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Read Ebook: Wessex Poems and Other Verses by Hardy Thomas
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Ebook has 483 lines and 29043 words, and 10 pages
For winning love we win the risk of losing, And losing love is as one's life were riven; It cuts like contumely and keen ill-using To cede what was superfluously given.
Let me then feel no more the fateful thrilling That devastates the love-worn wooer's frame, The hot ado of fevered hopes, the chilling That agonizes disappointed aim! So may I live no junctive law fulfilling, And my heart's table bear no woman's name.
SHE, TO HIM I
WHEN you shall see me in the toils of Time, My lauded beauties carried off from me, My eyes no longer stars as in their prime, My name forgot of Maiden Fair and Free;
When in your being heart concedes to mind, And judgment, though you scarce its process know, Recalls the excellencies I once enshrined, And you are irked that they have withered so:
Remembering that with me lies not the blame, That Sportsman Time but rears his brood to kill, Knowing me in my soul the very same-- One who would die to spare you touch of ill!-- Will you not grant to old affection's claim The hand of friendship down Life's sunless hill?
SHE, TO HIM II
PERHAPS, long hence, when I have passed away, Some other's feature, accent, thought like mine, Will carry you back to what I used to say, And bring some memory of your love's decline.
Then you may pause awhile and think, "Poor jade!" And yield a sigh to me--as ample due, Not as the tittle of a debt unpaid To one who could resign her all to you--
And thus reflecting, you will never see That your thin thought, in two small words conveyed, Was no such fleeting phantom-thought to me, But the Whole Life wherein my part was played; And you amid its fitful masquerade A Thought--as I in yours but seem to be.
I WILL be faithful to thee; aye, I will! And Death shall choose me with a wondering eye That he did not discern and domicile One his by right ever since that last Good-bye!
I have no care for friends, or kin, or prime Of manhood who deal gently with me here; Amid the happy people of my time Who work their love's fulfilment, I appear
Numb as a vane that cankers on its point, True to the wind that kissed ere canker came; Despised by souls of Now, who would disjoint The mind from memory, and make Life all aim,
My old dexterities of hue quite gone, And nothing left for Love to look upon.
SHE, TO HIM IV
This love puts all humanity from me; I can but maledict her, pray her dead, For giving love and getting love of thee-- Feeding a heart that else mine own had fed!
How much I love I know not, life not known, Save as some unit I would add love by; But this I know, my being is but thine own-- Fused from its separateness by ecstasy.
And thus I grasp thy amplitudes, of her Ungrasped, though helped by nigh-regarding eyes; Canst thou then hate me as an envier Who see unrecked what I so dearly prize? Believe me, Lost One, Love is lovelier The more it shapes its moan in selfish-wise.
DITTY
Upon that fabric fair "Here is she!" Seems written everywhere Unto me. But to friends and nodding neighbours, Fellow-wights in lot and labours, Who descry the times as I, No such lucid legend tells Where she dwells.
Should I lapse to what I was Ere we met; --none would notice That where she I know by rote is Spread a strange and withering change, Like a drying of the wells Where she dwells.
To feel I might have kissed-- Loved as true-- Otherwhere, nor Mine have missed My life through. Had I never wandered near her, Is a smart severe--severer In the thought that she is nought, Even as I, beyond the dells Where she dwells.
And Devotion droops her glance To recall What bond-servants of Chance We are all. I but found her in that, going On my errant path unknowing, I did not out-skirt the spot That no spot on earth excels, --Where she dwells!
THE SERGEANT'S SONG
WHEN Lawyers strive to heal a breach, And Parsons practise what they preach; Then Little Boney he'll pounce down, And march his men on London town! Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lorum, Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lay!
When Justices hold equal scales, And Rogues are only found in jails; Then Little Boney he'll pounce down, And march his men on London town! Rollicum-rorum, &c.
When Rich Men find their wealth a curse, And fill therewith the Poor Man's purse; Then Little Boney he'll pounce down, And march his men on London town! Rollicum-rorum, &c.
When Husbands with their Wives agree, And Maids won't wed from modesty; Then Little Boney he'll pounce down, And march his men on London town! Rollicum-rorum, tol-tol-lorum, Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lay!
VALENCIENNES
WE trenched, we trumpeted and drummed, And from our mortars tons of iron hummed Ath'art the ditch, the month we bombed The Town o' Valencie?n.
'Twas in the June o' Ninety-dree The German Legion, Guards, and we Laid siege to Valencie?n.
This was the first time in the war That French and English spilled each other's gore; --Few dreamt how far would roll the roar Begun at Valencie?n!
'Twas said that we'd no business there A-topper?n the French for disagre?n; However, that's not my affair-- We were at Valencie?n.
Such snocks and slats, since war began Never knew raw recruit or veteran: Stone-deaf therence went many a man Who served at Valencie?n.
Into the streets, ath'art the sky, A hundred thousand balls and bombs were fle?n; And harmless townsfolk fell to die Each hour at Valencie?n!
And, sweat?n wi' the bombardiers, A shell was slent to shards anighst my ears: --'Twas nigh the end of hopes and fears For me at Valencie?n!
They bore my wownded frame to camp, And shut my gap?n skull, and washed en cle?n, And jined en wi' a zilver clamp Thik night at Valencie?n.
"We've fetched en back to quick from dead; But never more on earth while rose is red Will drum rouse Corpel!" Doctor said O' me at Valencie?n.
'Twer true. No voice o' friend or foe Can reach me now, or any liv?n be?n; And little have I power to know Since then at Valencie?n!
I never hear the zummer hums O' bees; and don' know when the cuckoo comes; But night and day I hear the bombs We threw at Valencie?n . . .
As for the Duke o' Yark in war, There be some volk whose judgment o' en is mean; But this I say--a was not far From great at Valencie?n.
O' wild wet nights, when all seems sad, My wownds come back, as though new wownds I'd had; But yet--at times I'm sort o' glad I fout at Valencie?n.
Well: Heaven wi' its jasper halls Is now the on'y Town I care to be in . . . Good Lord, if Nick should bomb the walls As we did Valencie?n!
SAN SEBASTIAN
WITH THOUGHTS OF SERGEANT M-- , WHO DIED 185-.
"WHY, Sergeant, stray on the Ivel Way, As though at home there were spectres rife? From first to last 'twas a proud career! And your sunny years with a gracious wife Have brought you a daughter dear.
"I watched her to-day; a more comely maid, As she danced in her muslin bowed with blue, Round a Hintock maypole never gayed." --"Aye, aye; I watched her this day, too, As it happens," the Sergeant said.
"My daughter is now," he again began, "Of just such an age as one I knew When we of the Line and Forlorn-hope van, On an August morning--a chosen few-- Stormed San Sebastian.
"We'd stormed it at night, by the vlanker-light Of burning towers, and the mortar's boom: We'd topped the breach; but had failed to stay, For our files were misled by the baffling gloom; And we said we'd storm by day.
"So, out of the trenches, with features set, On that hot, still morning, in measured pace, Our column climbed; climbed higher yet, Past the fauss'bray, scarp, up the curtain-face, And along the parapet.
"From the battened hornwork the cannoneers Hove crashing balls of iron fire; On the shaking gap mount the volunteers In files, and as they mount expire Amid curses, groans, and cheers.
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