Time's Laughingstocks, and Other Verses

PIECES OCCASIONAL AND VARIOUS PIECES OCCASIONAL AND VARIOUS A CHURCH ROMANCE ( Mellstock circa 1835) She turned in the high pew, until her sight Swept the west gallery, and caught its row Of music-men with viol, book, and bow Against the sinking sad tower-window light. She turned again; and in her pride’s despite One strenuous viol’s inspirer seemed to throw A message from his string to her below, Which said: “I claim thee as my own forthright!” Thus their hearts’ bond began, in due time signed. And long years thence, when Age had scared Romance, At some old attitude of his or glance That gallery-scene would break upon her mind, With him as minstrel, ardent, young, and trim, Bowing “New Sabbath” or “Mount Ephraim.” THE RASH BRIDE An Experience of the Mellstock Quire I We Christmas-carolled down the Vale, and up the Vale, and round the Vale, We played and sang that night as we were yearly wont to do— A carol in a minor key, a carol in the major D, Then at each house: “Good wishes: many Christmas joys to you!” II Next, to the widow’s John and I and all the rest drew on.  And I Discerned that John could hardly hold the tongue of him for joy. The widow was a sweet young thing whom John was bent on marrying, And quiring at her casement seemed romantic to the boy. III “She’ll make reply, I trust,” said he, “to our salute?  She must!” said he, “And then I will accost her gently—much to her surprise!— For knowing not I am with you here, when I speak up and call her dear A tenderness will fill her voice, a bashfulness her eyes. IV So, by her window-square we stood; ay, with our lanterns there we stood, And he along with us,—not singing, waiting for a sign; And when we’d quired her carols three a light was lit and out looked she, A shawl about her bedgown, and her colour red as wine. V And sweetly then she bowed her thanks, and smiled, and spoke aloud her thanks; When lo, behind her back there, in the room, a man appeared. I knew him—one from Woolcomb way—Giles Swetman—honest as the day, But eager, hasty; and I felt that some strange trouble neared. VI “How comes he there? . . . Suppose,” said we, “she’s wed of late!  Who knows?” said we. —“She married yester-morning—only mother yet has known The secret o’t!” shrilled one small boy.  “But now I’ve told, let’s wish ’em joy!” A heavy fall aroused us: John had gone down like a stone. VII We rushed to him and caught him round, and lifted him, and brought him round, When, hearing something wrong had happened, oped the window she: “Has one of you fallen ill?” she asked, “by these night labours overtasked?” None answered.  That she’d done poor John a cruel turn felt we. VIII Till up spoke Michael: “Fie, young dame!  You’ve broke your promise, sly young dame, By forming this new tie, young dame, and jilting John so true, Who trudged to-night to sing to ’ee because he thought he’d bring to ’ee Good wishes as your coming spouse.  May ye such trifling rue!” IX Her man had said no word at all; but being behind had heard it all, And now cried: “Neighbours, on my soul I knew not ’twas like this!” And then to her: “If I had known you’d had in tow not me alone, No wife should you have been of mine.  It is a dear bought bliss!” X She changed death-white, and heaved a cry: we’d never heard so grieved a cry As came from her at this from him: heart-broken quite seemed she; And suddenly, as we looked on, she turned, and rushed; and she was gone, Whither, her husband, following after, knew not; nor knew we. XI We searched till dawn about the house; within the house, without the house, We searched among the laurel boughs that grew beneath the wall, And then among the crocks and things, and stores for winter junketings, In linhay, loft, and dairy; but we found her not at all. XII Then John rushed in: “O friends,” he said, “hear this, this, this!” and bends his head: “I’ve—searched round by the— well , and find the cover open wide! I am fearful that—I can’t say what . . . Bring lanterns, and some cords to knot.” We did so, and we went and stood the deep dark hole beside. XIII And then they, ropes in hand, and I—ay, John, and all the band, and I Let down a lantern to the depths—some hundred feet and more; It glimmered like a fog-dimmed star; and there, beside its light, afar, White drapery floated, and we knew the meaning that it bore. XIV The rest is naught . . . We buried her o’ Sunday.  Neighbours carried her; And Swetman—he who’d married her—now miserablest of men, Walked mourning first; and then walked John; just quivering, but composed anon; And we the quire formed round the grave, as was the custom then. XV Our old bass player, as I recall—his white hair blown—but why recall!