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- Herausgeber: Jazzybee Verlag
- Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013
This is the annotated edition including a rare biographical essay on the life and works of the author. Thomas Hardy was not only one of England's best novelists but also a highly gifted poet. This edition is one of the most complete on the book market and contains every single poem, carefully arranged in the original order of the books in which they were published (therefore a small percentage of duplication possible ). Let yourself be inspired by Mr. Hardy's brilliant romanticism. This edition contains several hundred poems.
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The Poetical Works Of Thomas Hardy (Annotated Edition)
Thomas Hardy
Contents:
Thomas Hardy – A Biographical Primer
Wessex Poems And Other Verses
The Temporary The All
Amabel
Hap
“In Vision I Roamed”
Postponement
A Confession To A Friend In Trouble
Neutral Tones
She At His Funeral
Her Initials
Her Dilemma (In --- Church)
Revulsion
She, To Him
Ditty
The Sergeant's Song
Valenciennes
San Sebastian
The Stranger's Song
The Burghers
Leipzig
The Peasant's Confession
The Alarm
Her Death And After
The Dance At The Phœnix
The Casterbridge Captains
A Sign-Seeker
My Cicely
Her Immortality
The Ivy-Wife
A Meeting With Despair
Unknowing
Friends Beyond
To Outer Nature
Thoughts Of Phena At News Of Her Death
Middle-Age Enthusiasms
In A Wood
To A Lady Offended By A Book Of The Writer's
To A Motherless Child
Nature's Questioning
The Impercipient (At A Cathedral Service)
At An Inn
The Slow Nature (An Incident Of Froom Valley)
In A Eweleaze Near Weatherbury
The Bride-Night Fire (A Wessex Tradition)
Heiress And Architect
The Two Men
“I Look Into My Glass”
Poems Of The Past And The Present
V. R. 1819–1901 - A Reverie
War Poems
Embarcation
Departure
The Colonel's Soliloquy
The Going Of The Battery
Wives' Lament
At The War Office, London
A Christmas Ghost-Story
Drummer Hodge
A Wife In London
The Souls Of The Slain
Song Of The Soldiers' Wives And Sweethearts
The Sick Battle-God
Poems Of Pilgrimage
Genoa And The Mediterranean
Shelley's Skylark
In The Old Theatre, Fiesole
Rome: On The Palatine
Rome: Building A New Street In The Ancient Quarter
Rome: The Vatican: Sala Delle Muse
Rome: At The Pyramid Of Cestius Near The Graves Of Shelley And Keats
Lausanne: In Gibbon's Old Garden: 11–12 P. M.
Zermatt To The Matterhorn
The Bridge Of Lodi
On An Invitation To The United States
Miscellaneous Poems
The Mother Mourns
“I Said To Love”
A Commonplace Day
At A Lunar Eclipse
The Lacking Sense
To Life
Doom And She
The Problem
The Subalterns
The Sleep-Worker
The Bullfinches
God-Forgotten
The Bedridden Peasant To An Unknowing God
By The Earth's Corpse
Mute Opinion
To An Unborn Pauper Child
To Flowers From Italy In Winter
On A Fine Morning
To Lizbie Browne
Song Of Hope
The Well-Beloved
Her Reproach
The Inconsistent
A Broken Appointment
“Between Us Now”
“How Great My Grief”
“I Need Not Go”
The Coquette, And After
A Spot
Long Plighted
The Widow Betrothed
At A Hasty Wedding
The Dream-Follower
His Immortality
The To-Be-Forgotten
Wives In The Sere
The Superseded
An August Midnight
The Caged Thrush Freed And Home Again (Villanelle)
Birds At Winter Nightfall
The Puzzled Game-Birds
Winter In Durnover Field
The Last Chrysanthemum
The Darkling Thrush
The Comet At Yell'ham
Mad Judy
A Wasted Illness
A Man (In Memory Of H. Of M.)
The Dame Of Athelhall
The Seasons Of Her Year
The Milkmaid
The Levelled Churchyard
The Ruined Maid
The Respectable Burgher On “The Higher Criticism”
Architectural Masks
The Tenant-For-Life
The King's Experiment
The Tree - An Old Man's Story
Her Late Husband (King's Hintock, 182*)
The Self-Unseeing
In Tenebris I
In Tenebris Ii
In Tenebris Iii
The Church-Builder
The Lost Pyx - A Mediæval Legend
Tess's Lament
The Supplanter - A Tale
Imitations, Etc.
Sapphic Fragment
Catullus: Xxxi
After Schiller
Song From Heine
From Victor Hugo
Cardinal Bembo's Epitaph On Raphael
Retrospect
“I Have Lived With Shades”
Memory And I
Time's Laughing Stocks And Other Verses.
