The Stranger’s Song   
   
   
O MY trade it is the rarest one,      
            Simple shepherds all—      
  My trade is a sight to see;      
For my customers I tie, and take ’em up on high,      
  And waft ’em to a far countree!           5   
   
My tools are but common ones,      
            Simple shepherds all—      
  My tools are no sight to see:      
A little hempen string, and a post whereon to swing,      
  Are implements enough for me!           10   
   
To-morrow is my working day,      
            Simple shepherds all—      
  To-morrow is a working day for me:      
For the farmer’s sheep is slain, and the lad who did it ta’en,      
And on his soul may God ha’ mer-cy!


Printed in “The Three Strangers,” 1883.
        15

The Burghers   
   
   
THE SUN had wheeled from Grey’s to Dammer’s Crest,      
And still I mused on that Thing imminent:      
At length I sought the High-street to the West.      
   
The level flare raked pane and pediment      
And my wrecked face, and shaped my nearing friend           5   
Like one of those the Furnace held unshent.      
   
“I’ve news concerning her,” he said. “Attend.      
They fly to-night at the late moon’s first gleam:      
Watch with thy steel: two righteous thrusts will end      
   
“Her shameless visions and his passioned dream.           10   
I’ll watch with thee, to testify thy wrong—      
To aid, maybe—Law consecrates the scheme.”      
   
I started, and we paced the flags along      
Till I replied: “Since it has come to this      
I’ll do it! But alone. I can be strong.”           15   
   
Three hours past Curfew, when the Froom’s mild hiss      
Reigned sole, undulled by whirr of merchandise,      
From Pummery-Tout to where the Gibbet is,      
   
I crossed my pleasaunce hard by Glyd’path Rise,      
And stood beneath the wall. Eleven strokes went,           20   
And to the door they came, contrariwise,      
   
And met in clasp so close I had but bent      
My lifted blade upon them to have let      
Their two souls loose upon the firmament.      
   
But something held my arm. “A moment yet           25   
As pray-time ere you wantons die!” I said;      
And then they saw me. Swift her gaze was set      
   
With eye and cry of love illimited      
Upon her Heart-king. Never upon me      
Had she thrown look of love so thorough-sped!…           30   
   
At once she flung her faint form shieldingly      
On his, against the vengeance of my vows;      
The which o’erruling, her shape shielded he.      
   
Blanked by such love, I stood as in a drowse,      
And the slow moon edged from the upland nigh,           35   
My sad thoughts moving thuswise: “I may house      
   
“And I may husband her, yet what am I      
But licensed tyrant to this bonded pair?      
Says Charity, Do as ye would be done by.”…      
   
Hurling my iron to the bushes there,           40   
I bade them stay. And, as if brain and breast      
Were passive, they walked with me to the stair.      
   
Inside the house none watched; and on we prest      
Before a mirror, in whose gleam I read      
Her beauty, his,—and mine own mien unblest;           45   
   
Till at her room I turned. “Madam,” I said,      
“Have you the wherewithal for this? Pray speak.      
Love fills no cupboard. You’ll need daily bread.”      
   
“We’ve nothing, sire,” said she, “and nothing seek.      
’Twere base in me to rob my lord unware;           50   
Our hands will earn a pittance week by week.”      
   
And next I saw she’d piled her raiment rare      
Within the garde-robes, and her household purse,      
Her jewels, and least lace of personal wear;      
   
And stood in homespun. Now grown wholly hers,           55   
I handed her the gold, her jewells all,      
And him the choicest of her robes diverse.      
   
“I’ll take you to the doorway in the wall,      
And then adieu,” I to them. “Friends, withdraw.”      
They did so; and she went—beyond recall.           60   
   
And as I paused beneath the arch I saw      
Their moonlit figures—slow, as in surprise—      
Descend the slope, and vanish on the haw.      
   
“‘Fool,’ some will say,” I thought. “But who is wise,      
Save God alone, to weigh my reasons why?”           65   
—“Hast thou struck home?” came with the boughs’ night-sighs.      
   
It was my friend. “I have struck well. They fly,      
But carry wounds that none can cicatrize.”      
—“Not mortal?” said he. “Lingering—worse,” said I.      

 Leipzig   
   
   
“OLD Norbert with the flat blue cap—      
  A German said to be—      
Why let your pipe die on your lap,      
  Your eyes blink absently?”—      
   
—“Ah!… Well, I had thought till my cheek was wet           5   
  Of my mother—her voice and mien      
When she used to sing and pirouette,      
  And touse the tambourine      
   
“To the march that yon street-fiddler plies;      
  She told me ’twas the same           10   
She’d heard from the trumpets, when the Allies      
  Her city overcame.      
   
“My father was one of the German Hussars,      
  My mother of Leipzig; but he,      
Long quartered here, fetched her at close of the wars,           15   
  And a Wessex lad reared me.      
   
“And as I grew up, again and again      
  She’d tell, after trilling that air,      
Of her youth, and the battles on Leipzig plain      
  And of all that was suffered there!…           20   
   
“—’Twas a time of alarms. Three Chiefs-at-arms      
  Combined them to crush One,      
And by numbers’ might, for in equal fight      
  He stood the matched of none.      
   
