A new blog

Every Day a Discovery on the Net

begins tomorrow 1st November

everydayadiscoveryonthenet.blogspot.com

-o0o- 

Satires of Circumstance No.12

in 15 glimpses

At the Draper's

'I stood at the back of the shop, my dear,
      But you did not perceive me.
Well, when they deliver what you were shown
      I shall know nothing of it, believe me!'
And he coughed and coughed as she paled and said,
      'O, I didn't see you come in there --
Why couldn't you speak?' -- 'Well, I didn't. I left
      That you should not notice I'd been there.
'You were viewing some lovely things. "Soon required
      For a widow, of latest fashion;"
And I knew 'twould upset you to meet the man
      Who had to be cold and ashen
'And screwed in a box before they could dress you
      "In the last new note in mourning,"
As they defined it. So, not to distress you,
I left you to your adorning.'

-o0o-

Satires of Circumstance No.11

in 15 glimpses

In the Restaurant

'But hear. If you stay, and the child be born,

It will pass as your husband's with the rest,

While, if we fly, the teeth of scorn

Will be gleaming at us from east to west;

And the child will come as a life despised;

I feel an elopement is ill-advised!'

'O you realize not what it is, my dear,

To a woman! Daily and hourly alarms

Lest the truth should out. How can I stay here

And nightly take him into my arms!

Come to the child no name or fame,

Let us go, and face it, and bear the shame.'

-o0o-

Satires of Circumstance No.10

in 15 glimpses

In the Nuptial Chamber

'O That mastering tune?' And up in the bed
Like a lace-robed phantom springs the bride;
'And why?' asks the man she had that day wed,
With a start, as the band plays on outside.
'Its the townsfolks' cheery compliment
Because of our marriage, my Innocent.'

'O but you don't know! 'Tis the passionate air
To which my old Love waltzed with me,
And I swore as we spun that none should share
My home, my kisses, till death, save he!
And he dominates me and thrills me through,
And its he I embrace while embracing you!'

-o0o-

Satires of Circumstance No.9

in 15 glimpses

At the Altar Rail

'My bride is not coming, alas!' says the groom,

And the telegram shakes in his hand. 'I own

It was hurried! We met at a dancing-room

When I went to the Cattle-Show alone,

And then, next night, where the Fountain leaps,

And the Street of the Quarter-Circle sweeps.

'Ay, she won me to ask her to be my wife --

'Twas foolish perhaps! -- to forsake the ways

Of the flaring town for a farmer's life.

She agreed. And we fixed it. Now she says:

"It's sweet of you, dear, to prepare me a nest,

But a swift, short, gay life suits me best.

What I really am you have never gleaned;

I had eaten the apple ere you were weaned."'

-o0o-

Satires of Circumstance No.8

in 15 glimpses

In the Study

He enters, and mute on the edge of a chair

Sits a thin-faced lady, a stranger there,

A type of decayed gentility;

And by some small signs he well can guess

That she comes to him almost breakfastless.

'I have called -- I hope I do not err --

I am looking for a purchaser

Of some score volumes of the works

Of eminent divines I own, --

Left by my father -- though it irks

My patience to offer them.' And she smiles

As if necessity were unknown;

'But the truth of it is that oftenwhiles

I have wished, as I am fond of art,

To make my rooms a little smart.'

And lightly still she laughs to him,

As if to sell were a mere gay whim,

And that, to be frank, Life were indeed

To her not vinegar and gall,

But fresh and honey-like; and Need

No household skeleton at all.

-o0o-

Satires of Circumstance No.7

in 15 glimpses

Outside the Window

'My stick!' he says, and turns in the lane

To the house just left, whence a vixen voice

Comes out with the firelight through the pane,

And he sees within that the girl of his choice

Stands rating her mother with eyes aglare

For something said while he was there.

'At last I behold her soul undraped!'

Thinks the man who had loved her more than himself;

'My God! -- 'tis but narrowly I have escaped. --

My precious porcelain proves it delf.'

His face has reddened like one ashamed,

And he steals off; leaving his stick unclaimed.

-o0o-

Satires of Circumstance No.6

in 15 glimpses

In the Cemetery

'You see those mother's squabbling there?'

Remarks the man of the cemetery.

'One says in tears, "'Tis mine lies here!"

Another, "Nay, mine, you Pharisee!"

Another, "How dare you move my flowers

And put your own on this grave of ours!"

But all their children were laid therein

At different times, like sprats in a tin.