Time's Laughingstocks
The Revisitation
A Trampwoman's Tragedy
The Two Rosalinds
A Sunday Morning Tragedy
The House Of Hospitalities
Bereft
John And Jane
The Curate's Kindness - A Workhouse Irony
The Flirt's Tragedy
The Rejected Member's Wife
The Farm-Woman's Winter
Autumn In King's Hintock Park
Shut Out That Moon
Reminiscences Of A Dancing Man
The Dead Man Walking
More Love Lyrics
1967
Her Definition
The Division
On The Departure Platform
In A Cathedral City
“I Say I'll Seek Her”
Her Father
At Waking
Four Footprints
In The Vaulted Way
In The Mind's Eye
The End Of The Episode
The Sigh
“In The Night She Came”
The Conformers
The Dawn After The Dance
The Sun On The Letter
The Night Of The Dance
Misconception
The Voice Of The Thorn
From Her In The Country
Her Confession
To An Impersonator Of Rosalind
To An Actress
The Minute Before Meeting
He Abjures Love
A Set Of Country Songs
Let Me Enjoy
At Casterbridge Fair
The Dark-Eyed Gentleman
To Carrey Clavel
The Orphaned Old Maid
The Spring Call
Julie-Jane
News For Her Mother
The Fiddler
The Husband's View
Rose-Ann
The Homecoming
Pieces Occasional And Various
A Church Romance
The Rash Bride
The Dead Quire
The Christening
A Dream Question
By The Barrows
A Wife And Another
The Roman Road
The Vampirine Fair
The Reminder
The Rambler
Night In The Old Home
After The Last Breath
In Childbed
The Pine Planters
The Dear
One We Knew
She Hears The Storm
A Wet Night
Before Life And After
New Year's Eve
God's Education
To Sincerity
Panthera
The Unborn
The Man He Killed
Geographical Knowledge
One Ralph Blossom Soliloquizes
The Noble Lady's Tale
Unrealized
Wagtail And Baby
Aberdeen
George Meredith
Yell'ham-Wood's Story
A Young Man's Epigram On Existence
Moments Of Vision And Miscellaneous Verses
Moments Of Vision
The Voice Of Things
“Why Be At Pains?”
“We Sat At The Window”
Afternoon Service At Mellstock
At The Wicket-Gate
In A Museum
Apostrophe To An Old Psalm Tune
At The Word “Farewell”
First Sight Of Her And After
The Rival
Heredity
“You Were The Sort That Men Forget”
She, I, And They
Near Lanivet, 1872
Joys Of Memory
To The Moon
Copying Architecture In An Old Minster
To Shakespeare After Three Hundred Years
Quid Hic Agis?
On A Midsummer Eve
Timing Her
Before Knowledge
The Blinded Bird
“The Wind Blew Words”
The Faded Face
The Riddle
The Duel
At Mayfair Lodgings
To My Father's Violin
The Statue Of Liberty
The Background And The Figure
The Change
Sitting On The Bridge
The Young Churchwarden
“I Travel As A Phantom Now”
Lines To A Movement In Mozart's E-Flat Symphony
“In The Seventies”
The Pedigree
His Heart - A Woman's Dream
Where They Lived
The Occultation
Life Laughs Onward
The Peace-Offering
“Something Tapped”
The Wound
A Merrymaking In Question
“I Said And Sang Her Excellence”
A January Night
A Kiss
The Announcement
The Oxen
The Tresses
The Photograph
On A Heath
An Anniversary
“By The Runic Stone”
The Pink Frock
Transformations
In Her Precincts
The Last Signal
The House Of Silence
Great Things
The Chimes
The Figure In The Scene
“Why Did I Sketch”
Conjecture
The Blow
Love The Monopolist
At Middle-Field Gate In February
The Youth Who Carried A Light
The Head Above The Fog
Overlooking The River Stour
The Musical Box
On Sturminster Foot-Bridge
Royal Sponsors
Old Furniture
A Thought In Two Moods
The Last Performance
“You On The Tower”
The Interloper
Logs On The Hearth
The Sunshade
The Ageing House
The Caged Goldfinch
At Madame Tussaud's In Victorian Years
The Ballet
The Five Students
The Wind's Prophecy
During Wind And Rain
He Prefers Her Earthly
The Dolls
Molly Gone
A Backward Spring
Looking Across
At A Seaside Town In 1869
The Glimpse
The Pedestrian - An Incident Of 1883
“Who's In The Next Room?”