“Carl Schwartzenburg was of the plot,           25   
  And Blücher, prompt and prow,      
And Jean the Crown-Prince Bernadotte:      
  Buonaparte was the foe.      
   
“City and plain had felt his reign      
  From the North to the Middle Sea,           30   
And he’d now sat down in the noble town      
  Of the King of Saxony.      
   
“October’s deep dew its wet gossamer threw      
  Upon Leipzig’s lawns, leaf-strewn,      
Where lately each fair avenue           35   
  Wrought shade for summer noon.      
   
“To westward two dull rivers crept      
  Through miles of marsh and slough,      
Whereover a streak of whiteness swept—      
  The Bridge of Lindenau.           40   
   
“Hard by, in the City, the One, care-crossed,      
  Gloomed over his shrunken power;      
And without the walls the hemming host      
  Waxed denser every hour.      
   
“He had speech that night on the morrow’s designs           45   
  With his chiefs by the bivouac fire,      
While the belt of flames from the enemy’s lines      
  Flared nigher him yet and nigher.      
   
“Three sky-lights then from the girdling trine      
  Told, ‘Ready!’ As they rose           50   
Their flashes seemed his Judgment-Sign      
  For bleeding Europe’s woes.      
   
“‘Twas seen how the French watch-fires that night      
  Glowed still and steadily;      
And the Three rejoiced, for they read in the sight           55   
  That the One disdained to flee….      
   
“—Five hundred guns began the affray      
  On next day morn at nine;      
Such mad and mangling cannon-play      
  Had never torn human line.           60   
   
“Around the town three battle beat,      
  Contracting like a gin;      
As nearer marched the million feet      
  Of columns closing in.      
   
“The first battle nighed on the low Southern side;           65   
  The second by the Western way;      
The nearing of the third on the North was heard;      
  —The French held all at bay.      
   
“Against the first band did the Emperor stand;      
  Against the second stood Ney;           70   
Marmont against the third gave the order-word:      
  —Thus raged it throughout the day.      
   
“Fifty thousand sturdy souls on those trampled plains and knolls,      
  Who met the dawn hopefully,      
And were lotted their shares in a quarrel not theirs,           75   
  Dropt then in their agony.      
   
“‘O,’ the old folks said, ‘ye Preachers stern!      
  O so-called Christian time!      
When will men’s swords to ploughshares turn?      
  When come the promised prime?’…           80   
   
“—The clash of horse and man which that day began,      
  Closed not as evening wore;      
And the morrow’s armies, rear and van,      
  Still mustered more and more.      
   
“From the City towers the Confederate Powers           85   
  Were eyed in glittering lines,      
And up from the vast a murmuring passed      
  As from a wood of pines.      
   
“‘’Tis well to cover a feeble skill      
  By numbers!’ scoffèd He;           90   
‘But give me a third of their strength, I’d fill      
  Half Hell with their soldiery!’      
   
“All that day raged the war they waged,      
  And again dumb night held reign,      
Save that ever upspread from the dark death-bed           95   
  A miles-wide pant of pain.      
   
“Hard had striven brave Ney, the true Bertrand,      
  Victor, and Augereau,      
Bold Poniatowski, and Lauriston,      
  To stay their overthrow;           100   
   
“But, as in the dream of one sick to death      
  There comes a narrowing room      
That pens him, body and limbs and breath,      
  To wait a hideous doom,      
   
“So to Napoleon, in the hush           105   
  That held the town and towers      
Through these dire nights, a creeping crush      
  Seemed inborne with the hours.      
   
“One road to the rearward, and but one,      
  Did fitful Chance allow;           110   
’Twas where the Pleiss’ and Elster run—      
  The Bridge of Lindenau.      
   
“The nineteenth dawned. Down street and Platz      
  The wasted French sank back,      
Stretching long lines across the Flats           115   
  And on the bridge-way track;      
   
“When there surged on the sky on earthen wave,      
  And stones, and men, as though      
Some rebel churchyard crew updrave      
  Their sepulchres from below.           120   
   
“To Heaven is blown Bridge Lindenau;      
  Wrecked regiments reel therefrom;      
And rank and file in masses plough      
  The sullen Elster-Strom.      
   
“A gulf was Lindenau; and dead           125   
  Were fifties, hundreds, tens;      
And every current rippled red      
  With Marshal’s blood and men’s.      
   
“The smart Macdonald swam therein,      
  And barely won the verge;           130   
Bold Poniatowski plunged him in      
  Never to re-emerge.      
   
“Then stayed the strife. The remnants wound      
  Their Rhineward way pell-mell;      
And thus did Leipzig City sound           135   
  An Empire’s passing bell;      
   
“While in cavalcade, with band and blade,      
  Came Marshals, Princes, Kings;      
And the town was theirs…. Ay, as simple maid,      
  My mother saw these things!           140   
   
“And whenever those notes in the street begin,      
  I recall her, and that far scene,      
And her acting of how the Allies marched in,      
  And her touse of the tambourine!”

The Peasant’s Confession   
   
   
GOOD Father!… ’Twas an eve in middle June,      
  And war was waged anew      
By great Napoleon, who for years had strewn      
  Men’s bones all Europe through.      
   