— His viol upstrapped, bent figure—doomed to follow her full soon— Stood bowing, pale and tremulous; and next to him the rest of us . . . We sang the Ninetieth Psalm to her—set to Saint Stephen’s tune. THE DEAD QUIRE I Beside the Mead of Memories, Where Church-way mounts to Moaning Hill, The sad man sighed his phantasies: He seems to sigh them still. II “’Twas the Birth-tide Eve, and the hamleteers Made merry with ancient Mellstock zest, But the Mellstock quire of former years Had entered into rest. III “Old Dewy lay by the gaunt yew tree, And Reuben and Michael a pace behind, And Bowman with his family By the wall that the ivies bind. IV “The singers had followed one by one, Treble, and tenor, and thorough-bass; And the worm that wasteth had begun To mine their mouldering place. V “For two-score years, ere Christ-day light, Mellstock had throbbed to strains from these; But now there echoed on the night No Christmas harmonies. VI “Three meadows off, at a dormered inn, The youth had gathered in high carouse, And, ranged on settles, some therein Had drunk them to a drowse. VII “Loud, lively, reckless, some had grown, Each dandling on his jigging knee Eliza, Dolly, Nance, or Joan— Livers in levity. VIII “The taper flames and hearthfire shine Grew smoke-hazed to a lurid light, And songs on subjects not divine Were warbled forth that night. IX “Yet many were sons and grandsons here Of those who, on such eves gone by, At that still hour had throated clear Their anthems to the sky. X “The clock belled midnight; and ere long One shouted, ‘Now ’tis Christmas morn; Here’s to our women old and young, And to John Barleycorn!’ XI “They drink the toast and shout again: The pewter-ware rings back the boom, And for a breath-while follows then A silence in the room. XII “When nigh without, as in old days, The ancient quire of voice and string Seemed singing words of prayer and praise As they had used to sing: XIII “‘While shepherds watch’d their flocks by night,’— Thus swells the long familiar sound In many a quaint symphonic flight— To, ‘Glory shone around.’ XIV “The sons defined their fathers’ tones, The widow his whom she had wed, And others in the minor moans The viols of the dead. XV “Something supernal has the sound As verse by verse the strain proceeds, And stilly staring on the ground Each roysterer holds and heeds. XVI “Towards its chorded closing bar Plaintively, thinly, waned the hymn, Yet lingered, like the notes afar Of banded seraphim. XVII “With brows abashed, and reverent tread, The hearkeners sought the tavern door: But nothing, save wan moonlight, spread The empty highway o’er. XVIII “While on their hearing fixed and tense The aerial music seemed to sink, As it were gently moving thence Along the river brink. XIX “Then did the Quick pursue the Dead By crystal Froom that crinkles there; And still the viewless quire ahead Voiced the old holy air. XX “By Bank-walk wicket, brightly bleached, It passed, and ’twixt the hedges twain, Dogged by the living; till it reached The bottom of Church Lane. XXI “There, at the turning, it was heard Drawing to where the churchyard lay: But when they followed thitherward It smalled, and died away. XXII “Each headstone of the quire, each mound, Confronted them beneath the moon; But no more floated therearound That ancient Birth-night tune. XXIII “There Dewy lay by the gaunt yew tree, There Reuben and Michael, a pace behind, And Bowman with his family By the wall that the ivies bind . . . XXIV “As from a dream each sobered son Awoke, and musing reached his door: ’Twas said that of them all, not one Sat in a tavern more.” XXV —The sad man ceased; and ceased to heed His listener, and crossed the leaze From Moaning Hill towards the mead— The Mead of Memories. 1897. THE CHRISTENING Whose child is this they bring Into the aisle?— At so superb a thing The congregation smile And turn their heads awhile. Its eyes are blue and bright, Its cheeks like rose; Its simple robes unite Whitest of calicoes With lawn, and satin bows. A pride in the human race At this paragon Of mortals, lights each face While the old rite goes on; But ah, they are shocked anon. What girl is she who peeps From the gallery stair, Smiles palely, redly weeps, With feverish furtive air As though not fitly there? “I am the baby’s mother; This gem of the race The decent fain would smother, And for my deep disgrace I am bidden to leave the place.” “Where is the baby’s father?”— “In the woods afar. He says there is none he’d rather Meet under moon or star Than me, of all that are. “To clasp me in lovelike weather, Wish fixing when, He says: To be together At will, just now and then, Makes him the blest of men; “But chained and doomed for life To slovening As vulgar man and wife, He says, is another thing: Yea: sweet Love’s sepulchring!” 1904. A DREAM QUESTION “It shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine.” Micah iii. 6. I asked the Lord: “Sire, is this true Which hosts of theologians hold, That when we creatures censure you For shaping griefs and ails untold (Deeming them punishments undue) You rage, as Moses wrote of old? When we exclaim: ‘Beneficent He is not, for he orders pain, Or, if so, not omnipotent: To a mere child the thing is plain!’ Those who profess to represent You, cry out: ‘Impious and profane!’” He: “Save me from my friends, who deem That I care what my creatures say! Mouth as you list: sneer, rail, blaspheme, O manikin, the livelong day, Not one grief-groan or pleasure-gleam Will you increase or take away. “Why things are thus, whoso derides, May well remain my secret still . . . A fourth dimension, say the guides, To matter is conceivable. Think some such mystery resides Within the ethic of my will.” BY THE BARROWS Not far from Mellstock—so tradition saith— Where barrows, bulging as they bosoms were Of Multimammia stretched supinely there, Catch night and noon the tempest’s wanton breath, A battle, desperate doubtless unto death, Was one time fought.  The outlook, lone and bare, The towering hawk and passing raven share, And all the upland round is called “The He’th.” Here once a woman, in our modern age, Fought singlehandedly to shield a child— One not her own—from a man’s senseless rage. And to my mind no patriots’ bones there piled So consecrate the silence as her deed Of stoic and devoted self-unheed. A WIFE AND ANOTHER “ War ends, and he’s returning Early; yea, The evening next to-morrow’s!”