At A Country Fair
The Memorial Brass: 186*
Her Love-Birds
Paying Calls
The Upper Birch-Leaves
“It Never Looks Like Summer”
Everything Comes
The Man With A Past
He Fears His Good Fortune
He Wonders About Himself
Jubilate
He Revisits His First School
“I Thought, My Heart”
Fragment
[At Last I Entered A Long Dark Gallery]
Midnight On The Great Western
Honeymoon Time At An Inn
The Robin
“I Rose And Went To Rou'tor Town”
The Nettles
In A Waiting-Room
The Clock-Winder
Old Excursions
The Masked Face
In A Whispering Gallery
The Something That Saved Him
The Enemy's Portrait
Imaginings
On The Doorstep
Signs And Tokens
Paths Of Former Time
The Clock Of The Years
At The Piano
The Shadow On The Stone
In The Garden
The Tree And The Lady
An Upbraiding
The Young Glass-Stainer
Looking At A Picture On An Anniversary
The Choirmaster's Burial
The Man Who Forgot
While Drawing In A Churchyard
“For Life I Had Never Cared Greatly”
Poems Of War And Patriotism
“Men Who March Away”
His Country
England To Germany In 1914
On The Belgian Expatriation
An Appeal To America On Behalf Of The Belgian Destitute
The Pity Of It
In Time Of Wars And Tumults
In Time Of “The Breaking Of Nations”
Cry Of The Homeless - After The Prussian Invasion Of Belgium
Before Marching And After
“Often When Warring”
Then And Now
A Call To National Service
The Dead And The Living One
A New Year's Eve In War Time
“I Met A Man”
“I Looked Up From My Writing”
Finale - The Coming Of The End
Afterwards
Late Lyrics And Earlier
Weathers
The Maid Of Keinton Mandeville (A Tribute To Sir H. Bishop)
Summer Schemes
Epeisodia
Faintheart In A Railway Train
At Moonrise And Onwards
The Garden Seat
Barthélémon At Vauxhall
“I Sometimes Think”
Jezreel - On Its Seizure By The English Under Allenby, September 1918
A Jog-Trot Pair
“The Curtains Now Are Drawn”
“According To The Mighty Working”
“I Was Not He”
The West-Of-Wessex Girl
Welcome Home
Going And Staying
Read By Moonlight
At A House In Hampstead - Sometime The Dwelling Of John Keats
A Woman's Fancy
Her Song
A Wet August
The Dissemblers
To A Lady Playing And Singing In The Morning
“A Man Was Drawing Near To Me”
The Strange House
“As 'Twere To-Night”
The Contretemps
A Gentleman's Epitaph On Himself And A Lady, Who Were Buried Together
The Old Gown
A Night In November
“Where Three Roads Joined”
“And There Was A Great Calm”
Haunting Fingers - A Phantasy In A Museum Of Musical Instruments
The Woman I Met
“If It's Ever Spring Again”
The Two Houses
On Stinsford Hill At Midnight
The Fallow Deer At The Lonely House
The Selfsame Song
The Wanderer
A Wife Comes Back
A Young Man's Exhortation
At Lulworth Cove A Century Back
A Bygone Occasion
Two Serenades
The Wedding Morning
End Of The Year 1912
The Chimes Play “Life's A Bumper!”
“I Worked No Wile To Meet You”
At The Railway Station, Upway
Side By Side
Dream Of The City Shopwoman
A Maiden's Pledge
The Child And The Sage
Mismet
An Autumn Rain-Scene
Meditations On A Holiday
An Experience
The Beauty
The Collector Cleans His Picture
The Wood Fire
Saying Good-Bye
On The Tune Called The Old-Hundred And-Fourth
The Opportunity
Evelyn G. Of Christminster
The Rift
Voices From Things Growing In A Churchyard
On The Way
“She Did Not Turn”
Growth In May
The Children And Sir Nameless
At The Royal Academy
Her Temple
A Two-Years' Idyll
By Henstridge Cross At The Year's End
Penance
“I Look In Her Face”
After The War
“If You Had Known”
The Chapel-Organist
Fetching Her
“Could I But Will”
She Revisits Alone The Church Of Her Marriage
At The Entering Of The New Year
I (Old Style)
Ii (New Style)
They Would Not Come
After A Romantic Day
The Two Wives
“I Knew A Lady”
A House With A History
A Procession Of Dead Days
He Follows Himself
The Singing Woman
Without, Not Within Her
“O I Won't Lead A Homely Life”
In The Small Hours
The Little Old Table
Vagg Hollow
The Dream Is—Which?
The Country Wedding
First Or Last
Lonely Days
“What Did It Mean?”
