Wessex Poems and Other Verses Part 10

By this I gained his strength and height Without his rivalry.

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 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: 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 In graceless mutiny.

Against the horizon's dim-discerned wheel A form rose, strange of mould: That he was hideous, hopeless, I could feel Rather than could behold.

"'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! - 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 aethered air, When we neglected All things elsewhere, And left the friendly friendless To keep our love aglow, We deemed it endless . . .

--We did not know!

When, by mad pa.s.sion goaded, We planned to hie away, But, unforeboded, The storm-shafts gray So heavily down-pattered That none could forthward go, Our lives seemed shattered . . .

--We did not know!

When I found you, helpless lying, And you waived my deep misprise, And swore me, dying, In phantom-guise To wing to me when grieving, And touch away my woe, We kissed, believing . . .

--We did not know!

But though, your powers outreckoning, 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:"

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, 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, 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."

W. D.--"Ye mid burn the wold ba.s.s-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 s.h.i.+ft; 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 pa.s.ses, if the weirs still roar afar."

- Thus, with very G.o.ds' 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 Irised 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; Pa.s.sed the hodiernal!

THOUGHTS OF PHENA AT NEWS OF HER DEATH