Her Immortality   
   
   
UPON a noon I pilgrimed through      
  A pasture, mile by mile,      
Unto the place where I last saw      
  My dead Love’s living smile.      
   
And sorrowing I lay me down           5   
  Upon the heated sod:      
It seemed as if my body pressed      
  The very ground she trod.      
   
I lay, and thought; and in a trance      
  She came and stood me by—           10   
The same, even to the marvellous ray      
  That used to light her eye.      
   
“You draw me, and I come to you,      
  My faithful one,” she said,      
In voice that had the moving tone           15   
  It bore in maidenhead.      
   
She said: “‘Tis seven years since I died:      
  Few now remember me;      
My husband clasps another bride;      
  My children mothers she.           20   
   
My brethren, sisters, and my friends      
  Care not to meet my sprite:      
Who prized me most I did not know      
  Till I passed down from sight.”      
   
I said: “My days are lonely here;           25   
  I need thy smile alway:      
I’ll use this night my ball or blade,      
  And join thee ere the day.”      
   
A tremor stirred her tender lips,      
  Which parted to dissuade:           30   
“That cannot be, O friend,” she cried;      
  “Think, I am but a Shade!      
   
“A Shade but in its mindful ones      
  Has immortality;      
By living, me you keep alive,           35   
  By dying you slay me.      
   
“In you resides my single power      
  Of sweet continuance here;      
On your fidelity I count      
  Through many a coming year.”           40   
   
—I started through me at her plight,      
  So suddenly confessed:      
Dismissing late distaste for life,      
  I craved its bleak unrest.      
   
“I will not die, my One of all!—           45   
  To lengthen out thy days      
I’ll guard me from minutest harms      
  That may invest my ways!”      
   
She smiled and went. Since then she comes      
  Oft when her birth-moon climbs,           50   
Or at the seasons’ ingresses      
  Or anniversary times;      
   
But grows my grief. When I surcease,      
  Through whom alone lives she,      
Ceases my Love, her words, her ways,           55   
  Never again to be!      

The Ivy-Wife   
   
   
I LONGED to love a full-boughed beech      
  And be as high as he:      
I stretched an arm within his reach,      
  And signalled unity.      
But with his drip he forced a breach,           5   
  And tried to poison me.      
   
I gave the grasp of partnership      
  To one of other race—      
A plane: he barked him strip by strip      
  From upper bough to base;           10   
And me therewith; for gone my grip,      
  My arms could not enlace.      
   
In new affection next I strove      
  To coll an ash I saw,      
And he in trust received my love;           15   
  Till with my soft green claw      
I cramped and bound him as I wove…      
  Such was my love: ha-ha!      
   
By this I gained his strength and height      
  Without his rivalry.           20   
But in my triumph I lost sight      
  Of afterhaps. Soon he,      
Being bark-bound, flagged, snapped, fell outright,      
  And in his fall felled me!      

 A Meeting with Despair   
   
   
AS evening shaped I found me on a moor      
  Which sight could scarce sustain:      
The black lean land, of featureless contour,      
  Was like a tract in pain.      
   
“This scene, like my own life,” I said, “is one           5   
  Where many glooms abide;      
Toned by its fortune to a deadly dun—      
  Lightless on every side.      
   
I glanced aloft and halted, pleasure-caught      
  To see the contrast there:           10   
The ray-lit clouds gleamed glory; and I thought,      
  “There’s solace everywhere!”      
   
Then bitter self-reproaches as I stood      
  I dealt me silently      
As one perverse—misrepresenting Good           15   
  In graceless mutiny.      
   
Against the horizon’s dim-descernèd wheel      
  A form rose, strange of mould:      
That he was hideous, hopeless, I could feel      
  Rather than could behold.           20   
   
“’Tis a dead spot, where even the light lies spent      
  To darkness!” croaked the Thing.      
“Not if you look aloft!” said I, intent      
  On my new reasoning.      
   
“Yea—but await awhile!” he cried. “Ho-ho!—           25   
  Look now aloft and see!”      
I looked. There, too, sat night: Heaven’s radiant show      
  Had gone. Then chuckled he.      

 Unknowing   
   
   
WHEN, soul in soul reflected,      
We breathed an æthered air,      
  When we neglected      
  All things elsewhere,      
And left the friendly friendless           5   
To keep our love aglow,      
  We deemed it endless…      
  —We did not know!      
   
When, by mad passion goaded,      
We planned to hie away,           10   
  But, unforeboded,      
  The storm-shafts gray      
So heavily down-pattered      
That none could forthward go,      
  Our lives seemed shattered…           15   
  —We did not know!      
   