At The Dinner-Table
The Marble Tablet
The Master And The Leaves
Last Words To A Dumb Friend
A Drizzling Easter Morning
On One Who Lived And Died Where He Was Born
The Second Night
She Who Saw Not
The Old Workman
The Sailor's Mother
Outside The Casement - (A Reminiscence Of The War)
The Passer-By
“I Was The Midmost”
A Sound In The Night
On A Discovered Curl Of Hair
An Old Likeness
Her Apotheosis
“Sacred To The Memory”
To A Well-Named Dwelling
The Whipper-In
A Military Appointment
The Milestone By The Rabbit-Burrow
The Lament Of The Looking-Glass
Cross-Currents
The Old Neighbour And The New
The Chosen
The Inscription
The Marble-Streeted Town
A Woman Driving
A Woman's Trust
Best Times
The Casual Acquaintance
Intra Sepulchrum
The Whitewashed Wall
Just The Same
The Last Time
The Seven Times
The Sun's Last Look On The Country Girl
In A London Flat
Drawing Details In An Old Church
Rake-Hell Muses
The Colour
Murmurs In The Gloom
Epitaph
An Ancient To Ancients
After Reading Psalms Xxxix., Xl., Etc.
Surview
Satires Of Circumstance, Lyrics And Reveries
Lyrics And Reveries In Front Of The Landscape
Channel Firing
The Convergence Of The Twain
The Ghost Of The Past
After The Visit
To Meet, Or Otherwise
The Difference
The Sun On The Bookcase
“When I Set Out For Lyonnesse”
A Thunderstorm In Town
The Torn Letter
Beyond The Last Lamp
The Face At The Casement
Lost Love
“My Spirit Will Not Haunt The Mound”
Wessex Heights
In Death Divided
The Place On The Map
The Schreckhorn
A Singer Asleep
A Plaint To Man
God's Funeral
Spectres That Grieve
“Ah, Are You Digging On My Grave?”
Self-Unconscious
The Discovery
Tolerance
Before And After Summer
At Day-Close In November
The Year's Awakening
Under The Waterfall
The Going
Your Last Drive
The Walk
Rain On A Grave
“I Found Her Out There”
Without Ceremony
Lament
The Haunter
The Voice
His Visitor
A Circular
A Dream Or No
After A Journey
A Death-Day Recalled
Beeny Cliff
At Castle Boterel
Places
The Phantom Horsewoman
The Spell Of The Rose
St. Launce's Revisited
Where The Picnic Was
The Wistful Lady
The Woman In The Rye
The Cheval-Glass
The Re-Enactment
Her Secret
“She Charged Me”
The Newcomer's Wife
A Conversation At Dawn
A King's Soliloquy On The Night Of His Funeral
The Coronation
Aquae Sulis
Seventy-Four And Twenty
The Elopement
“I Rose Up As My Custom Is”
A Week
Had You Wept
Bereft, She Thinks She Dreams
In The British Museum
In The Servants' Quarters
The Obliterate Tomb
“Regret Not Me”
The Recalcitrants
Starlings On The Roof
The Moon Looks In
The Sweet Hussy
The Telegram
The Moth-Signal
Seen By The Waits
The Two Soldiers
The Death Of Regret
In The Days Of Crinoline
The Roman Gravemounds
The Workbox
The Sacrilege (A Ballad-Tragedy)
The Abbey Mason
The Jubilee Of A Magazine
The Satin Shoes
Exeunt Omnes
A Poet
Satires Of Circumstance In Fifteen Glimpses
I At Tea
Ii In Church
Iii By Her Aunt's Grave
Iv In The Room Of The Bride-Elect
V At A Watering-Place
Vi In The Cemetery
Vii Outside The Window
Viii In The Study
Ix At The Altar-Rail
X In The Nuptial Chamber
Xi In The Restaurant
Xii At The Draper's
Xiii On The Death-Bed
Xiv Over The Coffin
Xv In The Moonlight
Human Shows, Far Phantasies, Songs, And Trifles
Waiting Both
A Bird-Scene At A Rural Dwelling
“Any Little Old Song”
In A Former Resort After Many Years
A Cathedral Façade At Midnight
The Turnip-Hoer
The Carrier
Lover To Mistress
The Monument-Maker
Circus-Rider To Ringmaster
Last Week In October
Come Not; Yet Come!
The Later Autumn
“Let Me Believe”
At A Fashionable Dinner
Green Slates
An East-End Curate
At Rushy-Pond
Four In The Morning
On The Esplanade
In St. Paul's A While Ago
Coming Up Oxford Street: Evening
A Last Journey
Singing Lovers
The Month's Calendar
A Spellbound Palace
When Dead
Sine Prole
Ten Years Since
Every Artemisia
The Best She Could
The Graveyard Of Dead Creeds
“There Seemed A Strangeness”
A Night Of Questionings
Xenophanes, The Monist Of Colophon
Life And Death At Sunrise
Night-Time In Mid-Fall
A Sheep Fair
Postscript
Snow In The Suburbs
A Light Snow-Fall After Frost
Winter Night In Woodland
Ice On The Highway
Music In A Snowy Street
The Frozen Greenhouse
Two Lips
No Buyers
One Who Married Above Him
The New Toy
Queen Caroline To Her Guests
Plena Timoris
The Weary Walker
Last Love-Word
Nobody Comes
In The Street
The Last Leaf
At Wynyard's Gap
At Shag's Heath
A Second Attempt
“Freed The Fret Of Thinking”
The Absolute Explains
“So, Time”
An Inquiry
The Faithful Swallow
In Sherborne Abbey
The Pair He Saw Pass
The Mock Wife
The Fight On Durnover Moor
Last Look Round St. Martin's Fair
The Caricature
A Leader Of Fashion
Midnight On Beechen, 187*
The Aërolite
The Prospect
Genitrix Laesa
The Fading Rose
When Oats Were Reaped
Louie
“She Opened The Door”
“What's There To Tell?”