'And then the main drain had to cross,

And we moved the lot some nights ago,

And packed them away in the general foss

With hundreds more. But their folks don't know,

And as well cry over a new-laid drain

As anything else, to ease your pain!'

-o0o-

Satires of Circumstance No.5

in 15 glimpses

At a Watering Place

They sit and smoke on the esplanade,

The man and his friend, and regard the bay

Where the far chalk cliffs, to the left displayed,

Smile sallowly in the decline of day.

And saunterer's pass with laugh and jest --

A handsome couple among the rest.

'That smart proud pair,' says the man to his friend,

'Are to marry next week.... How little he thinks

That dozens of days and nights on end

I have stroked her neck, unhooked the links

Of her sleeve to get at her upper arm....

Well, bliss is in ignorance: what's the harm!'

-o0o-

Satires of Circumstance No.4

in 15 glimpses

In the Room of the Bride-Elect

'Would it had been the man of our wish!'

Sighs her mother. To whom with vehemence she

In the wedding-dress -- the wife to be --

'Then why were you so mollyish

As not to insist on him for me!'

The mother, amazed: 'Why, dearest one,

Because you pleaded for this or none!'

'But Father and you should have stood out strong!

Since then, to my cost, I have lived to find

That you were right and that I was wrong;

This man is a dolt to the one declined....

Ah! -- here he comes with his button-hole rose.

Good God -- I must marry him I suppose!'

-o0o-

Satires of Circumstance No.3

in 15 glimpses

By Her Aunt's Grave

'Sixpence a week,' says the girl to her lover,

'Aunt used to bring me, for she could confide

In me alone, she vowed. 'Twas to cover

The cost of her headstone when she died.

And that was a year ago last June;

I've not yet fixed it. But I must soon.

'And where is the money now, my dear?'

'O, snug in my purse... Aunt was so slow

In saving it -- eighty weeks, or near.'...

'Let's spend it,' he hints. 'For she won't know

There's a dance to-night at the Load of Hay.'

She passively nods. And they go that way.

-o0o-

Satires of Circumstance No.2
in 15 glimpses

In Church

'And now to God the Father,' he ends,
And his voice thrills up to the topmost tiles:
Each listener chokes as he bows and bends,
And emotion pervades the crowded aisles.
Then the preacher glides to the vestry-door,
And shuts it, and thinks he is seen no more.

The door swings softly ajar meanwhile,
And a pupil of his in the Bible class,
Who adores him as one without gloss or guile,
Sees her idol stand with a satisfied smile
And re-enact at the vestry-glass

Each pulpit gesture in deft dumb-show

That had moved the congregation so.

-o0o-

This blog will come to an end in a fortnight. Until then, the series Satires of Circumstance will be posted, one poem each day. A new blog of Thomas Hardy poems is now being planned.

-o=0=o-

SATIRES OF CIRCUMSTANCE

in 15 glimpses

At Tea

The kettle descants in a cosy drone,

And the young wife looks in her husband's face,

And then at her guest's, and shows in her own

Her sense that she fills an envied place;

And the visiting lady is all abloom,

And says there was never so sweet a room.

And the happy young housewife does not know

That the woman beside her was first his choice,

Till the fates ordained it could not be so....

Betraying nothing in look or voice

The guest sits smiling and sips her tea,

And he throws her a stray glance yearningly.

-o0o-

This blog will come to an end in a fortnight. Until then, the series Satires of Circumstance will be posted, one poem each day. A new blog of Thomas Hardy poems is now being planned.

-o=0=o-

The Country Wedding

A Fiddler's Story

Little fogs were gathered in every hollow,

But the purple hillocks enjoyed fine weather

As we marched with our fiddles over the heather

- How it comes back! to their wedding that day.

Our getting there brought our neighbours and all, O!

Till, two and two, the couples stood ready.

And her father said: "Souls, for God's sake, be steady!"

And we strung up our fiddles, and sounded out "A."

The groomsman he stared, and said, "You must follow!"

But we'd gone to fiddle in front of the party,

(Our feelings as friends being true and hearty)

And fiddle in front we did all the way.

Yes, from their door by Mill-tail-Shallow,

And up Styles-Lane, and by Front-Street houses,

Where stood maids, bachelors, and spouses,

Who cheered the songs that we knew how to play.

I bowed the treble before her father,

Michael the tenor in front of the lady,

The bass-viol Reub and right well played he! -

The serpent Jim; ay, to church and back.

I thought the bridegroom was flurried rather,

As we kept up the tune outside the chancel,

While they were swearing things none can cancel

Inside the walls to our drumstick's whack.

