Wessex Poems and Other Verses Part 8

They seized and whirled her 'mid the maze, And Jenny felt as in the days 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: They cheered her as she soared and swooped, (She'd learnt ere art in dancing drooped From hops to slothful swings).

The favourite Quick-step "Speed the Plough" - (Cross hands, cast off, and wheel)-- "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.

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, Lest stroke of heel or clink 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; 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, 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 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 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; She kissed him long, as when, just wooed, She chose his domicile.

She felt she could have given her life To be the single-hearted wife That she had been erstwhile.

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, 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, 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, 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, 'Twas saddest morn to see.

THE CASTERBRIDGE CAPTAINS (KHYBER Pa.s.s, 1842) A TRADITION OF J. B. L-, T. G. B-, AND J. L-.

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 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; 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 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.

Yet saw he something in the lives Of those who'd ceased to live That sphered them with a majesty Which living failed to give.

Transcendent triumph in return 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 noontides 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 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 cauldrons of the sea in storm, Have felt the earthquake's lifting arm, And trodden where abysmal fires and snow-cones are.

I learn to prophesy the hid eclipse, The coming of eccentric orbs; To mete the dust the sky absorbs, To weigh the sun, and fix the hour each planet dips.

I witness fellow earth-men surge and strive; a.s.semblies meet, and throb, and part; Death's soothing finger, sorrow's smart; - All the vast various moils that mean a world alive.

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 long suspense.

In graveyard green, behind his monument 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 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 And drop one plume as pledge that Heaven inscrolls the wrong.

- There are who, rapt to heights of tranced trust, These tokens claim to feel and see, Read radiant hints of times to be - Of heart to heart returning after dust to dust.

Such scope is granted not to lives like mine . . .

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; No warnings loom, nor whisperings To open out my limitings, And Nescience mutely muses: When a man falls he lies.

MY CICELY (17-)

"Alive?"--And I leapt in my wonder, Was faint of my joyance, And gra.s.ses and grove shone in garments Of glory to me.

"She lives, in a plenteous well-being, 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, 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 Had ceased her to be.

The pa.s.sion the planets had scowled on, And change had let dwindle, Her death-rumour smartly relifted To full apogee.

I mounted a steed in the dawning With acheful remembrance, And made for the ancient West Highway To far Exonb'ry.