The Complete Poetical Works. Томас Харди

The Complete Poetical Works - Томас Харди


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To be endeared

       By stealth to one,

       You disappeared

       My Lizbie Browne!

      V

      Ay, Lizbie Browne,

       So swift your life,

       And mine so slow,

       You were a wife

       Ere I could show

       Love, Lizbie Browne.

      VI

      Still, Lizbie Browne,

       You won, they said,

       The best of men

       When you were wed . . .

       Where went you then,

       O Lizbie Browne?

      VII

      Dear Lizbie Browne,

       I should have thought,

       “Girls ripen fast,”

       And coaxed and caught

       You ere you passed,

       Dear Lizbie Browne!

      VIII

      But, Lizbie Browne,

       I let you slip;

       Shaped not a sign;

       Touched never your lip

       With lip of mine,

       Lost Lizbie Browne!

      IX

      So, Lizbie Browne,

       When on a day

       Men speak of me

       As not, you’ll say,

       “And who was he?”—

       Yes, Lizbie Browne!

      Song of Hope

       Table of Contents

      O sweet To-morrow!—

       After to-day

       There will away

       This sense of sorrow.

       Then let us borrow

       Hope, for a gleaming

       Soon will be streaming,

       Dimmed by no gray—

       No gray!

      While the winds wing us

       Sighs from The Gone,

       Nearer to dawn

       Minute-beats bring us;

       When there will sing us

       Larks of a glory

       Waiting our story

       Further anon—

       Anon!

      Doff the black token,

       Don the red shoon,

       Right and retune

       Viol-strings broken;

       Null the words spoken

       In speeches of rueing,

       The night cloud is hueing,

       To-morrow shines soon—

       Shines soon!

      The Well-Beloved

       Table of Contents

      I wayed by star and planet shine

       Towards the dear one’s home

       At Kingsbere, there to make her mine

       When the next sun upclomb.

      I edged the ancient hill and wood

       Beside the Ikling Way,

       Nigh where the Pagan temple stood

       In the world’s earlier day.

      And as I quick and quicker walked

       On gravel and on green,

       I sang to sky, and tree, or talked

       Of her I called my queen.

      —“O faultless is her dainty form,

       And luminous her mind;

       She is the God-created norm

       Of perfect womankind!”

      A shape whereon one star-blink gleamed

       Glode softly by my side,

       A woman’s; and her motion seemed

       The motion of my bride.

      And yet methought she’d drawn erstwhile

       Adown the ancient leaze,

       Where once were pile and peristyle

       For men’s idolatries.

      —“O maiden lithe and lone, what may

       Thy name and lineage be,

       Who so resemblest by this ray

       My darling?—Art thou she?”

      The Shape: “Thy bride remains within

       Her father’s grange and grove.”

       —“Thou speakest rightly,” I broke in,

       “Thou art not she I love.”

      —“Nay: though thy bride remains inside

       Her father’s walls,” said she,

       “The one most dear is with thee here,

       For thou dost love but me.”

      Then I: “But she, my only choice,

       Is now at Kingsbere Grove?”

       Again her soft mysterious voice:

       “I am thy only Love.”

      Thus still she vouched, and still I said,

       “O sprite, that cannot be!” . . .

       It was as if my bosom bled,

       So much she troubled me.

      The sprite resumed: “Thou hast transferred

       To her dull form awhile

       My beauty, fame, and deed, and word,

       My gestures and my smile.

      “O fatuous man, this truth infer,

       Brides are not what they seem;

       Thou lovest what thou dreamest her;

       I am thy very dream!”

      —“O then,” I answered miserably,

       Speaking as scarce I knew,

       “My loved one, I must wed with thee

       If what thou say’st be true!”

      She, proudly, thinning in the gloom:

       “Though, since troth-plight began,

       I’ve ever stood as bride to groom,

       I wed no mortal man!”

      Thereat she vanished by the Cross

       That, entering Kingsbere town,

       The two long lanes form, near the fosse

       Below the faneless Down.

      —When I arrived and met my bride,

       Her look was pinched and thin,

       As if her soul had shrunk and died,

      


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