"Too gay!" she pleaded. "Clouds may gather,

And sorrow come." But she gave in, laughing,

And by supper-time when we'd got to the quaffing

Her fears were forgot, and her smiles weren't slack.

A grand wedding 'twas! And what would follow

We never thought. Or that we should have buried her

On the same day with the man that married her,

A day like the first, half hazy, half clear.

Yes: little fogs were in every hollow,

Though the purple hillocks enjoyed fine weather,

When we went to play 'em to church together,

And carried 'em there in an after year.

-o0o-

The Walk

You did not walk with me

Of late to the hill-top tree

By the gated ways,

As in earlier days;

You were weak and lame,

So you never came,

And I went alone, and I did not mind,

Not thinking of you as left behind.

I walked up there to-day

Just in the former way:

Surveyed around

The familiar ground

By myself again:

What difference, then?

Only that underlying sense

Of the look of a room on returning thence.

-o0o-

Saying Good-Bye 

We are always saying

"Good-bye, good-bye!"

In work, in playing,

In gloom, in gaying:

At many a stage

Of pilgrimage

From youth to age

We say, "Good-bye,

Good-bye!"

We are undiscerning

Which go to sigh,

Which will be yearning

For soon returning;

And which no more

Will dark our door,

Or tread our shore,

But go to die,

To die.

Some come from roaming

With joy again;

Some, who come homing

By stealth at gloaming,

Had better have stopped

Till death, and dropped

By strange hands propped,

Than come so fain,

So fain.

So, with this saying,

"Good-bye, good-bye,"

We speed their waying

Without betraying

Our grief, our fear

No more to hear

From them, close, clear,

Again: "Good-bye,

Good-bye!"

-o0o-

We Sat At The Window

We sat at the window looking out,

And the rain came down like silken strings

That Swithin's day. Each gutter and spout

Babbled unchecked in the busy way

Of witless things:

Nothing to read, nothing to see

Seemed in that room for her and me

On Swithin's day.

We were irked by the scene, by our own selves; yes,

For I did not know, nor did she infer

How much there was to read and guess

By her in me, and to see and crown

By me in her.

Wasted were two souls in their prime,

And great was the waste, that July time

When the rain came down.

-o0o-

A Woman's Fancy

"Ah Madam; you've indeed come back here?

'Twas sad your husband's so swift death,

And you away! You shouldn't have left him:

It hastened his last breath."

"Dame, I am not the lady you think me;

I know not her, nor know her name;

I've come to lodge here a friendless woman;

My health my only aim."

She came; she lodged. Wherever she rambled

They held her as no other than

The lady named; and told how her husband

Had died a forsaken man.

So often did they call her thuswise

Mistakenly, by that man's name,

So much did they declare about him,

That his past form and fame

Grew on her, till she pitied his sorrow

As if she truly had been the cause 

Yea, his deserter; and came to wonder

What mould of man he was.

"Tell me my history!" would exclaim she;

"OUR history," she said mournfully.

"But YOU know, surely, Ma'am?" they would answer,

Much in perplexity.

Curious, she crept to his grave one evening,

And a second time in the dusk of the morrow;

Then a third time, with crescent emotion

Like a bereaved wife's sorrow.

No gravestone rose by the rounded hillock;

"I marvel why this is?" she said.

- "He had no kindred, Ma'am, but you near."

She set a stone at his head.

She learnt to dream of him, and told them:

"In slumber often uprises he,

And says: 'I am joyed that, after all, Dear,

You've not deserted me!"

At length died too this kinless woman,

As he had died she had grown to crave;

And at her dying she besought them

To bury her in his grave.

Such said, she had paused; until she added:

"Call me by his name on the stone,

As I were, first to last, his dearest,

Not she who left him lone!"

And this they did. And so it became there

That, by the strength of a tender whim,

The stranger was she who bore his name there,

Not she who wedded him.

-o0o-

The Sigh

Little head against my shoulder,

Shy at first, then somewhat bolder,

And up-eyed;

Till she, with a timid quaver,

Yielded to the kiss I gave her;

But, she sighed.

That there mingled with her feeling

Some sad thought she was concealing

It implied.

- Not that she had ceased to love me,

None on earth she set above me;

But she sighed.

She could not disguise a passion,

Dread, or doubt, in weakest fashion

If she tried:

Nothing seemed to hold us sundered,

Hearts were victors; so I wondered

Why she sighed.

