Thomas Hardy

I have lived with shades so long,
And talked to them so oft,
Since forth from cot and croft
I went mankind among,
That sometimes they
In their dim style
Will pause awhile
To hear my say;

And take me by the hand,
And lead me through their rooms
In the To-be, where Dooms
Half-wove and shapeless stand:
And show from there
The dwindled dust
And rot and rust
Of things that were.

"Now turn," spake they to me
One day: "Look whence we came,
And signify his name
Who gazes thence at thee." -
--"Nor name nor race
Know I, or can,"
I said, "Of man
So commonplace

"He moves me not at all;
I note no ray or jot
Of rareness in his lot,
Or star exceptional.
Into the dim
Dead throngs around
He'll sink, nor sound
Be left of him."

"Yet," said they, "his frail speech,
Hath accents pitched like thine -
Thy mould and his define
A likeness each to each -
But go! Deep pain
Alas, would be
His name to thee,
And told in vain!"

"O memory, where is now my youth,
Who used to say that life was truth?"

"I saw him in a crumbled cot
Beneath a tottering tree;
That he as phantom lingers there
Is only known to me."

"O Memory, where is now my joy,
Who lived with me in sweet employ?"

"I saw him in gaunt gardens lone,
Where laughter used to be;
That he as phantom wanders there
Is known to none but me."

"O Memory, where is now my hope,
Who charged with deeds my skill and scope?"

"I saw her in a tomb of tomes,
Where dreams are wont to be;
That she as spectre haunteth there
Is only known to me."

"O Memory, where is now my faith,
One time a champion, now a wraith?"

"I saw her in a ravaged aisle,
Bowed down on bended knee;
That her poor ghost outflickers there
Is known to none but me."

"O Memory, where is now my love,
That rayed me as a god above?"

"I saw him by an ageing shape
Where beauty used to be;
That his fond phantom lingers there
Is only known to me."