The Harbour Bridge
Vagrant's Song
Farmer Dunman's Funeral
The Sexton At Longpuddle
The Harvest-Supper
At A Pause In A Country Dance
On The Portrait Of A Woman About To Be Hanged
The Church And The Wedding
The Shiver
“Not Only I”
She Saw Him, She Said
Once At Swanage
The Flower's Tragedy
At The Aquatic Sports
A Watcher's Regret
Horses Aboard
The History Of An Hour
The Missed Train
Under High-Stoy Hill
At The Mill
Alike And Unlike
The Thing Unplanned
The Sheep-Boy
Retty's Phases
A Poor Man And A Lady
An Expostulation
To A Sea-Cliff
The Echo-Elf Answers
Cynic's Epitaph
A Beauty's Soliloquy During Her Honeymoon
Donaghadee
He Inadvertently Cures His Love-Pains
The Peace Peal
Lady Vi
A Popular Personage At Home
Inscriptions For A Peal Of Eight Bells
A Refusal
Epitaph On A Pessimist
The Protean Maiden
A Watering-Place Lady Inventoried
The Sea Fight
Paradox
The Rover Come Home
“Known Had I”
The Pat Of Butter
Bags Of Meat
The Sundial On A Wet Day
Her Haunting-Ground
A Parting-Scene
Shortening Days At The Homestead
Days To Recollect
To C. F. H.
The High-School Lawn
The Forbidden Banns
The Paphian Ball
On Martock Moor
That Moment
Premonitions
This Summer And Last
“Nothing Matters Much”
In The Evening
The Six Boards
Before My Friend Arrived
Compassion
“Why She Moved House”
Tragedian To Tragedienne
The Lady Of Forebodings
The Bird-Catcher's Boy
A Hurried Meeting
Discouragement
A Leaving
Song To An Old Burden
“Why Do I?”
Winter Words In Various Moods And Metres
The New Dawn's Business
Proud Songsters
Thoughts At Midnight
“I Am The One”
The Prophetess
A Wish For Unconsciousness
The Bad Example
To Louisa In The Lane
Love Watches A Window
The Love-Letters
An Unkindly May
Unkept Good Fridays
The Mound
Liddell And Scott
Christmastide
Reluctant Confession
Expectation And Experience
Aristodemus The Messenian
Evening Shadows
The Three Tall Men
The Lodging-House Fuchsias
The Whaler's Wife
Throwing A Tree
The War-Wife Of Catknoll
Concerning His Old Home
Her Second Husband Hears Her Story
Yuletide In A Younger World
After The Death Of A Friend
The Son's Portrait
Lying Awake
The Lady In The Furs
Childhood Among The Ferns
A Countenance
A Poet's Thought
Silences
“I Watched A Blackbird”
A Nightmare, And The Next Thing
To A Tree In London
The Felled Elm And She
He Did Not Know Me
So Various
A Self-Glamourer
The Dead Bastard
The Clasped Skeletons
In The Marquee
After The Burial
The Mongrel
Concerning Agnes
Henley Regatta
An Evening In Galilee
The Brother
We Field-Women
A Practical Woman
Squire Hooper
“A Gentleman's Second-Hand Suit”
“We Say We Shall Not Meet”
Seeing The Moon Rise
Song To Aurore
He Never Expected Much
Standing By The Mantelpiece
Boys Then And Now
That Kiss In The Dark
A Necessitarian's Epitaph
Burning The Holly
Suspense
The Second Visit
Our Old Friend Dualism
Faithful Wilson
Gallant's Song
A Philosophical Fantasy
A Question Of Marriage
The Letter's Triumph
A Forgotten Miniature
Whispered At The Church-Opening
In Weatherbury Stocks
A Placid Man's Epitaph
The New Boots
The Musing Maiden
Lorna The Second
A Daughter Returns
The Third Kissing-Gate
Drinking Song
The Tarrying Bridegroom
The Destined Pair
A Musical Incident
June Leaves And Autumn
No Bell-Ringing
“I Looked Back”
The Aged Newspaper Soliloquizes
Christmas: 1924
The Single Witness
How She Went To Ireland
Dead “Wessex” The Dog To The Household
The Woman Who Went East
Not Known
The Boy's Dream
The Gap In The White
Family Portraits
The Catching Ballet Of The Wedding Clothes
A Winsome Woman
The Ballad Of Love's Skeleton
A Private Man On Public Men
Christmas In The Elgin Room
“We Are Getting To The End”
He Resolves To Say No More
The Poetical Works Of Thomas Hardy (Annotated Edition)
Jazzybee Verlag Jürgen Beck
86450 Altenmünster, Loschberg 9
Germany
ISBN: 9783849640453
www.jazzybee-verlag.de
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Thomas Hardy – A Biographical Primer
English novelist, was born in Dorsetshire on the 2nd of June 1840. His family was one of the branches of the Dorset Hardys, formerly of influence in and near the valley of the Frome, claiming descent of John Le Hardy of Jersey (son of Clement Le Hardy, lieutenant-governor of that island in 1488), who settled in the west of England. His maternal ancestors were the Swetman, Childs or Child, and kindred families, who before and after 1635 were small landed proprietors in Melbury Osmond, Dorset, and adjoining parishes. He was educated at local schools, 1848–1854, and afterwards privately, and in 1856 was articled to Mr. John Hicks, an ecclesiastical architect of Dorchester. In 1859 he began writing verse and essays, but in 1861 was compelled to apply himself more strictly to architecture, sketching and measuring many old Dorset churches with a view to their restoration. In 1862 he went to London (which he had first visited at the age of nine) and became assistant to the late Sir Arthur Blomfield, R.A. In 1863 he won the medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects for an essay on Coloured Brick and Terra-cotta