Afterwards I knew her throughly,

And she loved me staunchly, truly,

Till she died;

But she never made confession

Why, at that first sweet concession,

She had sighed.

It was in our May, remember;

And though now I near November,

And abide

Till my appointed change, unfretting,

Sometimes I sit half regretting

That she sighed.

-o0o-

One We Knew

She told how they used to form for the country dances -

"The Triumph," "The New-rigged Ship" -

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.

-o0o-

At Lulworth Cove a Century Back

Had I but lived a hundred years ago 

I might have gone, as I have gone this year, 

By Warmwell Cross on to a Cove I know, 

And Time have placed his finger on me there: 

"You see that man?" — I might have looked, and said, 

"O yes: I see him. One that boat has brought 

Which dropped down Channel round Saint Alban's Head. 

So commonplace a youth calls not my thought." 

"You see that man?" — "Why yes; I told you; yes: 

Of an idling town-sort; thin; hair brown in hue; 

And as the evening light scants less and less 

He looks up at a star, as many do." 

"You see that man?" — "Nay, leave me!" then I plead, 

"I have fifteen miles to vamp across the lea, 

And it grows dark, and I am weary-kneed: 

I have said the third time; yes, that man I see!" 

"Good. That man goes to Rome — to death, despair; 

And no one notes him now but you and I: 

A hundred years, and the world will follow him there, 

And bend with reverence where his ashes lie." 

-o0o-

In The Vaulted Way

In the vaulted way, where the passage turned

To the shadowy corner that none could see,

You paused for our parting, - plaintively;

Though overnight had come words that burned

My fond frail happiness out of me.

And then I kissed you, - despite my thought

That our spell must end when reflection came

On what you had deemed me, whose one long aim

Had been to serve you; that what I sought

Lay not in a heart that could breathe such blame.

But yet I kissed you; whereon you again

As of old kissed me. Why, why was it so?

Do you cleave to me after that light-tongued blow?

If you scorned me at eventide, how love then?

The thing is dark, Dear. I do not know.

-o0o-

Welcome Home

To my native place

Bent upon returning,

Bosom all day burning

To be where my race

Well were known, 'twas much with me

There to dwell in amity.

Folk had sought their beds,

But I hailed: to view me

Under the moon, out to me

Several pushed their heads,

And to each I told my name,

Plans, and that therefrom I came.

"Did you? . . . Ah, 'tis true

I once heard, back a long time,

Here had spent his young time,

Some such man as you . . .

Good-night." The casement closed again,

And I was left in the frosty lane.

-o0o-

In The Days Of Crinoline

A plain tilt-bonnet on her head

She took the path across the leaze.

- Her spouse the vicar, gardening, said,

"Too dowdy that, for coquetries,

So I can hoe at ease."

But when she had passed into the heath,

And gained the wood beyond the flat,

She raised her skirts, and from beneath

Unpinned and drew as from a sheath

An ostrich-feathered hat.

And where the hat had hung she now

Concealed and pinned the dowdy hood,

And set the hat upon her brow,

And thus emerging from the wood

Tripped on in jaunty mood.

The sun was low and crimson-faced

As two came that way from the town,

And plunged into the wood untraced . . .

When separately therefrom they paced

The sun had quite gone down.

The hat and feather disappeared,

The dowdy hood again was donned,

And in the gloom the fair one neared

Her home and husband dour, who conned

Calmly his blue-eyed blonde.

"To-day," he said, "you have shown good sense,

A dress so modest and so meek

Should always deck your goings hence

Alone." And as a recompense

He kissed her on the cheek.

-o0o-

In A Eweleaze Near Weatherbury

The years have gathered grayly

Since I danced upon this leaze

With one who kindled gaily

Love's fitful ecstasies!

But despite the term as teacher,

I remain what I was then

In each essential feature

Of the fantasies of men.

Yet I note the little chisel

Of never-napping Time,

Defacing ghast and grizzel

The blazon of my prime.

When at night he thinks me sleeping,

I feel him boring sly

Within my bones, and heaping

Quaintest pains for by-and-by.

Still, I'd go the world with Beauty,

I would laugh with her and sing,

I would shun divinest duty

To resume her worshipping.

But she'd scorn my brave endeavour,

She would not balm the breeze

By murmuring "Thine for ever!"

As she did upon this leaze.

-o0o-

I Thought, My Heart

I thought, my Heart, that you had healed

Of those sore smartings of the past,

And that the summers had oversealed

All mark of them at last.