Some of Thomas Hardy's Poems

At a Lunar Eclipse
Thy shadow, Earth, from Pole to Central Sea,
Now steals along upon the Moon's meek shine
In even monochrome and curving line
Of imperturbable serenity.
How shall I link such sun-cast symmetry
With the torn troubled form I know as thine,
That profile, placid as a brow divine,
With continents of moil and misery?
And can immense Mortality but throw So small a shade,
and Heaven's high human scheme
Be hemmed within the coasts yon arc implies?
Is such the stellar gauge of earthly show,
Nation at war with nation, brains that teem,
Heroes, and women fairer than the skies?
………………………………………………..
At an Inn
When we as strangers sought
Their catering care,
Veiled smiles bespoke their thought
Of what we were.
They warmed as they opinedUs more than friends
--That we had all resignedFor love's dear ends.
And that swift sympathyWith living love
Which quicks the world--maybe
The spheres above,
Made them our ministers,
Moved them to say,"Ah, God, that bliss like theirs
Would flush our day!"
And we were left alone
As Love's own pair;
Yet never the love-light shoneBetween us there!
But that which chilled the breathOf afternoon,
And palsied unto deathThe pane-fly's tune.
The kiss their zeal foretold,
And now deemed come,
Came not: within his hold
Love lingered numb.
Why cast he on our port
A bloom not ours?
Why shaped us for his sport
In after-hours?
As we seemed we were not
That day afar,
And now we seem not what
We aching are.
O severing sea and land,
O laws of men,Ere death,
once let us stand
As we stood then!
………………………………………
Birds at Winter Nightfall
Around the house the flakes fly faster,
And all the berries now are gone
From holly and cotoneaster
Around the house.
The flakes fly!--faster
Shutting indoors that crumb-outcaster
We used to see upon the lawn
Around the house.
The flakes fly faster,
And all the berries now are gone!
………………………………………….
During Winter Rain
They sing their dearest songs--He,
she, all of them--yea,
Treble and tenor and bass.
And one to play;
With the candles mooning each face....
Ah, no; the years O!
How the sick leaves reel down in throngs!
They clear the creeping moss--Elders and juniors--aye,
Making the pathways neatAnd the garden gay;And they build a shady seat....Ah, no; the years, the years;
See, the white storm-birds wing across!
They are blithely breakfasting all--Men and maidens--yea,
Under the summer tree,
With a glimpse of the bay,
While pet fowl come to the knee....
Ah, no; the years O!
And the rotten rose is ripped from the wall.
They change to a high new house,
He, she, all of them--aye,
Clocks and carpets and chairs
On the lawn all day,
And brightest things that are theirs....
Ah, no; the years, the years;
Down their carved names the raindrop plows.
………………………………………….
From Victor Hugo.
Child, were I king,
I'd yield my royal rule,
My chariot,
sceptre, vassal-service due,
My crown, my porphyry-basined waters cool,
My fleets, whereto the sea is but a pool,
For a glance from you!
Love, were I God,
the earth and its heaving airs,
Angels, the demons abject under me,
Vast chaos with its teeming womby lairs,
Time, space, all would I give--aye, upper spheres,
For a kiss from thee!
………………………………………………………
I Look into my glass
I look into my glass,
And view my wasting skin,
And say, "Would God it came to pass
My heart had shrunk as thin!"
For then, I, undistrest
By hearts grown cold to me,
Could lonely wait my endless rest
With equanimity.
But Time, to make me grieve,
Part steals, lets part abide;
And shakes this fragile frame at eve
With throbbings of noontide.
…………………………………………….
In a Wood
In a WoodPale beech and pine-tree blue,
Set in one clay,
Bough to bough cannot you
Bide out your day?
When the rains skim and skip,
Why mar sweet comradeship,
Blighting with poison-drip
Neighborly spray?
Heart-halt and spirit-lame,
City-opprest,
Unto this wood I cameAs to a nest;
Dreaming that sylvan peaceOffered the harrowed ease—Nature a soft releaseFrom men’s unrest.But, having entered in,
Great growths and small
Show them to men akin—Combatants all!
Sycamore shoulders oak,Bines the slim sapling yoke,
Ivy-spun halters chokeElms stout and tall.
Touches from ash,
O wych,Sting you like scorn!
You, too, brave hollies, twitch
Sidelong from thorn.
Even the rank poplars bearIlly a rival’s air,
Cankering in black despairIf overborne.
Since, then, no grace I find
Taught me of trees,
Turn I back to my kind,Worthy as these.
There at least smiles abound,
There discourse trills around,
There, now and then,
are foundLife-loyalties.
……………………………………………………..
In Time 'The breaking of nations'
Only a man harrowing clodsIn a slow silent walk
With an old horse that stumbles and nods
Half asleep as they stalk.
Only thin smoke without flame
From the heaps of couch-grass;
Yet this will go onward the same
Though Dynasties pass.
Yonder a maid and her wight
Come whispering by:
War's annals will cloud into night
Ere their story die.
……………………………………………
Lines on the Loss of Titanic
In a solitude of the sea
Deep from human vanity,
And the Pride of Life that planned her,
stilly couches she.Steel chambers,
late the pyres
Of her salamandrine fires,
Cold currents thrid,
and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.
Over the mirrors meant
To glass the opulent
The sea-worm crawls
-- grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.
Jewels in joy designed
To ravish the sensuous mindLie lightless,
all their sparkles bleared and black and blind.
Dim moon-eyed fishes near
Gaze at the gilded gearAnd query:
"What does this vaingloriousness down here?"
...Well: while was fashioning
This creature of cleaving wing,
The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything
Prepared a sinister mate
For her -- so gaily great --A Shape of Ice,
for the time far and dissociate.
And as the smart ship grewIn stature, grace, and hue,
In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.
Alien they seemed to be;
No mortal eye could see
The intimate welding of their later history,
Or sign that they were bent
By paths coincident
On being anon twin halves of one august event,
Till the Spinner of the Years
Said "Now!" And each one hears,
And consummation comes,
and jars two hemispheres.……………………………………………