Part 18

December 1900.

THE COMET AT YALBURY OR YELL’HAM

IT bends far over Yell’ham Plain, And we, from Yell’ham Height, Stand and regard its fiery train, So soon to swim from sight.

It will return long years hence, when As now its strange swift shine Will fall on Yell’ham; but not then On that sweet form of thine.

MAD JUDY

WHEN the hamlet hailed a birth Judy used to cry: When she heard our christening mirth She would kneel and sigh. She was crazed, we knew, and we Humoured her infirmity.

When the daughters and the sons Gathered them to wed, And we like-intending ones Danced till dawn was red, She would rock and mutter, “More Comers to this stony shore!”

When old Headsman Death laid hands On a babe or twain, She would feast, and by her brands Sing her songs again. What she liked we let her do, Judy was insane, we knew.

A WASTED ILLNESS

THROUGH vaults of pain, Enribbed and wrought with groins of ghastliness, I passed, and garish spectres moved my brain To dire distress.

And hammerings, And quakes, and shoots, and stifling hotness, blent With webby waxing things and waning things As on I went.

“Where lies the end To this foul way?” I asked with weakening breath. Thereon ahead I saw a door extend— The door to death.

It loomed more clear: “At last!” I cried. “The all-delivering door!” And then, I knew not how, it grew less near Than theretofore.

And back slid I Along the galleries by which I came, And tediously the day returned, and sky, And life—the same.

And all was well: Old circumstance resumed its former show, And on my head the dews of comfort fell As ere my woe.

I roam anew, Scarce conscious of my late distress . . . And yet Those backward steps through pain I cannot view Without regret.

For that dire train Of waxing shapes and waning, passed before, And those grim aisles, must be traversed again To reach that door.

A MAN (IN MEMORY OF H. OF M.)

IN Casterbridge there stood a noble pile, Wrought with pilaster, bay, and balustrade In tactful times when shrewd Eliza swayed.— On burgher, squire, and clown It smiled the long street down for near a mile

But evil days beset that domicile; The stately beauties of its roof and wall Passed into sordid hands. Condemned to fall Were cornice, quoin, and cove, And all that art had wove in antique style.

III

Among the hired dismantlers entered there One till the moment of his task untold. When charged therewith he gazed, and answered bold: “Be needy I or no, I will not help lay low a house so fair!

“Hunger is hard. But since the terms be such— No wage, or labour stained with the disgrace Of wrecking what our age cannot replace To save its tasteless soul— I’ll do without your dole. Life is not much!”

Dismissed with sneers he backed his tools and went, And wandered workless; for it seemed unwise To close with one who dared to criticize And carp on points of taste: To work where they were placed rude men were meant.

Years whiled. He aged, sank, sickened, and was not: And it was said, “A man intractable And curst is gone.” None sighed to hear his knell, None sought his churchyard-place; His name, his rugged face, were soon forgot.

VII

The stones of that fair hall lie far and wide, And but a few recall its ancient mould; Yet when I pass the spot I long to hold As truth what fancy saith: “His protest lives where deathless things abide!”

THE DAME OF ATHELHALL