The Complete Poetical Works. Томас Харди

The Complete Poetical Works - Томас Харди


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      Thirty-two years since, up against the sun,

       Seven shapes, thin atomies to lower sight,

       Labouringly leapt and gained thy gabled height,

       And four lives paid for what the seven had won.

      They were the first by whom the deed was done,

       And when I look at thee, my mind takes flight

       To that day’s tragic feat of manly might,

       As though, till then, of history thou hadst none.

      Yet ages ere men topped thee, late and soon

       Thou watch’dst each night the planets lift and lower;

       Thou gleam’dst to Joshua’s pausing sun and moon,

       And brav’dst the tokening sky when Cæsar’s power

       Approached its bloody end: yea, saw’st that Noon

       When darkness filled the earth till the ninth hour.

       Table of Contents

      (Spring, 1887)

      I

      When of tender mind and body

       I was moved by minstrelsy,

       And that strain “The Bridge of Lodi”

       Brought a strange delight to me.

      II

      In the battle-breathing jingle

       Of its forward-footing tune

       I could see the armies mingle,

       And the columns cleft and hewn

      III

      On that far-famed spot by Lodi

       Where Napoleon clove his way

       To his fame, when like a god he

       Bent the nations to his sway.

      IV

      Hence the tune came capering to me

       While I traced the Rhone and Po;

       Nor could Milan’s Marvel woo me

       From the spot englamoured so.

      V

      And to-day, sunlit and smiling,

       Here I stand upon the scene,

       With its saffron walls, dun tiling,

       And its meads of maiden green,

      VI

      Even as when the trackway thundered

       With the charge of grenadiers,

       And the blood of forty hundred

       Splashed its parapets and piers . . .

      VII

      Any ancient crone I’d toady

       Like a lass in young-eyed prime,

       Could she tell some tale of Lodi

       At that moving mighty time.

      VIII

      So, I ask the wives of Lodi

       For traditions of that day;

       But alas! not anybody

       Seems to know of such a fray.

      IX

      And they heed but transitory

       Marketings in cheese and meat,

       Till I judge that Lodi’s story

       Is extinct in Lodi’s street.

      X

      Yet while here and there they thrid them

       In their zest to sell and buy,

       Let me sit me down amid them

       And behold those thousands die . . .

      XI

      —Not a creature cares in Lodi

       How Napoleon swept each arch,

       Or where up and downward trod he,

       Or for his memorial March!

      XII

      So that wherefore should I be here,

       Watching Adda lip the lea,

       When the whole romance to see here

       Is the dream I bring with me?

      XIII

      And why sing “The Bridge of Lodi”

       As I sit thereon and swing,

       When none shows by smile or nod he

       Guesses why or what I sing? . . .

      XIV

      Since all Lodi, low and head ones,

       Seem to pass that story by,

       It may be the Lodi-bred ones

       Rate it truly, and not I.

      XV

      Once engrossing Bridge of Lodi,

       Is thy claim to glory gone?

       Must I pipe a palinody,

       Or be silent thereupon?

      XVI

      And if here, from strand to steeple,

       Be no stone to fame the fight,

       Must I say the Lodi people

       Are but viewing crime aright?

      XVII

      Nay; I’ll sing “The Bridge of Lodi”—

       That long-loved, romantic thing,

       Though none show by smile or nod he

       Guesses why and what I sing!

      On an Invitation to the United States

       Table of Contents

      I

      My ardours for emprize nigh lost

       Since Life has bared its bones to me,

       I shrink to seek a modern coast

       Whose riper times have yet to be;

       Where the new regions claim them free

       From that long drip of human tears

       Which peoples old in tragedy

       Have left upon the centuried years.

      II

      For, wonning in these ancient lands,

       Enchased and lettered as a tomb,

       And scored with prints of perished hands,

       And chronicled with dates of doom,

       Though my own Being bear no bloom

       I trace the lives such scenes enshrine,

       Give past exemplars present room,

       And their experience count as mine.

      Miscellaneous Poems

       Table of


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