— —This I say To her, whom I suspiciously survey, Holding my husband’s letter To her view.— She glanced at it but lightly, And I knew That one from him that day had reached her too. There was no time for scruple; Secretly I filched her missive, conned it, Learnt that he Would lodge with her ere he came home to me. To reach the port before her, And, unscanned, There wait to intercept them Soon I planned: That, in her stead, I might before him stand. So purposed, so effected; At the inn Assigned, I found her hidden:— O that sin Should bear what she bore when I entered in! Her heavy lids grew laden With despairs, Her lips made soundless movements Unawares, While I peered at the chamber hired as theirs. And as beside its doorway, Deadly hued, One inside, one withoutside We two stood, He came—my husband—as she knew he would. No pleasurable triumph Was that sight! The ghastly disappointment Broke them quite. What love was theirs, to move them with such might! “Madam, forgive me!” said she, Sorrow bent, “A child—I soon shall bear him . . . Yes—I meant To tell you—that he won me ere he went.” Then, as it were, within me Something snapped, As if my soul had largened: Conscience-capped, I saw myself the snarer—them the trapped. “My hate dies, and I promise, Grace-beguiled,” I said, “to care for you, be Reconciled; And cherish, and take interest in the child.” Without more words I pressed him Through the door Within which she stood, powerless To say more, And closed it on them, and downstairward bore. “He joins his wife—my sister,” I, below, Remarked in going—lightly— Even as though All had come right, and we had arranged it so . . . As I, my road retracing, Left them free, The night alone embracing Childless me, I held I had not stirred God wrothfully. THE ROMAN ROAD The Roman Road runs straight and bare As the pale parting-line in hair Across the heath.  And thoughtful men Contrast its days of Now and Then, And delve, and measure, and compare; Visioning on the vacant air Helmed legionaries, who proudly rear The Eagle, as they pace again The Roman Road. But no tall brass-helmed legionnaire Haunts it for me.  Uprises there A mother’s form upon my ken, Guiding my infant steps, as when We walked that ancient thoroughfare, The Roman Road. THE VAMPIRINE FAIR Gilbert had sailed to India’s shore, And I was all alone: My lord came in at my open door And said, “O fairest one!” He leant upon the slant bureau, And sighed, “I am sick for thee!” “My lord,” said I, “pray speak not so, Since wedded wife I be.” Leaning upon the slant bureau, Bitter his next words came: “So much I know; and likewise know My love burns on the same! “But since you thrust my love away, And since it knows no cure, I must live out as best I may The ache that I endure.” When Michaelmas browned the nether Coomb, And Wingreen Hill above, And made the hollyhocks rags of bloom, My lord grew ill of love. My lord grew ill with love for me; Gilbert was far from port; And—so it was—that time did see Me housed at Manor Court. About the bowers of Manor Court The primrose pushed its head When, on a day at last, report Arrived of him I had wed. “Gilbert, my lord, is homeward bound, His sloop is drawing near, What shall I do when I am found Not in his house but here?” “O I will heal the injuries I’ve done to him and thee. I’ll give him means to live at ease Afar from Shastonb’ry.” When Gilbert came we both took thought: “Since comfort and good cheer,” Said he, “So readily are bought, He’s welcome to thee, Dear.” So when my lord flung liberally His gold in Gilbert’s hands, I coaxed and got my brothers three Made stewards of his lands. And then I coaxed him to install My other kith and kin, With aim to benefit them all Before his love ran thin. And next I craved to be possessed Of plate and jewels rare. He groaned: “You give me, Love, no rest, Take all the law will spare!” And so in course of years my wealth Became a goodly hoard, My steward brethren, too, by stealth Had each a fortune stored. Thereafter in the gloom he’d walk, And by and by began To say aloud in absent talk, “I am a ruined man!— “I hardly could have thought,” he said, “When first I looked on thee, That one so soft, so rosy red, Could thus have beggared me!” Seeing his fair estates in pawn, And him in such decline, I knew that his domain had gone To lift up me and mine. Next month upon a Sunday morn A gunshot sounded nigh: By his own hand my lordly born Had doomed himself to die. “Live, my dear lord, and much of thine Shall be restored to thee!” He smiled, and said ’twixt word and sign, “Alas—that cannot be!” And while I searched his cabinet For letters, keys, or will, ’Twas touching that his gaze was set With love upon me still. And when I burnt each document Before his dying eyes, ’Twas sweet that he did not resent My fear of compromise. The steeple-cock gleamed golden when I watched his spirit go: And I became repentant then That I had wrecked him so. Three weeks at least had come and gone, With many a saddened word, Before I wrote to Gilbert on The stroke that so had stirred. And having worn a mournful gown, I joined, in decent while, My husband at a dashing town To live in dashing style. Yet though I now enjoy my fling, And dine and dance and drive, I’d give my prettiest emerald ring To see my lord