Three nights ere this, with columned corps he’d crossed           5   
  The Sambre at Charleroi,      
To move on Brussels, where the English host      
  Dallied in Parc and Bois.      
   
The yestertide we’d heard the gloomy gun      
  Growl through the long-sunned day           10   
From Quatre-Bras and Ligny; till the dun      
  Twilight suppressed the fray;      
   
Albeit therein—as lated tongues bespoke—      
  Brunswick’s high heart was drained,      
And Prussia’s Line and Landwehr, though unbroke,           15   
  Stood cornered and constrained.      
   
And at next noon-time Grouchy slowly passed      
  With thirty thousand men:      
We hoped thenceforth no army, small or vast,      
  Would trouble us again.           20   
   
My hut lay deeply in a vale recessed,      
  And never a soul seemed nigh      
When, reassured at length, we went to rest—      
  My children, wife, and I.      
   
But what was this that broke our humble ease?           25   
  What noise, above the rain,      
Above the dripping of the poplar trees      
  That smote along the pane?      
   
—A call of mastery, bidding me arise,      
  Compelled me to the door,           30   
At which a horseman stood in martial guise—      
  Splashed—sweating from every pore.      
   
Had I seen Grouchy? Yes? Which track took he?      
  Could I lead thither on?—      
Fulfilment would ensure gold pieces three,           35   
  Perchance more gifts anon.      
   
“I bear the Emperor’s mandate,” then he said,      
  “Charging the Marshal straight      
To strike between the double host ahead      
  Ere they co-operate,           40   
   
“Engaging Blücher till the Emperor put      
  Lord Wellington to flight,      
And next the Prussians. This to set afoot      
  Is my emprise to-night.”      
   
I joined him in the mist; but, pausing, sought           45   
  To estimate his say,      
Grouchy had made for Wavre; and yet, on thought,      
  I did not lead that way.      
   
I mused: “If Grouchy thus instructed be,      
  The clash comes sheer hereon;           50   
My farm is stript. While, as for pieces three,      
  Money the French have none.      
   
“Grouchy unwarned, moreo’er, the English win,      
  And mine is left to me—      
They buy, not borrow.”—Hence did I begin           55   
  To lead him treacherously.      
   
By Joidoigne, near to east, as we ondrew,      
  Dawn pierced the humid air;      
And eastward faced I with him, though I knew      
  Never marched Grouchy there.           60   
   
Near Ottignies we passed, across the Dyle      
  (Lim’lette left far aside),      
And thence direct toward Pervez and Noville      
  Through green grain, till he cried:      
   
“I doubt thy conduct, man! no track is here           65   
  I doubt they gagèd word!”      
Thereat he scowled on me, and pranced me near,      
  And pricked me with his sword.      
   
“Nay, Captain, hold! We skirt, not trace the course      
  Of Grouchy,” said I then:           70   
“As we go, yonder went he, with his force      
  Of thirty thousand men.”      
   
—At length noon nighed, when west, from Saint-John’s-Mound,      
  A hoarse artillery boomed,      
And from Saint-Lambert’s upland, chapel-crowned,           75   
  The Prussian squadrons loomed.      
   
Then to the wayless wet gray ground he leapt;      
  “My mission fails!” he cried;      
“Too late for Grouchy now to intercept,      
  For, peasant, you have lied!”           80   
   
He turned to pistol me. I sprang, and drew      
  The sabre from his flank,      
And ’twixt his nape and shoulder, ere he knew,      
  I struck, and dead he sank.      
   
I hid him deep in nodding rye and oat—           85   
  His shroud green stalks and loam;      
His requiem the corn-blade’s husky note—      
  And then I hastened home….      
   
—Two armies writhe in coils of red and blue,      
  And brass and iron clang           90   
From Goumont, past the front of Waterloo,      
  To Pap’lotte and Smohain.      
   
The Guard Imperial wavered on the height;      
  The Emperor’s face grew glum;      
“I sent,” he said, “to Grouchy yesternight,           95   
  And yet he does not come!”      
   
’Twas then, Good Father, that the French espied,      
  Streaking the summer land,      
The men of Blücher. But the Emperor cried,      
  “Grouchy is now at hand!”           100   
   
And meanwhile Vand’leur, Vivian, Maitland, Kempt,      
  Met d’Erlon, Friant, Ney;      
But Grouchy—mis-sent, blamed, yet blame-exempt—      
  Grouchy was far away.      
   
Be even, slain or struck, Michel the strong,           105   
  Bold Travers, Dnop, Delord,      
Smart Guyot, Reil-le, l’Heriter, Friant.      
  Scattered that champaign o’er.      
   
Fallen likewise wronged Duhesme, and skilled Lobau      
  Did that red sunset see;           110   
Colbert, Legros, Blancard!… And of the foe      
  Picton and Ponsonby;      
   
With Gordon, Canning, Blackman, Ompteda,      
  L’Estrange, Delancey, Packe,      
Grose, D’Oyly, Stables, Morice, Howard, Hay,           115   
  Von Schwerin, Watzdorf, Boek,      
   
Smith, Phelips, Fuller, Lind, and Battersby,      
  And hosts of ranksmen round…      
Memorials linger yet to speak to thee      
  Of those that bit the ground!           120   
   
The Guards’ last column yielded; dykes of dead      
  Lay between vale and ridge,      
As, thinned yet closing, faint yet fierce, they sped      
  In packs to Genappe Bridge.      
   