When I found you, helpless lying,      
And you waived my deep misprise,      
  And swore me, dying,      
  In phantom-guise           20   
To wing to me when grieving,      
And touch away my woe,      
  We kissed, believing…      
  —We did not know!      
   
But though, your powers outreckoning,           25   
You hold you dead and dumb,      
  Or scorn my beckoning,      
  And will not come;      
And I say, “’Twere mood ungainly      
To store her memory so:”           30   
  I say it vainly—      
  I feel and know!      

Friends Beyond   
   
   
WILLIAM DEWY, Tranter Reuben, Farmer Ledlow late at plough,      
    Robert’s kin, and John’s, and Ned’s,      
And the Squire, and Lady Susan, lie in Mellstock churchyard now!      
   
“Gone,” I call them, gone for good, that group of local hearts and heads;      
    Yet at mothy curfew-tide,           5   
And at midnight when the noon-heat breathes it back from walls and leads,      
   
They’ve a way of whispering to me—fellow-wight who yet abide—      
  In the muted, measured note      
Of a ripple under archways, or a lone cave’s stillicide:      
   
“We have triumphed: this achievement turns the bane to antidote,           10   
  Unsuccesses to success,      
Many thought-worn eves and morrows to a morrow free of thought.      
   
“No more need we corn and clothing, feel of old terrestrial stress;      
  Chill detraction stirs no sigh;      
Fear of death has even bygone us: death gave all that we possess.”           15   
   
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;           20   
  Quiz the few poor treasures hid there, con the letters kept by me.”      
   
Far.—“Ye mid zell my favorite heifer, ye mid let the charlock grow,      
   Foul the grinterns, give up thrift.”      
Wife.—“If ye break my best blue china, children, I sha’n’t care or ho.”      
   
All—“We’ve no wish to hear the tidings, how the people’s fortunes shift;           25   
  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.”           30   
   
  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,           35   
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—           5   
   
Wrought thee for my pleasure,      
Planned thee as a measure      
  For expounding      
  And resounding      
Glad things that men treasure.           10   
   
O for but a moment      
Of that old endowment—      
  Light to gaily      
  See thy daily      
Irisèd embowment!           15   
   
But such readorning      
Time forbids with scorning—      
  Makes me see things      
  Cease to be things      
They were in my morning.           20   
   
Fad’st thou, glow-forsaken,      
Darkness-overtaken!      
  Thy first sweetness,      
  Radiance, meetness,      
None shall reawaken.           25   
   
Why not sempiternal      
Thou and I? Our vernal      
  Brightness keeping,      
  Time outleaping;      
Passed the hodiernal!           30

Thoughts of Ph——a   
   
   
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           5   
    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?           10   
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           15   
    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 may be the more           20   
  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   
   
   
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,           5   
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:           10   
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           15   
  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,           20   
  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   
   
   
PALE beech and pine-tree blue,      
  Set in one clay,      
Bough to bough cannot you      
  Bide out your day?      
When the rains skim and skip,           5   
Why mar sweet comradeship,      
Blighting with poison-drip      
  Neighborly spray?      
   
Heart-halt and spirit-lame,      
  City-opprest,           10   
Unto this wood I came      
  As to a nest;      
Dreaming that sylvan peace      
Offered the harrowed ease—      
Nature a soft release           15   
  From men’s unrest.      
   
But, having entered in,      
  Great growths and small      
Show them to men akin—      
  Combatants all!           20   
Sycamore shoulders oak,      
Bines the slim sapling yoke,      
Ivy-spun halters choke      
  Elms stout and tall.      
   
Touches from ash, O wych,           25   
  Sting you like scorn!      
You, too, brave hollies, twitch      
  Sidelong from thorn.      
Even the rank poplars bear      
Illy a rival’s air,           30   
Cankering in black despair      
  If overborne.      
   
Since, then, no grace I find      
  Taught me of trees,      
Turn I back to my kind,           35   
  Worthy as these.      
There at least smiles abound,      
There discourse trills around,      
There, now and then, are found      
  Life-loyalties.


1887–1896.

To a Lady   
   
   
NOW that my page upcloses, doomed, maybe,      
Never to press thy cosy cushions more,      
Or wake thy ready Yeas as heretofore,      
Or stir thy gentle vows of faith in me:      
   
Knowing thy natural receptivity,           5   
I figure that, as flambeaux banish eve,      
My sombre image, warped by insidious heave      
Of those less forthright, must lose place in thee.      
   
So be it. I have borne such. Let thy dreams      
Of me and mine diminish day by day,           10   
And yield their space to shine of smugger things;      
Till I shape to thee but in fitful gleams,      
And then in far and feeble visitings,      
And then surcease. Truth will be truth alway.