Architecture, and in the same year won the prize of the Architectural Association for design. In March 1965 his first short story was published in Chamber’s Journal, and during the next two or three years he wrote a great deal of verse, being somewhat uncertain whether to take to architecture or to literature as a profession. In 1867 he left London for Weymouth, and during that and the following year wrote a “purpose” story, which in 1869 was accepted by Messrs Chapman and Hall. The manuscript had been read by Mr. George Meredith, who asked the writer to call on him, and advised him not to print it, but to try another, with more plot. The manuscript was withdrawn and re-written, but never published. In 1870 Mr. Hardy took Mr. Meredith’s advice too literally, and constructed a novel that was all plot, which was published under the title Desperate Remedies. In 1872 appeared Under the Greenwood Tree, “a rural painting of the Dutch school,” in which Mr. Hardy had already “found himself,” and which he has never surpassed in happy and delicate perfection of art. A Pair of Blue Eyes, in which tragedy and irony come into his work together, was published in 1873. In 1874 Mr. Hardy married Emma Lavinia, daughter of the late T. Attersoll Gifford of Plymouth. His first popular success was made by Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), which, on its appearance anonymously in the Cornhill Magazine, was attributed by many to George Eliot. Then came The Hand of Ethelberta (1876), described, not inaptly, as “a comedy in chapters”; The Return of the Native (1878), the most sombre and, in some ways, the most powerful and characteristic of Mr. Hardy’s novels; The Trumpet-Major (1880); A Laodicean (1881); Two on a Tower (1882), a long excursion in constructive irony; The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886); The Woodlanders (1887); Wessex Tales (1888); A Group of Noble Dames (1891); Tess of the D’ Urbervilles (1891), Mr. Hardy’s most famous novel; Life’s Little Ironies (1894); Jude the Obscure (1895), his most thoughtful and least popular book; The Well-Beloved, a reprint, with some revision, of a story originally published in the Illustrated London News in 1892 (1897); Wessex Poems, written during the previous thirty years, with illustrations by the author; and The Dynasts (2 parts, 1904–1906). In 1909 appeared Time’s Laughing-stocks and other Verses. In all his works Mr. Hardy is concerned with one thing, seen under two aspects; not civilizations, nor manners, but the principle of life itself, invisibly realized in humanity as sex, seen visibly in the world as what we call nature. He is a fatalist, perhaps rather a determinist, and he studies the workings of fate or law (ruling through inexorable moods or humours), in the chief vivifying and disturbing influence in life, women. His view of women is more French than English; it is subtle, a little cruel, not as tolerant as it seems, thoroughly a man’s point of view, and not, as with Mr. Meredith, man’s and woman’s at once. He sees all that is irresponsible for good and evil in a woman’s character, all that is untrustworthy in her brain and will, all that is alluring in her variability. He is her apologist, but always with a reserve of private judgment. No one has created more attractive women of a certain class, women whom a man would have been more likely to love or regret loving. In his earlier books he is somewhat careful over the reputation of his heroines; gradually, he allows them more liberty, with a franker treatment of instinct and its consequence. Jude the Obscure is perhaps the most unbiased consideration in English fiction of the more complicated question of sex. There is almost no passion in his work, neither the author nor his characters ever seeming to pass beyond the state of curiosity, the most intellectually interesting of limitations, under the influence of any emotion. In his feeling for nature, curiosity sometimes seems to broaden into a more intimate communion. The heath, the village with its peasants, the change of every hour among the fields and on the roads of that English countryside which he made his own—the Dorsetshire and Wiltshire “Wessex”—mean more to him, in a sense, than even the spectacle of man and woman in their blind and painful and absorbing struggle for existence. His knowledge of woman confirms him in a suspension of judgment; his knowledge of nature brings him nearer to the unchanging and consoling element in the world. All the entertainment which he gets out of life comes to him from his contemplation of the peasant, as himself a rooted part of the earth, translating the dumbness of the fields into humour. His peasants have been compared with Shakespeare’s; he has the Shakesperean sense of their placid vegetation by the side of hurrying animal life, to which they act the part of chorus, with an unconscious wisdom in their close, narrow and undistracted view of things. The order of merit was conferred upon Mr. Hardy in July 1910.