alive. And when the meet on hunting-days Is near his churchyard home, I leave my bantering beaux to place A flower upon his tomb; And sometimes say: “Perhaps too late The saints in Heaven deplore That tender time when, moved by Fate, He darked my cottage door.” THE REMINDER While I watch the Christmas blaze Paint the room with ruddy rays, Something makes my vision glide To the frosty scene outside. There, to reach a rotting berry, Toils a thrush,—constrained to very Dregs of food by sharp distress, Taking such with thankfulness. Why, O starving bird, when I One day’s joy would justify, And put misery out of view, Do you make me notice you! THE RAMBLER I do not see the hills around, Nor mark the tints the copses wear; I do not note the grassy ground And constellated daisies there. I hear not the contralto note Of cuckoos hid on either hand, The whirr that shakes the nighthawk’s throat When eve’s brown awning hoods the land. Some say each songster, tree, and mead— All eloquent of love divine— Receives their constant careful heed: Such keen appraisement is not mine. The tones around me that I hear, The aspects, meanings, shapes I see, Are those far back ones missed when near, And now perceived too late by me! NIGHT IN THE OLD HOME When the wasting embers redden the chimney-breast, And Life’s bare pathway looms like a desert track to me, And from hall and parlour the living have gone to their rest, My perished people who housed them here come back to me. They come and seat them around in their mouldy places, Now and then bending towards me a glance of wistfulness, A strange upbraiding smile upon all their faces, And in the bearing of each a passive tristfulness. “Do you uphold me, lingering and languishing here, A pale late plant of your once strong stock?” I say to them; “A thinker of crooked thoughts upon Life in the sere, And on That which consigns men to night after showing the day to them?” “—O let be the Wherefore!  We fevered our years not thus: Take of Life what it grants, without question!” they answer me seemingly. “Enjoy, suffer, wait: spread the table here freely like us, And, satisfied, placid, unfretting, watch Time away beamingly!” AFTER THE LAST BREATH (J. H. 1813–1904) There’s no more to be done, or feared, or hoped; None now need watch, speak low, and list, and tire; No irksome crease outsmoothed, no pillow sloped Does she require. Blankly we gaze.  We are free to go or stay; Our morrow’s anxious plans have missed their aim; Whether we leave to-night or wait till day Counts as the same. The lettered vessels of medicaments Seem asking wherefore we have set them here; Each palliative its silly face presents As useless gear. And yet we feel that something savours well; We note a numb relief withheld before; Our well-beloved is prisoner in the cell Of Time no more. We see by littles now the deft achievement Whereby she has escaped the Wrongers all, In view of which our momentary bereavement Outshapes but small. 1904. IN CHILDBED In the middle of the night Mother’s spirit came and spoke to me, Looking weariful and white— As ’twere untimely news she broke to me. “O my daughter, joyed are you To own the weetless child you mother there; ‘Men may search the wide world through,’ You think, ‘nor find so fair another there!’ “Dear, this midnight time unwombs Thousands just as rare and beautiful; Thousands whom High Heaven foredooms To be as bright, as good, as dutiful. “Source of ecstatic hopes and fears And innocent maternal vanity, Your fond exploit but shapes for tears New thoroughfares in sad humanity. “Yet as you dream, so dreamt I When Life stretched forth its morning ray to me; Other views for by and by!” . . . Such strange things did mother say to me. THE PINE PLANTERS ( Marty South’s Reverie ) I We work here together In blast and breeze; He fills the earth in, I hold the trees. He does not notice That what I do Keeps me from moving And chills me through. He has seen one fairer I feel by his eye, Which skims me as though I were not by. And since she passed here He scarce has known But that the woodland Holds him alone. I have worked here with him Since morning shine, He busy with his thoughts And I with mine. I have helped him so many, So many days, But never win any Small word of praise! Shall I not sigh to him That I work on Glad to be nigh to him Though hope is gone? Nay, though he never Knew love like mine, I’ll bear it ever And make no sign! II From the bundle at hand here I take each tree, And set it to stand, here Always to be; When, in a second, As if from fear Of Life unreckoned Beginning here, It starts a sighing Through day and night, Though while there lying ’Twas voiceless quite. It will sigh in the morning, Will sigh at noon, At the winter’s warning, In wafts of June; Grieving that never Kind Fate decreed It should for ever Remain a seed, And shun the welter Of things without, Unneeding shelter From storm and drought. Thus, all unknowing For whom or what We set it growing In this bleak spot, It still will grieve here Throughout its time, Unable to leave here, Or change its clime; Or tell the story Of us to-day When, halt and hoary, We pass away. THE DEAR I plodded to Fairmile Hill-top, where A maiden one fain would guard From every hazard and every care Advanced on the roadside sward. I wondered how succeeding suns Would shape her wayfarings, And wished some Power might take such ones Under Its warding wings. The busy breeze came up the hill And smartened her cheek to red, And frizzled her hair to a haze.  