But closely scanning in the night

I saw them standing crimson-bright

Just as she made them:

Nothing could fade them;

Yea, I can swear

That there they were -

They still were there!

Then the Vision of her who cut them came,

And looking over my shoulder said,

"I am sure you deal me all the blame

For those sharp smarts and red;

But meet me, dearest, to-morrow night,

In the churchyard at the moon's half-height,

And so strange a kiss

Shall be mine, I wis,

That you'll cease to know

If the wounds you show

Be there or no!"

-o0o-

I Said And Sang Her Excellence - Fickle Lover's Song

I said and sang her excellence:

They called it laud undue.

(Have your way, my heart, O!)

Yet what was homage far above

The plain deserts of my olden Love

Proved verity of my new.

"She moves a sylph in picture-land,

Where nothing frosts the air:"

(Have your way, my heart, O!)

"To all winged pipers overhead

She is known by shape and song," I said,

Conscious of licence there.

I sang of her in a dim old hall

Dream-built too fancifully,

(Have your way, my heart, O!)

But lo, the ripe months chanced to lead

My feet to such a hall indeed,

Where stood the very She.

Strange, startling, was it then to learn

I had glanced down unborn time,

(Have your way, my heart, O!)

And prophesied, whereby I knew

That which the years had planned to do

In warranty of my rhyme.

-o0o-

Her Song

I sang that song on Sunday,

To witch an idle while,

I sang that song on Monday,

As fittest to beguile;

I sang it as the year outwore,

And the new slid in;

I thought not what might shape before

Another would begin.

I sang that song in summer,

All unforeknowingly,

To him as a new-comer

From regions strange to me:

I sang it when in afteryears

The shades stretched out,

And paths were faint; and flocking fears

Brought cup-eyed care and doubt.

Sings he that song on Sundays

In some dim land afar,

On Saturdays, or Mondays,

As when the evening star

Glimpsed in upon his bending face

And my hanging hair,

And time untouched me with a trace

Of soul-smart or despair?

-o0o-

Her Dilemma

The two were silent in a sunless church,

Whose mildewed walls, uneven paving-stones,

And wasted carvings passed antique research;

And nothing broke the clock's dull monotones.

Leaning against a wormy poppy-head,

So wan and worn that he could scarcely stand,

- For he was soon to die, he softly said,

"Tell me you love me!" holding hard her hand.

She would have given a world to breathe "yes" truly,

So much his life seemed hanging on her mind,

And hence she lied, her heart persuaded throughly

'Twas worth her soul to be a moment kind.

But the sad need thereof, his nearing death,

So mocked humanity that she shamed to prize

A world conditioned thus, or care for breath

Where Nature such dilemmas could devise.

-o0o-

Her Confession

As some bland soul, to whom a debtor says

"I'll now repay the amount I owe to you,"

In inward gladness feigns forgetfulness

That such a payment ever was his due

(His long thought notwithstanding), so did I

At our last meeting waive your proffered kiss

With quick divergent talk of scenery nigh,

By such suspension to enhance my bliss.

And as his looks in consternation fall

When, gathering that the debt is lightly deemed,

The debtor makes as not to pay at all,

So faltered I, when your intention seemed

Converted by my false uneagerness

To putting off for ever the caress.

-o0o-

Going And Staying

The moving sun-shapes on the spray,

The sparkles where the brook was flowing,

Pink faces, plightings, moonlit May,

These were the things we wished would stay;

But they were going.

Seasons of blankness as of snow,

The silent bleed of a world decaying,

The moan of multitudes in woe,

These were the things we wished would go;

But they were staying.

Then we looked closelier at Time,

And saw his ghostly arms revolving

To sweep off woeful things with prime,

Things sinister with things sublime

Alike dissolving.

-o0o-

Four Footprints

Here are the tracks upon the sand

Where stood last evening she and I -

Pressed heart to heart and hand to hand;

The morning sun has baked them dry.

I kissed her wet face - wet with rain,

For arid grief had burnt up tears,

While reached us as in sleeping pain

The distant gurgling of the weirs.

"I have married him - yes; feel that ring;

'Tis a week ago that he put it on . . .

A dutiful daughter does this thing,

And resignation succeeds anon!

"But that I body and soul was yours

Ere he'd possession, he'll never know.

He's a confident man. 'The husband scores,'

He says, 'in the long run' . . . Now, Dear, go!"

I went. And to-day I pass the spot;

It is only a smart the more to endure;

And she whom I held is as though she were not,

For they have resumed their honeymoon tour.

-o0o-