The Complete Poetical Works. Томас Харди

The Complete Poetical Works - Томас Харди


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Abides a mystery.

      Since heart of mine knows not that ease

       Which they know; since it be

       That He who breathes All’s Well to these

       Breathes no All’s-Well to me,

       My lack might move their sympathies

       And Christian charity!

      I am like a gazer who should mark

       An inland company

       Standing upfingered, with, “Hark! hark!

       The glorious distant sea!”

       And feel, “Alas, ’tis but yon dark

       And wind-swept pine to me!”

      Yet I would bear my shortcomings

       With meet tranquillity,

       But for the charge that blessed things

       I’d liefer have unbe.

       O, doth a bird deprived of wings

       Go earth-bound wilfully!

      * * * * *

      Enough. As yet disquiet clings

       About us. Rest shall we.

Sketch of inside of church

      At an Inn

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      When we as strangers sought

       Their catering care,

       Veiled smiles bespoke their thought

       Of what we were.

       They warmed as they opined

       Us more than friends—

       That we had all resigned

       For love’s dear ends.

      And that swift sympathy

       With living love

       Which quicks the world—maybe

       The spheres above,

       Made them our ministers,

       Moved them to say,

       “Ah, God, that bliss like theirs

       Would flush our day!”

      And we were left alone

       As Love’s own pair;

       Yet never the love-light shone

       Between us there!

       But that which chilled the breath

       Of afternoon,

       And palsied unto death

       The pane-fly’s tune.

      The kiss their zeal foretold,

       And now deemed come,

       Came not: within his hold

       Love lingered-numb.

       Why cast he on our port

       A bloom not ours?

       Why shaped us for his sport

       In after-hours?

      As we seemed we were not

       That day afar,

       And now we seem not what

       We aching are.

       O severing sea and land,

       O laws of men,

       Ere death, once let us stand

       As we stood then!

      The Slow Nature

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      (An Incident Of Froom Valley)

      “Thy husband—poor, poor Heart!—is dead—

       Dead, out by Moreford Rise;

       A bull escaped the barton-shed,

       Gored him, and there he lies!”

      —“Ha, ha—go away! ’Tis a tale, methink,

       Thou joker Kit!” laughed she.

       “I’ve known thee many a year, Kit Twink,

       And ever hast thou fooled me!”

      —“But, Mistress Damon—I can swear

       Thy goodman John is dead!

       And soon th’lt hear their feet who bear

       His body to his bed.”

      So unwontedly sad was the merry man’s face—

       That face which had long deceived—

       That she gazed and gazed; and then could trace

       The truth there; and she believed.

      She laid a hand on the dresser-ledge,

       And scanned far Egdon-side;

       And stood; and you heard the wind-swept sedge

       And the rippling Froom; till she cried:

      “O my chamber’s untidied, unmade my bed

       Though the day has begun to wear!

       ‘What a slovenly hussif!’ it will be said,

       When they all go up my stair!”

      She disappeared; and the joker stood

       Depressed by his neighbour’s doom,

       And amazed that a wife struck to widowhood

       Thought first of her unkempt room.

      But a fortnight thence she could take no food,

       And she pined in a slow decay;

       While Kit soon lost his mournful mood

       And laughed in his ancient way.

      1894.

      In a Eweleaze Near Weatherbury

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      The years have gathered grayly

       Since I danced upon this leaze

       With one who kindled gaily

       Love’s fitful ecstasies!

       But despite the term as teacher,

       I remain what I was then

       In each essential feature

       Of the fantasies of men.

      Yet I note the little chisel

       Of never-napping Time,

       Defacing ghast and grizzel

       The blazon of my prime.

       When at night he thinks me sleeping,

       I feel him boring sly

       Within my bones, and heaping

       Quaintest pains for by-and-by.

      Still, I’d go the world with Beauty,

       I would laugh with her and sing,

       I would shun divinest duty

       To resume her worshipping.

       But she’d scorn my brave endeavour,

       She would not balm the breeze

      


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