To an Orphan Child   
   
   
AH, child, thou art but half thy darling mother’s;      
  Hers couldst thou wholly be,      
My light in thee would outglow all in others;      
  She would relive to me.      
But niggard Nature’s trick of birth           5   
  Bars, lest she overjoy,      
Renewal of the loved on earth      
    Save with alloy.      
   
The Dame has no regard, alas, my maiden,      
  For love and loss like mine—           10   
No sympathy with mind-sight memory-laden;      
  Only with fickle eyne.      
To her mechanic artistry      
  My dreams are all unknown,      
And why I wish that thou couldst be           15   
    But One’s alone!      

Nature’s Questioning   
   
   
WHEN I look forth at dawning, pool,      
    Field, flock, and lonely tree,      
    All seem to look at me      
Like chastened children sitting silent in a school;      
   
  Their faces dulled, constrained, and worn,           5   
    As though the master’s ways      
    Through the long teaching days      
Their first terrestrial zest had chilled and overborne.      
   
  And on them stirs, in lippings mere      
    (As if once clear in call,           10   
    But now scarce breathed at all)—      
“We wonder, ever wonder, why we find us here!      
   
  “Has some Vast Imbecility,      
    Mighty to build and blend,      
    But impotent to tend,           15   
Framed us in jest, and left us now to hazardry?      
   
  “Or come we of an Automaton      
    Unconscious of our pains?…      
    Or are we live remains      
Of Godhead dying downwards, brain and eye now gone?           20   
   
  “Or is it that some high Plan betides,      
    As yet not understood,      
    Of Evil stormed by Good,      
We the Forlorn Hope over which Achievement strides?”      
   
  Thus things around. No answerer I….           25   
    Meanwhile the winds, and rains,      
    And Earth’s old glooms and pains      
Are still the same, and gladdest Life Death neighbors nigh.

The Impercipient   
   
   
THAT from this bright believing band      
  An outcast I should be,      
That faiths by which my comrades stand      
  Seem fantasies to me,      
And mirage-mists their Shining Land,           5   
  Is a drear destiny.      
   
Why thus my soul should be consigned      
  To infelicity,      
Why always I must feel as blind      
  To sights my brethren see,           10   
Why joys they’ve found I cannot find,      
  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           15   
  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           20   
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           25   
  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!
    .      .      .      .           30   
Enough. As yet disquiet clings      
  About us. Rest shall we.

At an Inn   
   
   
WHEN we as strangers sought      
  Their catering care,      
Veiled smiles bespoke their thought      
  Of what we were.      
They warmed as they opined           5   
  Us more than friends—      
That we had all resigned      
  For love’s dear ends.      
   
And that swift sympathy      
  With living love           10   
Which quicks the world—maybe      
  The spheres above,      
Made them our ministers,      
  Moved them to say,      
“Ah, God, that bliss like theirs           15   
  Would flush our day!”      
   
And we were left alone      
  As Love’s own pair;      
Yet never the love-light shone      
  Between us there!           20   
But that which chilled the breath      
  Of afternoon,      
And palsied unto death      
  The pane-fly’s tune.      
   
The kiss their zeal foretold,           25   
  And now deemed come,      
Came not: within his hold      
  Love lingered numb.      
Why cast he on our port      
  A bloom not ours?           30   
Why shaped us for his sport      
  In after-hours?      
   
As we seemed we were not      
  That day afar,      
And now we seem not what           35   
  We aching are.      
O severing sea and land,      
  O laws of men,      
Ere death, once let us stand      
  As we stood then!           40   

The Slow Nature   
   
   
“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,           5   
  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!           10   
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           15   
  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:           20   
   
“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           25   
  Depressed by his neighbor’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;           30   
While Kit soon lost his mournful mood      
  And laughed in his ancient way.


1894

 In a Eweleaze near Weatherbury   
   
   
THE YEARS have gathered grayly      
  Since I danced upon this leaze      
With one who kindled gayly      
  Love’s fitful ecstasies!      
But despite the term as teacher,           5   
  I remain what I was then      
In each essential feature      
  Of the fantasies of men.      
   
Yet I note the little chisel      
  Of ever-napping Time,           10   
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           15   
  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.           20   
But she’d scorn my brave endeavor,      
  She would not balm the breeze      
By murmuring, “Thine for ever!”      
  As she did upon this leaze.


1887–1890.