WESSEX POEMS AND OTHER VERSES
THE TEMPORARY THE ALL
(SAPPHICS)
Change and chancefulness in my flowering youthtime, Set me sun by sun near to one unchosen; Wrought us fellowlike, and despite divergence, Fused us in friendship.
“Cherish him can I while the true one forthcome— Come the rich fulfiller of my prevision; Life is roomy yet, and the odds unbounded.” So self-communed I.
'Thwart my wistful way did a damsel saunter, Fair, albeit unformed to be all-eclipsing; “Maiden meet,” held I, “till arise my forefelt Wonder of women.”
Long a visioned hermitage deep desiring, Tenements uncouth I was fain to house in: “Let such lodging be for a breath-while,” thought I, “Soon a more seemly.
“Then high handiwork will I make my life-deed, Truth and Light outshow; but the ripe time pending, Intermissive aim at the thing sufficeth.” Thus I. . . . But lo, me!
Mistress, friend, place, aims to be bettered straightway, Bettered not has Fate or my hand's achievement; Sole the showance those of my onward earth-track— Never transcended!
AMABEL
I marked her ruined hues, Her custom-straitened views, And asked, “Can there indwell My Amabel?”
I looked upon her gown, Once rose, now earthen brown; The change was like the knell Of Amabel.
Her step's mechanic ways Had lost the life of May's; Her laugh, once sweet in swell, Spoilt Amabel.
I mused: “Who sings the strain I sang ere warmth did wane? Who thinks its numbers spell His Amabel?”—
Knowing that, though Love cease, Love's race shows no decrease; All find in dorp or dell An Amabel.
—I felt that I could creep To some housetop, and weep That Time the tyrant fell Ruled Amabel!
I said (the while I sighed That love like ours had died), “Fond things I'll no more tell To Amabel,
“But leave her to her fate, And fling across the gate, ‘Till the Last Trump, farewell, O Amabel!’”
1865.
HAP
If but some vengeful god would call to me From up the sky, and laugh: “Thou suffering thing, Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy, That thy love's loss is my hate's profiting!”
Then would I bear it, clench myself, and die, Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited; Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.
But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain, And why unblooms the best hope ever sown? —Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain, And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan. . . . These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.
1866.
“IN VISION I ROAMED”
TO ---
In vision I roamed the flashing Firmament, So fierce in blazon that the Night waxed wan, As though with awe at orbs of such ostént; And as I thought my spirit ranged on and on
In footless traverse through ghast heights of sky, To the last chambers of the monstrous Dome, Where stars the brightest here are lost to the eye: Then, any spot on our own Earth seemed Home!
And the sick grief that you were far away Grew pleasant thankfulness that you were near, Who might have been, set on some foreign Sphere, Less than a Want to me, as day by day I lived unware, uncaring all that lay Locked in that Universe taciturn and drear.
1866.
NATURE'S INDIFFERENCE
When you paced forth, to await maternity, A dream of other offspring held my mind, Compounded of us twain as Love designed; Rare forms, that corporate now will never be!
Should I, too, wed as slave to Mode's decree, And each thus found apart, of false desire, A stolid line, whom no high aims will fire As had fired ours could ever have mingled we;
And, grieved that lives so matched should miscompose, Each mourn the double waste; and question dare To the Great Dame whence incarnation flows, Why those high-purposed children never were: What will she answer? That she does not care If the race all such sovereign types unknows.
1866.