With a will “Good-morning, my Dear!” I said. She glanced from me to the far-off gray, And, with proud severity, “Good-morning to you—though I may say I am not your Dear,” quoth she: “For I am the Dear of one not here— One far from his native land!”— And she passed me by; and I did not try To make her understand. 1901 ONE WE KNEW (M. H.  1772–1857) 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. May 20, 1902. SHE HEARS THE STORM There was a time in former years— While my roof-tree was his— When I should have been distressed by fears At such a night as this! I should have murmured anxiously, “The pricking rain strikes cold; His road is bare of hedge or tree, And he is getting old.” But now the fitful chimney-roar, The drone of Thorncombe trees, The Froom in flood upon the moor, The mud of Mellstock Leaze, The candle slanting sooty wick’d, The thuds upon the thatch, The eaves-drops on the window flicked, The clacking garden-hatch, And what they mean to wayfarers, I scarcely heed or mind; He has won that storm-tight roof of hers Which Earth grants all her kind. A WET NIGHT I pace along, the rain-shafts riddling me, Mile after mile out by the moorland way, And up the hill, and through the ewe-leaze gray Into the lane, and round the corner tree; Where, as my clothing clams me, mire-bestarred, And the enfeebled light dies out of day, Leaving the liquid shades to reign, I say, “This is a hardship to be calendared!” Yet sires of mine now perished and forgot, When worse beset, ere roads were shapen here, And night and storm were foes indeed to fear, Times numberless have trudged across this spot In sturdy muteness on their strenuous lot, And taking all such toils as trifles mere. BEFORE LIFE AND AFTER A time there was—as one may guess And as, indeed, earth’s testimonies tell— Before the birth of consciousness, When all went well. None suffered sickness, love, or loss, None knew regret, starved hope, or heart-burnings; None cared whatever crash or cross Brought wrack to things. If something ceased, no tongue bewailed, If something winced and waned, no heart was wrung; If brightness dimmed, and dark prevailed, No sense was stung. But the disease of feeling germed, And primal rightness took the tinct of wrong; Ere nescience shall be reaffirmed How long, how long? NEW YEAR’S EVE “I have finished another year,” said God, “In grey, green, white, and brown; I have strewn the leaf upon the sod, Sealed up the worm within the clod, And let the last sun down.” “And what’s the good of it?” I said. “What reasons made you call From formless void this earth we tread, When nine-and-ninety can be read Why nought should be at all? “Yea, Sire; why shaped you us, ‘who in This tabernacle groan’— If ever a joy be found herein, Such joy no man had wished to win If he had never known!” Then he: “My labours—logicless— You may explain; not I: Sense-sealed I have wrought, without a guess That I evolved a Consciousness To ask for reasons why. “Strange that ephemeral creatures who By my own ordering are, Should see the shortness of my view, Use ethic tests I never knew, Or made provision for!” He sank to raptness as of yore, And opening New Year’s Day Wove it by rote as theretofore, And went on working evermore In his unweeting way. 1906. GOD’S EDUCATION I saw him steal the light away That haunted in her eye: It went so gently none could say More than that it was there one day And missing by-and-by. I watched her longer, and he stole Her lily tincts and rose; All her young sprightliness of soul Next fell beneath his cold control, And disappeared like those. I asked: “Why do you serve her so? Do you, for some glad day, Hoard these her sweets—?”  He said, “O no, They charm not me; I bid Time throw Them carelessly away.” Said I: “We call that cruelty— We, your poor mortal kind.” He mused.  “The thought is new to me. Forsooth, though I men’s master be, Theirs is the teaching mind!” TO SINCERITY O sweet sincerity!— Where modern methods be What scope for thine and thee? Life may be sad past saying, Its greens for ever graying, Its faiths to dust decaying; And youth may have foreknown it, And riper seasons shown it, But custom cries: “Disown it: “Say ye rejoice, though grieving, Believe, while unbelieving, Behold, without perceiving!” —Yet, would men look at true things, And unilluded view things, And count to bear undue things, The real might mend the seeming, Facts better their foredeeming, And Life its disesteeming. February 1899. PANTHERA (For other forms of this legend—first met with in the second century—see Origen contra Celsum; the Talmud; Sepher Toldoth Jeschu; quoted fragments of lost Apocryphal gospels; Strauss, Haeckel; etc.) Yea , as I sit here, crutched, and cricked, and bent, I think of Panthera, who underwent Much from insidious aches in his decline; But his aches were not radical like mine; They were the twinges of old wounds—the feel Of the hand he had lost, shorn by barbarian steel, Which came back, so he said, at a change in the air, Fingers and all, as if it still were there. My pains are otherwise: upclosing cramps And stiffened tendons from this country’s damps, Where Panthera was never commandant.