 The Fire at Tranter Sweatley’s   
   
   
THEY had long met o’ Zundays—her true love and she—      
  And at junketings, maypoles, and flings;      
But she bode wi’ a thirtover uncle, and he      
Swore by noon and by night that her goodman should be      
Naibor Sweatley—a gaffer oft weak at the knee           5   
From taking o’ sommat more cheerful than tea—      
  Who tranted, and moved people’s things.      
   
She cried, “O pray pity me!” Nought would he hear;      
  Then with wild rainy eyes she obeyed,      
She chid when her Love was for clinking off wi’ her.           10   
The pa’son was told, as the season drew near      
To throw over pu’pit the names of the peäir      
  As fitting one flesh to be made.      
   
The wedding-day dawned and the morning drew on;      
  The couple stood bridegroom and bride;           15   
The evening was passed, and when midnight had gone      
The folks horned out, “God save the King,” and anon      
  The two home-along gloomily hied.      
   
The lover Tim Tankens mourned heart-sick and drear      
  To be thus of his darling deprived:           20   
He roamed in the dark ath’art field, mound, and mere,      
And, a’most without knowing it, found himself near      
The house of the tranter, and now of his Dear,      
  Where the lantern-light showed ’em arrived.      
   
The bride sought her cham’er so calm and so pale           25   
  That a Northern had thought her resigned;      
But to eyes that had seen her in tide-times of weal,      
Like the white cloud o’ smoke, the red battlefield’s vail,      
  That look spak’ of havoc behind.      
   
The bridegroom yet laitered a beaker to drain,           30   
  Then reeled to the linhay for more,      
When the candle-snoff kindled some chaff from his grain—      
Flames spread, and red vlankers, wi’ might and wi’ main,      
  And round beams, thatch, and chimley-tun roar.      
   
Young Tim away yond, rafted up by the light,           35   
  Through brimble and underwood tears,      
Till he comes to the orchet, when crooping thereright      
In the lewth of a codlin-tree, bivering wi’ fright,      
Wi’ on’y her night-rail to screen her from sight,      
  His lonesome young Barbree appears.           40   
   
Her cwold little figure half-naked he views      
  Played about by the frolicsome breeze,      
Her light-tripping totties, her ten little tooes,      
All bare and besprinkled wi’ Fall’s chilly dews,      
While her great gallied eyes, through her hair hanging loose,           45   
  Sheened as stars through a tardle o’ trees.      
   
She eyed en; and, as when a weir-hatch is drawn,      
  Her tears, penned by terror afore,      
With a rushing of sobs in a shower were strawn,      
Till her power to pour ’em seemed wasted and gone           50   
  From the heft o’ misfortune she bore.      
   
“O Tim, my own Tim I must call ’ee—I will!      
  All the world ha’ turned round on me so!      
Can you help her who loved ’ee, though acting so ill?      
Can you pity her misery—feel for her still?           55   
When worse than her body so quivering and chill      
  Is her heart in its winter o’ woe!      
   
“I think I mid almost ha’ borne it,” she said,      
  “Had my griefs one by one come to hand;      
But O, to be slave to thik husbird for bread,           60   
And then, upon top o’ that, driven to wed,      
And then, upon top o’ that, burnt out o’ bed,      
  Is more than my nater can stand!”      
   
Tim’s soul like a lion ’ithin en outsprung—      
(Tim had a great soul when his feelings were wrung)—           65   
  “Feel for ’ee, dear Barbree?” he cried;      
And his warm working-jacket about her he flung,      
Made a back, horsed her up, till behind him she clung      
Like a chiel on a gipsy, her figure uphung      
  By the sleeves that around her he tied.           70   
   
Over piggeries, and mixens, and apples, and hay,      
  They lumpered straight into the night;      
And finding bylong where a halter-path lay,      
At dawn reached Tim’s house, on’y seen on their way      
By a naibor or two who were up wi’ the day;           75   
  But they gathered no clue to the sight.      
   
Then tender Tim Tankens he searched here and there      
  For some garment to clothe her fair skin;      
But though he had breeches and waistcoats to spare,      
He had nothing quite seemly for Barbree to wear,           80   
Who, half shrammed to death, stood and cried on a chair      
  At the caddle she found herself in.      
   
There was one thing to do, and that one thing he did,      
  He lent her some clouts of his own,      
And she took ’em perforce; and while in ’em she slid,           85   
Tim turned to the winder, as modesty bid,      
Thinking, “O that the picter my duty keeps hid      
  To the sight o’ my eyes mid be shown!”      
   