Safe was my stock; my capple cow unslain;           125   
  Intact each cock and hen;      
But Grouchy far at Wavre all day had lain,      
  And thirty thousand men.      
   
O Saints, had I but lost my earing corn      
  And saved the cause once prized!           130   
O Saints, why such false witness had I borne      
  When late I’d sympathized!…      
   
So, now, being old, my children eye askance      
  My slowly dwindling store,      
And crave my mite; till, worn with tarriance,           135   
  I care for life no more.      
   
To Almighty God henceforth I stand confessed,      
  And Virgin-Saint Marie;      
O Michael, John, and Holy Ones in rest,      
  Entreat the Lord for me!           140   

The Alarm   
   
   
IN a ferny byway      
    Near the great South-Wessex Highway,      
  A homestead raised its breakfast-smoke aloft;      
The dew-damps still lay steamless, for the sun had made no sky-way,      
    And twilight cloaked the croft.           5   
   
    ’Twas hard to realize on      
    This snug side the mute horizon      
  That beyond it hostile armaments might steer,      
Save from seeing in the porchway a fair woman weep with eyes on      
    A harnessed Volunteer.           10   
   
    In haste he’d flown there      
    To his comely wife alone there,      
  While marching south hard by, to still her fears,      
For she soon would be a mother, and few messengers were known there      
    In these campaigning years.           15   
   
    ’Twas time to be Good-bying,      
    Since the assembly-hour was nighing      
  In royal George’s town at six that morn;      
And betwixt its wharves and this retreat were ten good miles of hieing      
    Ere ring of bugle-horn.           20   
   
    “I’ve laid in food, Dear,      
    And broached the spiced and brewed, Dear;      
  And if our July hope should antedate,      
Let the char-wench mount and gallop by the halterpath and wood, Dear,      
    And fetch assistance straight.           25   
   
    “As for Buonaparte, forget him;      
    He’s not like to land! But let him,      
  Those strike with aim who strike for wives and sons!      
And the war-boats built to float him; ’twere but wanted to upset him      
    A slat from Nelson’s guns!           30   
   
    “But, to assure thee,      
    And of creeping fears to cure thee,      
  If he should be rumored anchoring in the Road,      
Drive with the nurse to Kingsbere; and let nothing thence allure thee      
    Till we’ve him safe-bestowed.           35   
   
    “Now, to turn to marching matters:—      
    I’ve my knapsack, firelock, spatters,      
  Crossbelts, priming-horn, stock, bay’net, blackball, clay,      
Pouch, magazine, flints, flint-box that at every quick-step clatters;      
    …My heart, Dear; that must stay!”           40   
   
    —With breathings broken      
    Farewell was kissed unspoken,      
  And they parted there as morning stroked the panes;      
And the Volunteer went on, and turned, and twirled his glove for token,      
    And took the coastward lanes.           45   
   
    When above He’th Hills he found him,      
    He saw, on gazing round him,      
  The Barrow-Beacon burning—burning low,      
As if, perhaps, uplighted ever since he’d homeward bound him;      
    And it meant: Expect the Foe!           50   
   
    Leaving the byway,      
    And following swift the highway,      
  Car and chariot met he, faring fast inland;      
“He’s anchored, Soldier!” shouted some:      
  “God save thee, marching thy way,           55   
    Th’lt front him on the strand!”      
   
    He slowed; he stopped; he paltered      
    Awhile with self, and faltered,      
  “Why courting misadventure shoreward roam?      
To Molly, surely! Seek the woods with her till times have altered;           60   
    Charity favors home.      
   
    “Else, my denying      
    He would come she’ll read as lying—      
  Think the Barrow-Beacon must have met my eyes—      
That my words were not unwareness, but deceit of her, while trying           65   
    My life to jeopardize.      
   
    “At home is stocked provision,      
    And to-night, without suspicion,      
  We might bear it with us to a covert near;      
Such sin, to save a childing wife, would earn it Christ’s remission,           70   
    Though none forgive it here!”      
   
    While thus he, thinking,      
    A little bird, quick drinking      
  Among the crowfoot tufts the river bore,      
Was tangled in their stringy arms, and fluttered, well-nigh sinking,           75   
    Near him, upon the moor.      
   
    He stepped in, reached, and seized it,      
    And, preening, had released it      
  But that a thought of Holy Writ occurred,      
And Signs Divine ere battle, till it seemed him Heaven had pleased it           80   
    As guide to send the bird.      
   
    “O Lord, direct me!…      
    Doth Duty now expect me      
  To march a-coast, or guard my weak ones near?      
Give this bird a flight according, that I thence know to elect me           85   
    The southward or the rear.”      
   
    He loosed his clasp; when, rising,      
    The bird—as if surmising—      
  Bore due to southward, crossing by the Froom,      
And Durnover Great-Field and Fort, the soldier clear advising—           90   
    Prompted he wist by Whom.      
   