— The Fates sent him by way of the Levant. He had been blithe in his young manhood’s time, And as centurion carried well his prime. In Ethiop, Araby, climes fair and fell, He had seen service and had borne him well. Nought shook him then: he was serene as brave; Yet later knew some shocks, and would grow grave When pondering them; shocks less of corporal kind Than phantom-like, that disarranged his mind; And it was in the way of warning me (By much his junior) against levity That he recounted them; and one in chief Panthera loved to set in bold relief. This was a tragedy of his Eastern days, Personal in touch—though I have sometimes thought That touch a possible delusion—wrought Of half-conviction carried to a craze— His mind at last being stressed by ails and age:— Yet his good faith thereon I well could wage. I had said it long had been a wish with me That I might leave a scion—some small tree As channel for my sap, if not my name— Ay, offspring even of no legitimate claim, In whose advance I secretly could joy. Thereat he warned. “Cancel such wishes, boy! A son may be a comfort or a curse, A seer, a doer, a coward, a fool; yea, worse— A criminal . . . That I could testify!” “Panthera has no guilty son!” cried I All unbelieving.  “Friend, you do not know,” He darkly dropt: “True, I’ve none now to show, For the law took him .  Ay, in sooth, Jove shaped it so!” “This noon is not unlike,” he again began, “The noon these pricking memories print on me— Yea, that day, when the sun grew copper-red, And I served in Judæa . . . ’Twas a date Of rest for arms.  The Pax Romana ruled, To the chagrin of frontier legionaries! Palestine was annexed—though sullen yet,— I, being in age some two-score years and ten And having the garrison in Jerusalem Part in my hands as acting officer Under the Governor.  A tedious time I found it, of routine, amid a folk Restless, contentless, and irascible.— Quelling some riot, sentrying court and hall, Sending men forth on public meeting-days To maintain order, were my duties there. “Then came a morn in spring, and the cheerful sun Whitened the city and the hills around, And every mountain-road that clambered them, Tincturing the greyness of the olives warm, And the rank cacti round the valley’s sides. The day was one whereon death-penalties Were put in force, and here and there were set The soldiery for order, as I said, Since one of the condemned had raised some heat, And crowds surged passionately to see him slain. I, mounted on a Cappadocian horse, With some half-company of auxiliaries, Had captained the procession through the streets When it came streaming from the judgment-hall After the verdicts of the Governor. It drew to the great gate of the northern way That bears towards Damascus; and to a knoll Upon the common, just beyond the walls— Whence could be swept a wide horizon round Over the housetops to the remotest heights. Here was the public execution-ground For city crimes, called then and doubtless now Golgotha, Kranion, or Calvaria. “The usual dooms were duly meted out; Some three or four were stript, transfixed, and nailed, And no great stir occurred.  A day of wont It was to me, so far, and would have slid Clean from my memory at its squalid close But for an incident that followed these. “Among the tag-rag rabble of either sex That hung around the wretches as they writhed, Till thrust back by our spears, one held my eye— A weeping woman, whose strained countenance, Sharpened against a looming livid cloud, Was mocked by the crude rays of afternoon— The mother of one of those who suffered there I had heard her called when spoken roughly to By my ranged men for pressing forward so. It stole upon me hers was a face I knew; Yet when, or how, I had known it, for a while Eluded me.  And then at once it came. “Some thirty years or more before that noon I was sub-captain of a company Drawn from the legion of Calabria, That marched up from Judæa north to Tyre. We had pierced the old flat country of Jezreel, The great Esdraelon Plain and fighting-floor Of Jew with Canaanite, and with the host Of Pharaoh-Necho, king of Egypt, met While crossing there to strike the Assyrian pride. We left behind Gilboa; passed by Nain; Till bulging Tabor rose, embossed to the top With arbute, terabinth, and locust growths. “Encumbering me were sundry sick, so fallen Through drinking from a swamp beside the way; But we pressed on, till, bearing over a ridge, We dipt into a world of pleasantness— A vale, the fairest I had gazed upon— Which lapped a village on its furthest slopes Called Nazareth, brimmed round by uplands nigh. In the midst thereof a fountain bubbled, where, Lime-dry from marching, our glad halt we made To rest our sick ones, and refresh us all. “Here a day onward, towards the eventide, Our men were piping to a Pyrrhic dance Trod by their comrades, when the young women came To fill their pitchers, as their custom was. I proffered help to one—a slim girl, coy Even as a fawn, meek, and as innocent. Her long blue gown, the string of silver coins That hung down by her banded beautiful hair, Symboled in full immaculate modesty. “Well, I was young, and hot, and readily stirred To quick desire.  ’Twas tedious timing out The convalescence of the soldiery; And I beguiled the long and empty days By blissful yieldance to her sweet allure, Who had no arts, but what out-arted all, The tremulous tender charm of trustfulness. We met, and met, and under the winking stars That passed which peoples earth—true union, yea, To the pure eye of her simplicity. “Meanwhile the sick found health; and we pricked on. I made her no rash promise of return, As some do use; I was sincere in that; I said we sundered never to meet again— And yet I spoke untruth unknowingly!