In the tallet he stowed her; there huddied she lay,      
  Shortening sleeves, legs, and tails to her limbs;           90   
But most o’ the time in a mortal bad way,      
Well knowing that there’d be the divel to pay      
If ’twere found that, instead o’ the elements’ prey,      
  She was living in lodgings at Tim’s.      
   
“Where’s the tranter?” said men and boys; “where can er be?”           95   
  “Where’s the tranter?” said Barbree alone.      
“Where on e’th is the tranter?” said everybod-y:      
They sifted the dust of his perished roof-tree,      
  And all they could find was a bone.      
   
Then the uncle cried, “Lord, pray have mercy on me!”           100   
  And in terror began to repent.      
But before ’twas complete, and till sure she was free,      
Barbree drew up her loft-ladder, tight turned her key—      
Tim bringing up breakfast and dinner and tea—      
  Till the news of her hiding got vent.           105   
   
Then followed the custom-kept rout, shout, and flare      
Of a skimmington-ride through the naiborhood, ere      
  Folk had proof o’ wold Sweatley’s decay.      
Whereupon decent people all stood in a stare,      
Saying Tim and his lodger should risk it, and pair:           110   
So he took her to church. An’ some laughing lads there      
Cried to Tim, “After Sweatley!” She said, “I declare      
  I stand as a maiden to-day!”


Written 1866; printed 1875.

Heiress and Architect   
   
   
SHE sought the Studios, beckoning to her side      
An arch-designer, for she planned to build.      
He was of wise contrivance, deeply skilled      
In every intervolve of high and wide—      
    Well fit to be her guide.           5   
   
    “Whatever it be,”      
    Responded he,      
With cold, clear voice, and cold, clear view,      
“In true accord with prudent fashionings      
For such vicissitudes as living brings,           10   
And thwarting not the law of stable things,      
    That will I do.”      
   
“Shape me,” she said, “high walls with tracery      
And open ogive-work, that scent and hue      
Of buds, and travelling bees, may come in through,           15   
The note of birds, and singings of the sea,      
  For these are much to me.”      
   
    “An idle whim!”      
    Broke forth from him      
Whom nought could warm to gallantries:           20   
“Cede all these buds and birds, the zephyr’s call,      
And scents, and hues, and things that falter all,      
And choose as best the close and surly wall,      
    For winter’s freeze.”      
   
“Then frame,” she cried, “wide fronts of crystal glass,           25   
That I may show my laughter and my light—      
Light like the sun’s by day, the stars’ by night—      
Till rival heart-queens, envying, wail, ‘Alas,      
    Her glory!’ as they pass.”      
   
    “O maid misled!”           30   
    He sternly said,      
Whose facile foresight pierced her dire;      
“Where shall abide the soul when, sick of glee,      
It shrinks, and hides, and prays no eye may see?      
Those house them best who house for secrecy,           35   
    For you will tire.”      
   
“A little chamber, then, with swan and dove      
Ranged thickly, and engrailed with rare device      
Of reds and purples, for a Paradise      
Wherein my Love may greet me, I my Love,           40   
    When he shall know thereof?”      
   
    “This, too, is ill,”      
    He answered still,      
The man who swayed her like a shade.      
“An hour will come when sight of such sweet nook           45   
Would bring a bitterness too sharp to brook,      
When brighter eyes have won away his look;      
    For you will fade.”      
   
Then said she faintly: “O, contrive some way—      
Some narrow winding turret, quite mine own,           50   
To reach a loft where I may grieve alone!      
It is a slight thing; hence do not, I pray,      
    This last dear fancy slay!”      
   
    “Such winding ways      
    Fit not your days,”           55   
Said he, the man of measuring eye;      
“I must even fashion as my rule declares,      
To wit: Give space (since life ends unawares)      
To hale a coffined corpse adown the stairs;      
    For you will die.”


1867.
        60   

The Two Men   
   
   
THERE were two youths of equal age,      
Wit, station, strength, and parentage;      
They studied at the self-same schools,      
And shaped their thoughts by common rules.      
   
One pondered on the life of man,           5   
His hopes, his endings, and began      
To rate the Market’s sordid war      
As something scarce worth living for.      
   
“I’ll brace to higher aims,” said he,      
“I’ll further Truth and Purity;           10   
Thereby to mend and mortal lot      
And sweeten sorrow. Thrive I not,      
   
“Winning their hearts, my kind will give      
Enough that I may lowly live,      
And house my Love in some dim dell,           15   
For pleasing them and theirs so well.”      
   
