The Complete Poetical Works. Томас ХардиЧитать онлайн книгу.
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.
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!
But such re-adorning
Time forbids with scorning—
Makes me see things
Cease to be things
They were in my morning.
Fad’st thou, glow-forsaken,
Darkness-overtaken!
Thy first sweetness,
Radiance, meetness,
None shall re-awaken.
Why not sempiternal
Thou and I? Our vernal
Brightness keeping,
Time outleaping;
Passed the hodiernal!
Thoughts of Phena
AT NEWS OF HER DEATH
Not a line of her writing have I,
Not a thread of her hair,
No mark of her late time as dame in her dwelling, whereby
I may picture her there;
And in vain do I urge my unsight
To conceive my lost prize
At her close, whom I knew when her dreams were upbrimming with light,
And with laughter her eyes.
What scenes spread around her last days,
Sad, shining, or dim?
Did her gifts and compassions enray and enarch her sweet ways
With an aureate nimb?
Or did life-light decline from her years,
And mischances control
Her full day-star; unease, or regret, or forebodings, or fears
Disennoble her soul?
Thus I do but the phantom retain
Of the maiden of yore
As my relic; yet haply the best of her—fined in my brain
It maybe the more
That no line of her writing have I,
Nor a thread of her hair,
No mark of her late time as dame in her dwelling, whereby
I may picture her there.
March 1890.
Middle-Age Enthusiasms
To M. H.
We passed where flag and flower
Signalled a jocund throng;
We said: “Go to, the hour
Is apt!”—and joined the song;
And, kindling, laughed at life and care,
Although we knew no laugh lay there.
We walked where shy birds stood
Watching us, wonder-dumb;
Their friendship met our mood;
We cried: “We’ll often come:
We’ll come morn, noon, eve, everywhen!”
—We doubted we should come again.
We joyed to see strange sheens
Leap from quaint leaves in shade;
A secret light of greens
They’d for their pleasure made.
We said: “We’ll set such sorts as these!”
—We knew with night the wish would cease.
“So sweet the place,” we said,
“Its tacit tales so dear,
Our thoughts, when breath has sped,
Will meet and mingle here!” . . .
“Words!” mused we. “Passed the mortal door,
Our thoughts will reach this nook no more.”
In a Wood
See “The Woodlanders”
Pale beech and pine-tree blue,