    Then on he panted      
    By grim Mai-Don, and slanted      
  Up the steep Ridge-way, hearkening betwixt whiles,      
Till, nearing coast and harbor, he beheld the shore-line planted           95   
    With Foot and Horse for miles.      
   
    Mistrusting not the omen,      
    He gained the beach, where Yeomen,      
  Militia, Fencibles, and Pikemen bold,      
With Regulars in thousands, were enmassed to meet the Foemen,           100   
    Whose fleet had not yet shoaled.      
   
    Captain and Colonel,      
    Sere Generals, Ensigns vernal,      
  Were there, of neighbor-natives, Michel, Smith,      
Meggs, Bingham, Gambier, Cunningham, roused by the hued nocturnal           105   
    Swoop on their land and kith.      
   
    But Buonaparte still tarried;      
    His project had miscarried;      
  At the last hour, equipped for victory,      
The fleet had paused; his subtle combinations had been parried           110   
    By British strategy.      
   
    Homeward returning      
    Anon, no beacons burning,      
  No alarms, the Volunteer, in modest bliss,      
Te Deum sang with wife and friends: “We praise Thee, Lord, discerning           115   
    That Thou hast helped in this!”

 Her Death and After   
   
   
’TWAS a death-bed summons, and forth I went      
By the way of the Western Wall, so drear      
On that winter night, and sought a gate—      
    The home, by Fate,      
  Of one I had long held dear.           5   
   
And there, as I paused by her tenement,      
And the trees shed on me their rime and hoar,      
I thought of the man who had left her lone—      
    Him who made her his own      
  When I loved her, long before.           10   
   
The rooms within had the piteous shine      
The home-things wear which the housewife miss;      
From the stairway floated the rise and fall      
    Of an infant’s call,      
  Whose birth had brought her to this.           15   
   
Her life was the price she would pay for that whine—      
For a child by the man she did not love.      
“But let that rest forever,” I said,      
    And bent my tread      
  To the chamber up above.           20   
   
She took my hand in her thin white own,      
And smiled her thanks—though nigh too weak—      
And made them a sign to leave us there;      
    Then faltered, ere      
  She could bring herself to speak.           25   
   
“‘Twas to see you before I go—he’ll condone      
Such a natural thing now my time’s not much—      
When Death is so near it hustles hence      
    All passioned sense      
  Between woman and man as such!           30   
   
“My husband is absent. As heretofore      
The City detains him. But, in truth,      
He has not been kind…. I will speak no blame,      
    But—the child is lame;      
  O, I pray she may reach his ruth!           35   
   
“Forgive past days—I can say no more—      
Maybe if we’d wedded you’d now repine!…      
But I treated you ill. I was punished. Farewell!      
    —Truth shall I tell?      
  Would the child were yours and mine!           40   
   
“As a wife I was true. But, such my unease      
That, could I insert a deed back in Time,      
I’d make her yours, to secure your care;      
    And the scandal bear,      
  And the penalty for the crime!”           45   
   
—When I had left, and the swinging trees      
Rang above me, as lauding her candid say,      
Another was I. Her words were enough:      
    Came smooth, came rough,      
  I felt I could live my day.           50   
   
Next night she died; and her obsequies      
In the Field of Tombs, by the Via renowned,      
Had her husband’s heed. His tendance spent,      
    I often went      
  And pondered by her mound.           55   
   
All that year and the next year whiled,      
And I still went thitherward in the gloam;      
But the Town forgot her and her nook,      
    And her husband took      
  Another Love to his home.           60   
   
And the rumor flew that the lame lone child      
Whom she wished for its safety child of mine,      
Was treated ill when offspring came      
    Of the new-made dame,      
  And marked a more vigorous line.           65   
   
A smarter grief within me wrought      
Than even at loss of her so dear;      
Dead the being whose soul my soul suffused,      
    Her child ill-used,      
  I helpless to interfere!           70   
   
One eve as I stood at my spot of thought      
In the white-stoned Garth, brooding thus her wrong,      
Her husband neared; and to shun his view      
    By her hallowed mew      
  I went from the tombs among           75   
   
To the Cirque of the Gladiators which faced—      
That haggard mark of Imperial Rome,      
Whose Pagan echoes mock the chime      
    Of our Christian time:      
  It was void, and I inward clomb.           80   
   
Scarce had night the sun’s gold touch displaced      
From the vast Rotund and the neighboring dead      
When her husband followed; bowed; half-passed,      
    With lip upcast;      
  Then, halting, sullenly said:           85   
   
“It is noised that you visit my first wife’s tomb.      
Now, I gave her an honored name to bear      
While living, when dead. So I’ve claim to ask      
    By what right you task      
  My patience by vigiling there?           90   
   
“There’s decency even in death, I assume;      
Preserve it, sir, and keep away;      
For the mother of my first-born you      
    Show mind undue!      
  —Sir, I’ve nothing more to say.”           95   
   
A desperate stroke discerned I then—      
God pardon—or pardon not—the lie;      
She had sighed that she wished (lest the child should pine      
    Of slights) ’twere mine,      
  So I said: “But the father I.           100   
   
“That you thought it yours is the way of men;      
But I won her troth long ere your day:      
You learnt how, in dying, she summoned me?      
    ’Twas in fealty.      
  —Sir, I’ve nothing more to say,           105   
   
