Late Lyrics and Earlier, With Many Other Verses - Thomas Hardy

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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.

      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?

      A WET AUGUST

      Nine drops of water bead the jessamine,

      And nine-and-ninety smear the stones and tiles:

      – ’Twas not so in that August – full-rayed, fine —

      When we lived out-of-doors, sang songs, strode miles.

      Or was there then no noted radiancy

      Of summer?  Were dun clouds, a dribbling bough,

      Gilt over by the light I bore in me,

      And was the waste world just the same as now?

      It can have been so: yea, that threatenings

      Of coming down-drip on the sunless gray,

      By the then possibilities in things

      Were wrought more bright than brightest skies to-day.

1920.

      THE DISSEMBLERS

      “It was not you I came to please,

         Only myself,” flipped she;

      “I like this spot of phantasies,

         And thought you far from me.”

      But O, he was the secret spell

         That led her to the lea!

      “It was not she who shaped my ways,

         Or works, or thoughts,” he said.

      “I scarcely marked her living days,

         Or missed her much when dead.”

      But O, his joyance knew its knell

         When daisies hid her head!

      TO A LADY PLAYING AND SINGING IN THE MORNING

         Joyful lady, sing!

      And I will lurk here listening,

      Though nought be done, and nought begun,

      And work-hours swift are scurrying.

         Sing, O lady, still!

      Aye, I will wait each note you trill,

      Though duties due that press to do

      This whole day long I unfulfil.

         “ – It is an evening tune;

      One not designed to waste the noon,”

      You say.  I know: time bids me go —

      For daytide passes too, too soon!

         But let indulgence be,

      This once, to my rash ecstasy:

      When sounds nowhere that carolled air

      My idled morn may comfort me!

      “A MAN WAS DRAWING NEAR TO ME”

      On that gray night of mournful drone,

      A part from aught to hear, to see,

      I dreamt not that from shires unknown

         In gloom, alone,

         By Halworthy,

      A man was drawing near to me.

      I’d no concern at anything,

      No sense of coming pull-heart play;

      Yet,

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