— For meet again we did.  Now, guess you aught? The weeping mother on Calvaria Was she I had known—albeit that time and tears Had wasted rudely her once flowerlike form, And her soft eyes, now swollen with sorrowing. “Though I betrayed some qualms, she marked me not; And I was scarce of mood to comrade her And close the silence of so wide a time To claim a malefactor as my son— (For so I guessed him).  And inquiry made Brought rumour how at Nazareth long before An old man wedded her for pity’s sake On finding she had grown pregnant, none knew how, Cared for her child, and loved her till he died. “Well; there it ended; save that then I learnt That he—the man whose ardent blood was mine— Had waked sedition long among the Jews, And hurled insulting parlance at their god, Whose temple bulked upon the adjoining hill, Vowing that he would raze it, that himself Was god as great as he whom they adored, And by descent, moreover, was their king; With sundry other incitements to misrule. “The impalements done, and done the soldiers’ game Of raffling for the clothes, a legionary, Longinus, pierced the young man with his lance At signs from me, moved by his agonies Through naysaying the drug they had offered him. It brought the end.  And when he had breathed his last The woman went.  I saw her never again . . . Now glares my moody meaning on you, friend?— That when you talk of offspring as sheer joy So trustingly, you blink contingencies. Fors Fortuna!  He who goes fathering Gives frightful hostages to hazardry!” Thus Panthera’s tale.  ’Twas one he seldom told, But yet it got abroad.  He would unfold, At other times, a story of less gloom, Though his was not a heart where jests had room. He would regret discovery of the truth Was made too late to influence to ruth The Procurator who had condemned his son— Or rather him so deemed.  For there was none To prove that Panthera erred not: and indeed, When vagueness of identity I would plead, Panther himself would sometimes own as much— Yet lothly.  But, assuming fact was such, That the said woman did not recognize Her lover’s face, is matter for surprise. However, there’s his tale, fantasy or otherwise. Thereafter shone not men of Panthera’s kind: The indolent heads at home were ill-inclined To press campaigning that would hoist the star Of their lieutenants valorous afar. Jealousies kept him irked abroad, controlled And stinted by an Empire no more bold. Yet in some actions southward he had share— In Mauretania and Numidia; there With eagle eye, and sword and steed and spur, Quelling uprisings promptly.  Some small stir In Parthia next engaged him, until maimed, As I have said; and cynic Time proclaimed His noble spirit broken.  What a waste Of such a Roman!—one in youth-time graced With indescribable charm, so I have heard, Yea, magnetism impossible to word When faltering as I saw him.  What a fame, O Son of Saturn, had adorned his name, Might the Three so have urged Thee!—Hour by hour His own disorders hampered Panthera’s power To brood upon the fate of those he had known, Even of that one he always called his own— Either in morbid dream or memory . . . He died at no great age, untroublously, An exit rare for ardent soldiers such as he. THE UNBORN I rose at night, and visited The Cave of the Unborn: And crowding shapes surrounded me For tidings of the life to be, Who long had prayed the silent Head To haste its advent morn. Their eyes were lit with artless trust, Hope thrilled their every tone; “A scene the loveliest, is it not? A pure delight, a beauty-spot Where all is gentle, true and just, And darkness is unknown?” My heart was anguished for their sake, I could not frame a word; And they descried my sunken face, And seemed to read therein, and trace The news that pity would not break, Nor truth leave unaverred. And as I silently retired I turned and watched them still, And they came helter-skelter out, Driven forward like a rabble rout Into the world they had so desired By the all-immanent Will. 1905. THE MAN HE KILLED “ Had he and I but met By some old ancient inn, We should have sat us down to wet Right many a nipperkin! “But ranged as infantry, And staring face to face, I shot at him as he at me, And killed him in his place. “I shot him dead because— Because he was my foe, Just so: my foe of course he was; That’s clear enough; although “He thought he’d ’list, perhaps, Off-hand like—just as I— Was out of work—had sold his traps— No other reason why. “Yes; quaint and curious war is! You shoot a fellow down You’d treat if met where any bar is, Or help to half-a-crown.” 1902. GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE (A Memory of Christiana C—) Where Blackmoor was, the road that led To Bath, she could not show, Nor point the sky that overspread Towns ten miles off or so. But that Calcutta stood this way, Cape Horn there figured fell, That here was Boston, here Bombay, She could declare full well. Less known to her the track athwart Froom Mead or Yell’ham Wood Than how to make some Austral port In seas of surly mood. She saw the glint of Guinea’s shore Behind the plum-tree nigh, Heard old unruly Biscay’s roar In the weir’s purl hard by . . . “My son’s a sailor, and he knows All seas and many lands, And when he’s home he points and shows Each country where it stands. “He’s now just there—by Gib’s high rock— And when he gets, you see, To Portsmouth here, behind the clock, Then he’ll come back to me!” ONE RALPH BLOSSOM SOLILOQUIZES (“It being deposed that vij women who were mayds before he knew them have been brought upon the towne [rates?] by the fornicacions of one Ralph Blossom, Mr Major inquired why he should not contribute xiv pence weekly toward their mayntenance.  