Idly attired, with features wan,      
In secret swift he labored on;      
Such press of power had brought much gold      
Applied to things of meaner mould.           20   
   
Sometimes he wished his aims had been      
To gather gains like other men;      
Then thanked his God he’d traced his track      
Too far for wish to drag him back.      
   
He lookèd from his loft one day           25   
To where his slighted garden lay;      
Nettles and hemlock hid each lawn,      
And every flower was starved and gone.      
   
He fainted in his heart, whereon      
He rose, and sought his plighted one,           30   
Resolved to loose her bond withal,      
Lest she should perish in his fall.      
   
He met her with a careless air,      
As though he’d ceased to find her fair,      
And said: “True love is dust to me;           35   
I cannot kiss: I tire of thee!”      
   
(That she might scorn him was he fain,      
To put her sooner out of pain;      
For incensed love breathes quick and dies,      
When famished love a-lingering lies.)           40   
   
Once done, his soul was so betossed,      
It found no more the force it lost:      
Hope was his only drink and food,      
And hope extinct, decay ensued.      
   
And, living long so closely penned,           45   
He had not kept a single friend;      
He dwindled thin as phantoms be,      
And drooped to death in poverty….      
   
Meantime his schoolmate had gone out      
To join the fortune-finding rout;           50   
He liked the winnings of the mart,      
But wearied of the working part.      
   
He turned to seek a privy lair,      
Neglecting note of garb and hair,      
And day by day reclined and thought           55   
How he might live by doing nought.      
   
“I plan a valued scheme,” he said      
To some. “But lend me of your bread,      
And when the vast result looms nigh,      
In profit you shall stand as I.”           60   
   
Yet they took counsel to restrain      
Their kindness till they saw the gain;      
And, since his substance now had run,      
He rose to do what might be done.      
   
He went unto his Love by night,           65   
And said: “My Love, I faint in fight:      
Deserving as thou dost a crown,      
My cares shall never drag thee down.”      
   
(He had descried a maid whose line      
Would hand her on much corn and wine,           70   
And held her far in worth above      
One who could only pray and love.)      
   
But this Fair read him; whence he failed      
To do the deed so blithely hailed;      
He saw his projects wholly marred,           75   
And gloom and want oppressed him hard;      
   
Till, living to so mean an end,      
Whereby he’d lost his every friend,      
He perished in a pauper sty,      
His mate the dying pauper nigh.           80   
   
And moralists, reflecting, said,      
As “dust to dust” in burial read      
Was echoed from each coffin-lid,      
“These men were like in all they did.”


1866.

Lines   
   
   
BEFORE we part to alien thoughts and aims,      
Permit the one brief word the occasion claims;      
—When mumming and grave projects are allied,      
Perhaps an Epilogue is justified.      
   
Our under-purpose has, in truth, to-day           5   
Commanded most our musings; least the play:      
A purpose futile but for your good-will      
Swiftly responsive to the cry of ill:      
A purpose all too limited!—to aid      
Frail human flowerets, sicklied by the shade,           10   
In winning some short spell of upland breeze,      
Or strengthening sunlight on the level leas.      
   
Who has not marked, where the full cheek should be,      
Incipient lines of lank flaccidity,      
Lymphatic pallor where the pink should glow,           15   
And where the throb of transport, pulses low?—      
Most tragical of shapes from Pole to Line,      
O wondering child, unwitting Time’s design,      
Why should Art add to Nature’s quandary,      
And worsen ill by thus immuring thee?           20   
—That races can do despite to their own,      
That Might supernal do indeed condone      
Wrongs individual for the general ease,      
Instance the proof in victims such as these.      
   
Launched into thoroughfares too thronged before,           25   
Mothered by those whose protest is “No more!”      
Vitalized without option: who shall say      
That did Life hang on choosing—Yea or Nay—      
They had not scorned it with such penalty,      
And nothingness implored of Destiny?           30   
   
And yet behind the horizon smile serene      
The down, the cornland, and the stretching green—      
Space—the child’s heaven: scenes which at least ensure      
Some palliative for ill they cannot cure.      
   
Dear friends—now moved by this poor show of ours           35   
To make your own long joy in buds and bowers      
For one brief while the joy of infant eyes,      
Changing their urban murk to paradise—      
You have our thanks!—may your reward include      
More than our thanks, far more: their gratitude.           40