Time's Laughingstocks, and Other Verses

Part 1

Transcribed from the 1919 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

TIME’S LAUGHINGSTOCKS AND OTHER VERSES

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BY THOMAS HARDY

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MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON 1928

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COPYRIGHT

First Edition 1909 Reprinted 1910 Second Edition 1915 Reprinted 1919 Pocket Edition 1919 Reprinted 1923, 1924, 1928

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PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, EDINBURGH

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PREFACE

IN collecting the following poems I have to thank the editors and proprietors of the periodicals in which certain of them have appeared for permission to reclaim them.

Now that the miscellany is brought together, some lack of concord in pieces written at widely severed dates, and in contrasting moods and circumstances, will be obvious enough. This I cannot help, but the sense of disconnection, particularly in respect of those lyrics penned in the first person, will be immaterial when it is borne in mind that they are to be regarded, in the main, as dramatic monologues by different characters.

As a whole they will, I hope, take the reader forward, even if not far, rather than backward. I should add that some lines in the early-dated poems have been rewritten, though they have been left substantially unchanged.

T. H.

September 1909.

CONTENTS

TIME’S LAUGHINGSTOCKS— PAGE The Revisitation 3 A Trampwoman’s Tragedy 11 The Two Rosalinds 17 A Sunday Morning Tragedy 21 The House of Hospitalities 27 Bereft 28 John and Jane 30 The Curate’s Kindness 31 The Flirt’s Tragedy 34 The Rejected Member’s Wife 40 The Farm-Woman’s Winter 42 Autumn in King’s Hintock Park 43 Shut out that Moon 45 Reminiscences of a Dancing Man 47 The Dead Man Walking 49 MORE LOVE LYRICS— 1967 53 Her Definition 54 The Division 55 On the Departure Platform 56 In a Cathedral City 58 “I say I’ll seek Her” 59 Her Father 60 At Waking 61 Four Footprints 63 In the Vaulted Way 65 In the Mind’s Eye 66 The End of the Episode 67 The Sigh 68 “In the Night She Came” 70 The Conformers 72 The Dawn after the Dance 74 The Sun on the Letter 76 The Night of the Dance 77 Misconception 78 The Voice of the Thorn 80 From Her in the Country 82 Her Confession 83 To an Impersonator of Rosalind 84 To an Actress 85 The Minute before Meeting 86 He abjures Love 87 A SET OF COUNTRY SONGS— Let me Enjoy 91 At Casterbridge Fair: I. The Ballad-Singer 93 II. Former Beauties 94 III. After the Club Dance 95 IV. The Market-Girl 95 V. The Inquiry 96 VI. A Wife Waits 97 VII. After the Fair 98 The Dark-eyed Gentleman 100 To Carrey Clavel 102 The Orphaned Old Maid 103 The Spring Call 104 Julie-Jane 106 News for Her Mother 108 The Fiddler 110 The Husband’s View 111 Rose-Ann 113 The Homecoming 115 PIECES OCCASIONAL AND VARIOUS— A Church Romance 121 The Rash Bride 122 The Dead Quire 128 The Christening 135 A Dream Question 137 By the Barrows 139 A Wife and Another 140 The Roman Road 144 The Vampirine Fair 145 The Reminder 150 The Rambler 151 Night in the Old Home 152 After the Last Breath 154 In Childbed 156 The Pine Planters 158 The Dear 161 One We Knew 163 She Hears the Storm 166 A Wet Night 167 Before Life and After 168 New Year’s Eve 169 God’s Education 171 To Sincerity 172 Panthera 173 The Unborn 184 The Man He Killed 186 Geographical Knowledge 187 One Ralph Blossom Soliloquizes 189 The Noble Lady’s Tale 191 Unrealized 201 Wagtail and Baby 203 Aberdeen: 1905 204 George Meredith, 1828–1909 205 Yell’ham-wood’s Story 207 A Young Man’s Epigram on 208 Existence

TIME’S LAUGHINGSTOCKS

THE REVISITATION

AS I lay awake at night-time In an ancient country barrack known to ancient cannoneers, And recalled the hopes that heralded each seeming brave and bright time Of my primal purple years,

Much it haunted me that, nigh there, I had borne my bitterest loss—when One who went, came not again; In a joyless hour of discord, in a joyless-hued July there— A July just such as then.