“Save that, if you’ll hand me my little maid,      
I’ll take her, and rear her, and spare you toil.      
Think it more than a friendly act none can;      
    I’m a lonely man,      
  While you’ve a large pot to boil.           110   
   
“If not, and you’ll put it to ball or blade—      
To-night, to-morrow night, anywhen—      
I’ll meet you here…. But think of it,      
    And in season fit      
  Let me hear from you again.”           115   
   
—Well, I went away, hoping; but nought I heard      
Of my stroke for the child, till there greeted me      
A little voice that one day came      
    To my window-frame      
  And babbled innocently:           120   
   
“My father who’s not my own, sends word      
I’m to stay here, sir, where I belong!”      
Next a writing came: “Since the child was the fruit      
    Of your passions brute,      
  Pray take her, to right a wrong.”           125   
   
And I did. And I gave the child my love,      
And the child loved me, and estranged us none.      
But compunctions loomed; for I’d harmed the dead      
    By what I’d said      
  For the good of the living one.           130   
   
—Yet though, God wot, I am sinner enough,      
And unworthy the woman who drew me so,      
Perhaps this wrong for her darling’s good      
    She forgives, or would,      
  If only she could know!           135   

The Dance at the Phoenix   
   
   
TO Jenny came a gentle youth      
  From inland leazes lone;      
His love was fresh as apple-blooth      
  By Parrett, Yeo, or Tone.      
And duly he entreated her           5   
To be his tender minister,      
  And call him aye her own.      
   
Fair Jenny’s life had hardly been      
  A life of modesty;      
At Casterbridge experience keen           10   
  Of many loves had she      
From scarcely sixteen years above:      
Among them sundry troopers of      
  The King’s-Own Cavalry.      
   
But each with charger, sword, and gun,           15   
  Had bluffed the Biscay wave;      
And Jenny prized her gentle one      
  For all the love he gave.      
She vowed to be, if they were wed,      
His honest wife in heart and head           20   
  From bride-ale hour to grave.      
   
Wedded they were. Her husband’s trust      
  In Jenny knew no bound,      
And Jenny kept her pure and just,      
  Till even malice found           25   
No sin or sign of ill to be      
In one who walked so decently      
  The duteous helpmate’s round.      
   
Two sons were born, and bloomed to men,      
  And roamed, and were as not:           30   
Alone was Jenny left again      
  As ere her mind had sought      
A solace in domestic joys,      
And ere the vanished pair of boys      
  Were sent to sun her cot.           35   
   
She numbered near on sixty years,      
  And passed as elderly,      
When, in the street, with flush of fears,      
  On day discovered she,      
From shine of swords and thump of drum,           40   
Her early loves from war had come,      
  The King’s Own Cavalry.      
   
She turned aside, and bowed her head      
  Anigh Saint Peter’s door;      
“Alas for chastened thoughts!” she said;           45   
  “I’m faded now, and hoar,      
And yet those notes—they thrill me through,      
And those gay forms move me anew      
  As in the years of yore!”…      
   
—’Twas Christmas, and the Phoenix Inn           50   
  Was lit with tapers tall,      
For thirty of the trooper men      
  Had vowed to give a ball      
As “Theirs” had done (fame handed down)      
When lying in the self-same town           55   
  Ere Buonaparté’s fall.      
   
That night the throbbing “Soldier’s Joy,”      
  The measured tread and sway      
Of “Fancy-Lad” and “Maiden Coy,”      
  Reached Jenny as she lay           60   
Beside her spouse; till springtide blood      
Seemed scouring through her like a flood      
  That whisked the years away.      
   
She rose, and rayed, and decked her head      
  To hide her ringlets thin;           65   
Upon her cap two bows of red      
  She fixed with hasty pin;      
Unheard descending to the street,      
She trod the flags with tune-led feet,      
  And stood before the Inn.           70   
   
Save for the dancers’, not a sound      
  Disturbed the icy air;      
No watchman on his midnight round      
  Or traveller was there;      
But over All-Saints’, high and bright,           75   
Pulsed to the music Sirius white,      
  The Wain by Bullstake Square.      
   
She knocked, but found her further stride      
  Checked by a sergeant tall:      
“Gay Granny, whence come you?” he cried;           80   
  “This is a private ball.”      
—“No one has more right here than me!      
Ere you were born, man,” answered she,      
  “I knew the regiment all!”      
   
“Take not the lady’s visit ill!”           85   
  Upspoke the steward free;      
“We lack sufficient partners still,      
  So, prithee let her be!”      
They seized and whirled her ’mid the maze,      
And Jenny felt as in the days           90   
  Of her immodesty.      
   
Hour chased each hour, and night advanced;      
  She sped as shod with wings;      
Each time and every time she danced—      
  Reels, jigs, poussettes, and flings:           95   
They cheered her as she soared and swooped      
(She’d learnt ere art in dancing drooped      
  From hops to slothful swings).      
   