But it being shewn that the sayd R. B. was dying of a purple feaver, no order was made.”— Budmouth Borough Minutes : 16–.) When I am in hell or some such place, A-groaning over my sorry case, What will those seven women say to me Who, when I coaxed them, answered “Aye” to me? “I did not understand your sign!” Will be the words of Caroline; While Jane will cry, “If I’d had proof of you, I should have learnt to hold aloof of you!” “I won’t reproach: it was to be!” Will dryly murmur Cicely; And Rosa: “I feel no hostility, For I must own I lent facility.” Lizzy says: “Sharp was my regret, And sometimes it is now!  But yet I joy that, though it brought notoriousness, I knew Love once and all its gloriousness!” Says Patience: “Why are we apart? Small harm did you, my poor Sweet Heart! A manchild born, now tall and beautiful, Was worth the ache of days undutiful.” And Anne cries: “O the time was fair, So wherefore should you burn down there? There is a deed under the sun, my Love, And that was ours.  What’s done is done, my Love. These trumpets here in Heaven are dumb to me With you away.  Dear, come, O come to me!” THE NOBLE LADY’S TALE ( circa 1790) I “ We moved with pensive paces, I and he, And bent our faded faces Wistfully, For something troubled him, and troubled me. “The lanthorn feebly lightened Our grey hall, Where ancient brands had brightened Hearth and wall, And shapes long vanished whither vanish all. “‘O why, Love, nightly, daily,’ I had said, ‘Dost sigh, and smile so palely, As if shed Were all Life’s blossoms, all its dear things dead?’ “‘Since silence sets thee grieving,’ He replied, ‘And I abhor deceiving One so tried, Why, Love, I’ll speak, ere time us twain divide.’ “He held me, I remember, Just as when Our life was June—(September It was then); And we walked on, until he spoke again. “‘Susie, an Irish mummer, Loud-acclaimed Through the gay London summer, Was I; named A master in my art, who would be famed. “‘But lo, there beamed before me Lady Su; God’s altar-vow she swore me When none knew, And for her sake I bade the sock adieu. “‘My Lord your father’s pardon Thus I won: He let his heart unharden Towards his son, And honourably condoned what we had done; “‘But said—recall you, dearest?— As for Su , I’d see her—ay , though nearest Me unto — Sooner entombed than in a stage purlieu ! “‘Just so.—And here he housed us, In this nook, Where Love like balm has drowsed us: Robin, rook, Our chief familiars, next to string and book. “‘Our days here, peace-enshrouded, Followed strange The old stage-joyance, crowded, Rich in range; But never did my soul desire a change, “‘Till now, when far uncertain Lips of yore Call, call me to the curtain, There once more, But once , to tread the boards I trod before. “‘A night—the last and single Ere I die— To face the lights, to mingle As did I Once in the game, and rivet every eye!’ “Such was his wish.  He feared it, Feared it though Rare memories endeared it. I, also, Feared it still more; its outcome who could know? “‘Alas, my Love,’ said I then, ‘Since it be A wish so mastering, why, then, E’en go ye!— Despite your pledge to father and to me . . . ’ “’Twas fixed; no more was spoken Thereupon; Our silences were broken Only on The petty items of his needs were gone. “Farewell he bade me, pleading That it meant So little, thus conceding To his bent; And then, as one constrained to go, he went. “Thwart thoughts I let deride me, As, ’twere vain To hope him back beside me Ever again: Could one plunge make a waxing passion wane? “I thought, ‘Some wild stage-woman, Honour-wrecked . . . ’ But no: it was inhuman To suspect; Though little cheer could my lone heart affect! II “Yet came it, to my gladness, That, as vowed, He did return.—But sadness Swiftly cowed The job with which my greeting was endowed. “Some woe was there.  Estrangement Marked his mind. Each welcome-warm arrangement I had designed Touched him no more than deeds of careless kind. “‘I— failed !’ escaped him glumly. ‘—I went on In my old part.  But dumbly— Memory gone— Advancing, I sank sick; my vision drawn “‘To something drear, distressing As the knell Of all hopes worth possessing!’ . . . —What befell Seemed linked with me, but how I could not tell. “Hours passed; till I implored him, As he knew How faith and frankness toward him Ruled me through, To say what ill I had done, and could undo. “‘ Faith—frankness .  Ah!  Heaven save such!’ Murmured he, ‘They are wedded wealth! I gave such Liberally, But you, Dear, not.  For you suspected me.’ “I was about beseeching In hurt haste More meaning, when he, reaching To my waist, Led me to pace the hall as once we paced. “‘I never meant to draw you To own all,’ Declared he.  ‘But—I saw you— By the wall, Half-hid.  And that was why I failed withal!’ “‘Where? when?’ said I—‘Why, nigh me, At the play That night.  That you should spy me, Doubt my fay, And follow, furtive, took my heart away!’ “That I had never been there, But had gone To my locked room—unseen there, Curtains drawn, Long days abiding—told I, wonder-wan. “‘Nay, ’twas your form and vesture, Cloak and gown, Your hooded features—gesture Half in frown, That faced me, pale,’ he urged, ‘that night in town.

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