Time's Laughingstocks, and Other Verses Part 19

I plodded to Fairmile Hill-top, where A maiden one fain would guard From every hazard and every care Advanced on the roadside sward.

I wondered how succeeding suns Would shape her wayfarings, And wished some Power might take such ones Under Its warding wings.

The busy breeze came up the hill And smartened her cheek to red, And frizzled her hair to a haze. With a will "Good-morning, my Dear!" I said.

She glanced from me to the far-off gray, And, with proud severity, "Good-morning to you--though I may say I am not YOUR Dear," quoth she:

"For I am the Dear of one not here - One far from his native land!" - And she pa.s.sed me by; and I did not try To make her understand.

1901

ONE WE KNEW (M. H. 1772-1857)

She told how they used to form for the country dances - "The Triumph," "The New-rigged s.h.i.+p" - To the light of the guttering wax in the panelled manses, And in cots to the blink of a dip.

She spoke of the wild "poussetting" and "allemanding"

On carpet, on oak, and on sod; And the two long rows of ladies and gentlemen standing, And the figures the couples trod.

She showed us the spot where the maypole was yearly planted, And where the bandsmen stood While breeched and kerchiefed partners whirled, and panted To choose each other for good.

She told of that far-back day when they learnt astounded Of the death of the King of France: Of the Terror; and then of Bonaparte's unbounded Ambition and arrogance.

Of how his threats woke warlike preparations Along the southern strand, And how each night brought tremors and trepidations Lest morning should see him land.

She said she had often heard the gibbet creaking As it swayed in the lightning flash, Had caught from the neighbouring town a small child's shrieking At the cart-tail under the lash . . .

With cap-framed face and long gaze into the embers - We seated around her knees - She would dwell on such dead themes, not as one who remembers, But rather as one who sees.

She seemed one left behind of a band gone distant So far that no tongue could hail: Past things retold were to her as things existent, Things present but as a tale.

May 20, 1902.

SHE HEARS THE STORM

There was a time in former years - While my roof-tree was his - When I should have been distressed by fears At such a night as this!

I should have murmured anxiously, "The p.r.i.c.king rain strikes cold; His road is bare of hedge or tree, And he is getting old."

But now the fitful chimney-roar, The drone of Thorncombe trees, The Froom in flood upon the moor, The mud of Mellstock Leaze,

The candle slanting sooty wick'd, The thuds upon the thatch, The eaves-drops on the window flicked, The clacking garden-hatch,

And what they mean to wayfarers, I scarcely heed or mind; He has won that storm-tight roof of hers Which Earth grants all her kind.

A WET NIGHT

I pace along, the rain-shafts riddling me, Mile after mile out by the moorland way, And up the hill, and through the ewe-leaze gray Into the lane, and round the corner tree;

Where, as my clothing clams me, mire-bestarred, And the enfeebled light dies out of day, Leaving the liquid shades to reign, I say, "This is a hards.h.i.+p to be calendared!"

Yet sires of mine now perished and forgot, When worse beset, ere roads were shapen here, And night and storm were foes indeed to fear, Times numberless have trudged across this spot In st.u.r.dy muteness on their strenuous lot, And taking all such toils as trifles mere.

BEFORE LIFE AND AFTER

A time there was--as one may guess And as, indeed, earth's testimonies tell - Before the birth of consciousness, When all went well.

None suffered sickness, love, or loss, None knew regret, starved hope, or heart-burnings; None cared whatever crash or cross Brought wrack to things.

If something ceased, no tongue bewailed, If something winced and waned, no heart was wrung; If brightness dimmed, and dark prevailed, No sense was stung.

But the disease of feeling germed, And primal rightness took the tinct of wrong; Ere nescience shall be reaffirmed How long, how long?

NEW YEAR'S EVE

"I have finished another year," said G.o.d, "In grey, green, white, and brown; I have strewn the leaf upon the sod, Sealed up the worm within the clod, And let the last sun down."

"And what's the good of it?" I said.

"What reasons made you call From formless void this earth we tread, When nine-and-ninety can be read Why nought should be at all?

"Yea, Sire; why shaped you us, 'who in This tabernacle groan' - If ever a joy be found herein, Such joy no man had wished to win If he had never known!"

Then he: "My labours--logicless - You may explain; not I: Sense-sealed I have wrought, without a guess That I evolved a Consciousness To ask for reasons why.

"Strange that ephemeral creatures who By my own ordering are, Should see the shortness of my view, Use ethic tests I never knew, Or made provision for!"

He sank to raptness as of yore, And opening New Year's Day Wove it by rote as theretofore, And went on working evermore In his unweeting way.