And as thus I brooded longer, With my faint eyes on the feeble square of wan-lit window frame, A quick conviction sprung within me, grew, and grew yet stronger, That the month-night was the same,

Too, as that which saw her leave me On the rugged ridge of Waterstone, the peewits plaining round; And a lapsing twenty years had ruled that—as it were to grieve me— I should near the once-loved ground.

Part 2

Though but now a war-worn stranger Chance had quartered here, I rose up and descended to the yard. All was soundless, save the troopers’ horses tossing at the manger, And the sentry keeping guard.

Through the gateway I betook me Down the High Street and beyond the lamps, across the battered bridge, Till the country darkness clasped me and the friendly shine forsook me, And I bore towards the Ridge,

With a dim unowned emotion Saying softly: “Small my reason, now at midnight, to be here . . . Yet a sleepless swain of fifty with a brief romantic notion May retrace a track so dear.”

Thus I walked with thoughts half-uttered Up the lane I knew so well, the grey, gaunt, lonely Lane of Slyre; And at whiles behind me, far at sea, a sullen thunder muttered As I mounted high and higher.

Till, the upper roadway quitting, I adventured on the open drouthy downland thinly grassed, While the spry white scuts of conies flashed before me, earthward flitting, And an arid wind went past.

Round about me bulged the barrows As before, in antique silence—immemorial funeral piles— Where the sleek herds trampled daily the remains of flint-tipt arrows Mid the thyme and chamomiles;

And the Sarsen stone there, dateless, On whose breast we had sat and told the zephyrs many a tender vow, Held the heat of yester sun, as sank thereon one fated mateless From those far fond hours till now.

Maybe flustered by my presence Rose the peewits, just as all those years back, wailing soft and loud, And revealing their pale pinions like a fitful phosphorescence Up against the cope of cloud,

Where their dolesome exclamations Seemed the voicings of the self-same throats I had heard when life was green, Though since that day uncounted frail forgotten generations Of their kind had flecked the scene.—

And so, living long and longer In a past that lived no more, my eyes discerned there, suddenly, That a figure broke the skyline—first in vague contour, then stronger, And was crossing near to me.

Some long-missed familiar gesture, Something wonted, struck me in the figure’s pause to list and heed, Till I fancied from its handling of its loosely wrapping vesture That it might be She indeed.

’Twas not reasonless: below there In the vale, had been her home; the nook might hold her even yet, And the downlands were her father’s fief; she still might come and go there;— So I rose, and said, “Agnette!”

With a little leap, half-frightened, She withdrew some steps; then letting intuition smother fear In a place so long-accustomed, and as one whom thought enlightened, She replied: “What—that voice?—here!”

“Yes, Agnette!—And did the occasion Of our marching hither make you think I might walk where we two—” “O, I often come,” she murmured with a moment’s coy evasion, “(’Tis not far),—and—think of you.”

Then I took her hand, and led her To the ancient people’s stone whereon I had sat. There now sat we; And together talked, until the first reluctant shyness fled her, And she spoke confidingly.

“It is just as ere we parted!” Said she, brimming high with joy.—“And when, then, came you here, and why?” “—Dear, I could not sleep for thinking of our trystings when twin-hearted.” She responded, “Nor could I.

“There are few things I would rather Than be wandering at this spirit-hour—lone-lived, my kindred dead— On this wold of well-known feature I inherit from my father: Night or day, I have no dread . . .

“O I wonder, wonder whether Any heartstring bore a signal-thrill between us twain or no?— Some such influence can, at times, they say, draw severed souls together.” I said, “Dear, we’ll dream it so.”

Each one’s hand the other’s grasping, And a mutual forgiveness won, we sank to silent thought, A large content in us that seemed our rended lives reclasping, And contracting years to nought.

Till I, maybe overweary From the lateness, and a wayfaring so full of strain and stress For one no longer buoyant, to a peak so steep and eery, Sank to slow unconsciousness . . .

How long I slept I knew not, But the brief warm summer night had slid when, to my swift surprise, A red upedging sun, of glory chambered mortals view not, Was blazing on my eyes,

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