert’s kin, and John’s, and Ned’s, And the Squire, and Lady Susan, lie in Mellstock churchyard now!

“Gone,” I call them, gone for good, that group of local hearts and heads; Yet at mothy curfew-tide, And at midnight when the noon-heat breathes it back from walls and leads,

They’ve a way of whispering to me—fellow-wight who yet abide— In the muted, measured note Of a ripple under archways, or a lone cave’s stillicide:

“We have triumphed: this achievement turns the bane to antidote, Unsuccesses to success, —Many thought-worn eves and morrows to a morrow free of thought.

“No more need we corn and clothing, feel of old terrestrial stress; Chill detraction stirs no sigh; Fear of death has even bygone us: death gave all that we possess.”

_W. D._—“Ye mid burn the wold bass-viol that I set such vallie by.” _Squire_.—“You may hold the manse in fee, You may wed my spouse, my children’s memory of me may decry.”

_Lady_.—“You may have my rich brocades, my laces; take each household key; Ransack coffer, desk, bureau; Quiz the few poor treasures hid there, con the letters kept by me.”

_Far._—“Ye mid zell my favourite heifer, ye mid let the charlock grow, Foul the grinterns, give up thrift.” _Wife_.—“If ye break my best blue china, children, I shan’t care or ho.”

_All_. —“We’ve no wish to hear the tidings, how the people’s fortunes shift; What your daily doings are; Who are wedded, born, divided; if your lives beat slow or swift.

“Curious not the least are we if our intents you make or mar, If you quire to our old tune, If the City stage still passes, if the weirs still roar afar.”

—Thus, with very gods’ composure, freed those crosses late and soon Which, in life, the Trine allow (Why, none witteth), and ignoring all that haps beneath the moon,

William Dewy, Tranter Reuben, Farmer Ledlow late at plough, Robert’s kin, and John’s, and Ned’s, And the Squire, and Lady Susan, murmur mildly to me now.

[Picture: Sketch of vase with dead flowers]

TO OUTER NATURE

SHOW thee as I thought thee When I early sought thee, Omen-scouting, All undoubting Love alone had wrought thee—

Wrought thee for my pleasure, Planned thee as a measure For expounding And resounding Glad things that men treasure.

O for but a moment Of that old endowment— Light to gaily See thy daily Irisèd embowment!