The favorite Quick-step “Speed the Plough”—      
  (Cross hands, cast off, and wheel)—           100   
“The Triumph,” “Sylph,” “The Row-dow dow,”      
  Famed “Major Malley’s Reel,”      
“The Duke of York’s,” “The Fairy Dance,”      
“The Bridge of Lodi” (brought from France),      
  She beat out, toe and heel.           105   
   
The “Fall of Paris” clanged its close,      
  And Peter’s chime told four,      
When Jenny, bosom-beating, rose      
  To seek her silent door.      
They tiptoed in escorting her,           110   
Lest stroke of heel or chink of spur      
  Should break her goodman’s snore.      
   
The fire that late had burnt fell slack      
  When lone at last stood she;      
Her nine-and-fifty years came back;           115   
  She sank upon her knee      
Beside the durn, and like a dart      
A something arrowed through her heart      
  In shoots of agony.      
   
Their footsteps died as she leant there,           120   
  Lit by the morning star      
Hanging above the moorland, where      
  The aged elm-rows are;      
And, as o’ernight, from Pummery Ridge      
To Maembury Ring and Standfast Bridge           125   
  No life stirred, near or far.      
   
Though inner mischief worked amain,      
  She reached her husband’s side;      
Where, toil-weary, as he had lain      
  Beneath the patchwork pied           130   
When yestereve she’d forthward crept,      
And as unwitting, still he slept      
  Who did in her confide.      
   
A tear sprang as she turned and viewed      
  His features free from guile;           135   
She kissed him long, as when, just wooed.      
  She chose his domicile.      
Death menaced now; yet less for life      
She wished than that she were the wife      
  That she had been erstwhile.           140   
   
Time wore to six. Her husband rose      
  And struck the steel and stone;      
He glanced at Jenny, whose repose      
  Seemed deeper than his own.      
With dumb dismay, on closer sight,           145   
He gathered sense that in the night,      
  Or morn, her soul had flown.      
   
When told that some too mighty strain      
  For one so many-yeared      
Had burst her bosom’s master-vein,           150   
  His doubts remained unstirred.      
His Jenny had not left his side      
Betwixt the eve and morning-tide:      
  —The King’s said not a word.      
   
Well! times are not as times were then,           155   
  Nor fair ones half so free;      
And truly they were martial men,      
  The King’s-Own Cavalry.      
And when they went from Casterbridge      
And vanished over Mellstock Ridge,           160   
  ’Twas saddest morn to see.      

The Casterbridge Captains   
   
   
THREE captains went to Indian wars,      
  And only one returned:      
Their mate of yore, he singly wore      
  The laurels all had earned.      
   
At home he sought the ancient aisle           5   
  Wherein, untrumped of fame,      
The three had sat in pupilage,      
  And each had carved his name.      
   
The names, rough-hewn, of equal size,      
  Stood on the panel still;           10   
Unequal since.—“’Twas theirs to aim,      
  Mine was it to fulfil!”      
   
—“Who saves his life shall lose it, friends!”      
  Outspake the preacher then,      
Unweeting he his listener, who           15   
  Looked at the names again.      
   
That he had come and they’d been stayed,      
  ’Twas but the chance of war:      
Another chance, and they’d sat here,      
  And he had lain afar.           20   
   
Yet saw he something in the lives      
  Of those who’d ceased to live      
That rounded them with majesty      
  Which living failed to give.      
   
Transcendent triumph in return           25   
  No longer lit his brain;      
Transcendence rayed the distant urn      
  Where slept the fallen twain.

A Sign-Seeker   
   
   
I MARK the months in liveries dank and dry,      
  The day-tides many-shaped and hued;      
  I see the nightfall shades subtrude,      
And hear the monotonous hours clang negligently by.      
   
I view the evening bonfires of the sun           5   
  On hills where morning rains have hissed;      
  The eyeless countenance of the mist      
Pallidly rising when the summer droughts are done.      
   
I have seen the lightning-blade, the leaping star,      
  The caldrons of the sea in storm,           10   
  Have felt the earthquake’s lifting arm,      
And trodden where abysmal fires and snowcones are.      
   
I learn to prophesy the hid eclipse,      
  The coming of eccentric orbs;      
  To mete the dust the sky absorbs,           15   
To weigh the sun, and fix the hour each planet dips.      
   
I witness fellow earth-men surge and strive;      
  Assemblies meet, and throb, and part;      
  Death’s soothing finger, sorrow’s smart;      
—All the vast various moils that mean a world alive.           20   
   
But that I fain would wot of shuns my sense—      
  Those sights of which old prophets tell,      
  Those signs the general word so well,      
Vouchsafed to their unheed, denied my watchings tense.      
   
In graveyard green, behind his monument           25   
  To glimpse a phantom parent, friend,      
  Wearing his smile, and “Not the end!”      
Outbreathing softly: that were blest enlightenment;      
   
Or, if a dead Love’s lips, whom dreams reveal      
  When midnight imps of King Decay           30   
  Delve sly to solve me back to clay,      
Should leave some print to prove her spirit-kisses real;      
   
Or, when Earth’s Frail lie bleeding of her Strong,      
  If some Recorder, as in Writ,      
  Near to the weary scene should flit           35   
And drop one plume as pledge that Heaven inscrolls the wrong.      
   
