Poems of the Past and the Present. Thomas Hardy
“Is it you,
O my men?” Said they, “Aye! We bear homeward and hearthward
To list to our fame!”
“I’ve flown there before you,” he said then:
“Your households are well;
But – your kin linger less
On your glory arid war-mightiness
Than on dearer things.” – “Dearer?” cried these from the dead then,
“Of what do they tell?”
“Some mothers muse sadly, and murmur
Your doings as boys —
Recall the quaint ways
Of your babyhood’s innocent days.
Some pray that, ere dying, your faith had grown firmer,
And higher your joys.
“A father broods: ‘Would I had set him
To some humble trade,
And so slacked his high fire,
And his passionate martial desire;
Had told him no stories to woo him and whet him
To this due crusade!”
“And, General, how hold out our sweethearts,
Sworn loyal as doves?”
– “Many mourn; many think
It is not unattractive to prink
Them in sables for heroes. Some fickle and fleet hearts
Have found them new loves.”
“And our wives?” quoth another resignedly,
“Dwell they on our deeds?”
– “Deeds of home; that live yet
Fresh as new – deeds of fondness or fret;
Ancient words that were kindly expressed or unkindly,
These, these have their heeds.”
– “Alas! then it seems that our glory
Weighs less in their thought
Than our old homely acts,
And the long-ago commonplace facts
Of our lives – held by us as scarce part of our story,
And rated as nought!”
Then bitterly some: “Was it wise now
To raise the tomb-door
For such knowledge? Away!”
But the rest: “Fame we prized till to-day;
Yet that hearts keep us green for old kindness we prize now
A thousand times more!”
Thus speaking, the trooped apparitions
Began to disband
And resolve them in two:
Those whose record was lovely and true
Bore to northward for home: those of bitter traditions
Again left the land,
And, towering to seaward in legions,
They paused at a spot
Overbending the Race —
That engulphing, ghast, sinister place —
Whither headlong they plunged, to the fathomless regions
Of myriads forgot.
And the spirits of those who were homing
Passed on, rushingly,
Like the Pentecost Wind;
And the whirr of their wayfaring thinned
And surceased on the sky, and but left in the gloaming
Sea-mutterings and me.
SONG OF THE SOLDIERS’ WIVES
At last! In sight of home again,
Of home again;
No more to range and roam again
As at that bygone time?
No more to go away from us
And stay from us? —
Dawn, hold not long the day from us,
But quicken it to prime!
Now all the town shall ring to them,
Shall ring to them,
And we who love them cling to them
And clasp them joyfully;
And cry, “O much we’ll do for you
Anew for you,
Dear Loves! – aye, draw and hew for you,
Come back from oversea.”
Some told us we should meet no more,
Should meet no more;
Should wait, and wish, but greet no more
Your faces round our fires;
That, in a while, uncharily
And drearily
Men gave their lives – even wearily,
Like those whom living tires.
And now you are nearing home again,
Dears, home again;
No more, may be, to roam again
As at that bygone time,
Which took you far away from us
To stay from us;
Dawn, hold not long the day from us,
But quicken it to prime!
THE SICK GOD
In days when men had joy of war,
A God of Battles sped each mortal jar;
The peoples pledged him heart and hand,
From Israel’s land to isles afar.
His crimson form, with clang and chime,
Flashed on each murk and murderous meeting-time,
And kings invoked, for rape and raid,
His fearsome aid in rune and rhyme.
On bruise and