—There are who, rapt to heights of trancéd trust,      
  These tokens claim to feel and see,      
  Read radiant hints of times to be—      
Of heart to heart returning after dust to dust.           40   
   
Such scope is granted not my powers indign…      
  I have lain in dead men’s beds, have walked      
  The tombs of those with whom I’d talked,      
Called many a gone and goodly one to shape a sign,      
   
And panted for response. But none replies;           45   
  No warnings loom, nor whisperings      
  To open out my limitings,      
And Nescience mutely muses: When a man falls he lies.      

My Cicely   
   
   
“ALIVE?”—And I leapt in my wonder,      
  Was faint of my joyance,      
And grasses and grove shone in garments      
  Of glory to me.      
   
“She lives, in a plenteous well-being,           5   
  To-day as aforehand;      
The dead bore the name—though a rare one—      
  The name that bore she.”      
   
She lived … I, afar in the city      
  Of frenzy-led factions,           10   
Had squandered green years and maturer      
  In bowing the knee      
   
To Baals illusive and specious,      
  Till chance had there voiced me      
That one I loved vainly in nonage           15   
  Had ceased her to be.      
   
The passion the planets had scowled on,      
  And change had let dwindle,      
Her death-rumor smartly relifted      
  To full apogee.           20   
   
I mounted a steed in the dawning      
  With acheful remembrance,      
And made for the ancient West Highway      
  To far Exonb’ry.      
   
Passing heaths, and the House of Long Sieging,           25   
  I neared the thin steeple      
That tops the fair fane of Poore’s olden      
  Episcopal see;      
   
And, changing anew my onbearer,      
  I traversed the downland           30   
Whereon the bleak hill-graves of Chieftains      
  Bulge barren of tree;      
   
And still sadly onward I followed      
  That Highway the Icen,      
Which trails its pale ribbon down Wessex           35   
  O’er lynchet and lea.      
   
Along through the Stour-bordered Forum,      
  Where Legions had wayfared,      
And where the slow river upglasses      
  Its green canopy,           40   
   
And by Weatherbury Castle, and therence      
  Through Casterbridge, bore I,      
To tomb her whose light, in my deeming,      
  Extinguished had He.      
   
No highwayman’s trot blew the night-wind           45   
  To me so life-weary,      
But only the creak of the gibbets      
  Or wagoners’ jee.      
   
Triple-ramparted Maidon gloomed grayly      
  Above me from southward,           50   
And north the hill-fortress of Eggar,      
  And square Pummerie.      
   
The Nine-Pillared Cromlech, the Bride-streams,      
  The Axe, and the Otter      
I passed, to the gate of the city           55   
  Where Exe scents the sea;      
   
Till, spent, in the graveacre pausing,      
  I learnt ’twas not my Love      
To whom Mother Church had just murmured      
  A last lullaby.           60   
   
—“Then, where dwells the Canon’s kinswoman,      
  My friend of aforetime?”—      
(‘Twas hard to repress my heart-heavings      
  And new ecstasy.)      
   
“She wedded.”—“Ah!”—“Wedded beneath her—           65   
  She keeps the stage-hostel      
Ten miles hence, beside the great Highway—      
  The famed Lions-Three.      
   
“Her spouse was her lackey—no option      
  ’Twixt wedlock and worse things;           70   
A lapse over-sad for a lady      
  Of her pedigree!”      
   
I shuddered, said nothing, and wandered      
  To shades of green laurel:      
Too ghastly had grown those first tidings           75   
  So brightsome of blee!      
   
For, on my ride hither, I’d halted      
  Awhile at the Lions,      
And her—her whose name had once opened      
  My heart as a key—           80   
   
I’d looked on, unknowing, and witnessed      
  Her jests with the tapsters,      
Her liquor-fired face, her thick accents      
  In naming her fee.      
   
“O God, why this hocus satiric!”           85   
  I cried in my anguish:      
“O once Loved, of fair Unforgotten—      
  That Thing—meant it thee!      
   
“Inurned and at peace, lost but sainted,      
  Where grief I could compass;           90   
Depraved—’tis for Christ’s poor dependent      
  A cruel decree!”      
   
I backed on the Highway; but passed not      
  The hostel. Within there      
Too mocking to Love’s re-expression           95   
  Was Time’s repartee!      
   
Uptracking where Legions had wayfared,      
  By cromlechs unstoried,      
And lynchets, and sepultured Chieftains,      
  In self-colloquy,           100   
   
A feeling stirred in me and strengthened      
  That she was not my Love,      
But she of the garth, who lay rapt in      
  Her long reverie.      
   
And thence till to-day I persuade me           105   
  That this was the true one;      
That Death stole intact her young dearness      
  And innocency.      
   
Frail-witted, illuded they call me;      
  I may be. ’Tis better           110   
To dream than to own the debasement      
  Of sweet Cicely.      
   
Moreover I rate it unseemly      
  To hold that kind Heaven      
Could work such device—to her ruin           115   
  And my misery.      
   
So, lest I disturb my choice vision,      
  I shun the West Highway,      
Even now, when the knaps ring with rhythms      
  From blackbird and bee;           120   
   
And feel that with slumber half-conscious      
  She rests in the church-hay,      
Her spirit unsoiled as in youth-time      
  When lovers were we.