POSTPONEMENT
Snow-bound in woodland, a mournful word, Dropt now and then from the bill of a bird, Reached me on wind-wafts; and thus I heard, Wearily waiting:—
“I planned her a nest in a leafless tree, But the passers eyed and twitted me, And said: ‘How reckless a bird is he, Cheerily mating!’
“Fear-filled, I stayed me till summer-tide, In lewth of leaves to throne her bride; But alas! her love for me waned and died. Wearily waiting.
“Ah, had I been like some I see, Born to an evergreen nesting-tree, None had eyed and twitted me, Cheerily mating!”
1866.
A CONFESSION TO A FRIEND IN TROUBLE
Your troubles shrink not, though I feel them less Here, far away, than when I tarried near; I even smile old smiles—with listlessness— Yet smiles they are, not ghastly mockeries mere.
A thought too strange to house within my brain Haunting its outer precincts I discern:—That I will not show zeal again to learnYour griefs, and, sharing them, renew my pain. . . .
It goes, like murky bird or buccaneer That shapes its lawless figure on the main, And staunchness tends to banish utterly The unseemly instinct that had lodgment here; Yet, comrade old, can bitterer knowledge be Than that, though banned, such instinct was in me!
1866.
NEUTRAL TONES
We stood by a pond that winter day, And the sun was white, as though chidden of God, And a few leaves lay on the starving sod; —They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.
Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove Over tedious riddles of years ago; And some words played between us to and fro On which lost the more by our love.
The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing Alive enough to have strength to die; And a grin of bitterness swept thereby Like an ominous bird a-wing. . . .
Since then, keen lessons that love deceives, And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me Your face, and the God-curst sun, and a tree, And a pond edged with grayish leaves.
1867.
SHE AT HIS FUNERAL
They bear him to his resting-place— In slow procession sweeping by; I follow at a stranger's space; His kindred they, his sweetheart I. Unchanged my gown of garish dye, Though sable-sad is their attire; But they stand round with griefless eye, Whilst my regret consumes like fire!
187*.
HER INITIALS
Upon a poet's page I wrote Of old two letters of her name; Part seemed she of the effulgent thought Whence that high singer's rapture came. —When now I turn the leaf the same Immortal light illumes the lay, But from the letters of her name The radiance has waned away!
1869.
HER DILEMMA(IN --- CHURCH)
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 long 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.
1866.
REVULSION
Though I waste watches framing words to fetter Some unknown spirit to mine in clasp and kiss, Out of the night there looms a sense 'twere better To fail obtaining whom one fails to miss.
For winning love we win the risk of losing, And losing love is as one's life were riven; It cuts like contumely and keen ill-using To cede what was superfluously given.
Let me then never feel the fateful thrilling That devastates the love-worn wooer's frame, The hot ado of fevered hopes, the chilling That agonizes disappointed aim! So may I live no junctive law fulfilling, And my heart's table bear no woman's name.
1866.
SHE, TO HIM
I
When you shall see me in the toils of Time, My lauded beauties carried off from me, My eyes no longer stars as in their prime, My name forgot of Maiden Fair and Free;
When, in your being, heart concedes to mind, And judgment, though you scarce its process know, Recalls the excellencies I once enshrined, And you are irked that they have withered so:
Remembering mine the loss is, not the blame, That Sportsman Time but rears his brood to kill, Knowing me in my soul the very same— One who would die to spare you touch of ill!— Will you not grant to old affection's claim The hand of friendship down Life's sunless hill?
1866.
II
Perhaps, long hence, when I have passed away, Some other's feature, accent, thought like mine, Will carry you back to what I used to say, And bring some memory of your love's decline.
Then you may pause awhile and think, “Poor jade!” And yield a sigh to me—as ample due, Not as the tittle of a debt unpaid To one who could resign her all to you—
And thus reflecting, you will never see That your thin thought, in two small words conveyed, Was no such fleeting phantom-thought to me, But the Whole Life wherein my part was played; And you amid its fitful masquerade A Thought—as I in your life seem to be!
1866.
III
I will be faithful to thee; aye, I will! And Death shall choose me with a wondering eye That he did not discern and domicile One his by right ever since that last Good-bye!
I have no care for friends, or kin, or prime Of manhood who deal gently with me here; Amid the happy people of my time Who work their love's fulfilment, I appear
Numb as a vane that cankers on its point, True to the wind that kissed ere canker came: Despised by souls of Now, who would disjoint The mind from memory, making Life all aim,
My old dexterities in witchery gone, And nothing left for Love to look upon.
1866.
IV
This love puts all humanity from me; I can but maledict her, pray her dead, For giving love and getting love of thee— Feeding a heart that else mine own had fed!
How much I love I know not, life not known, Save as one unit I would add love by; But this I know, my being is but thine own— Fused from its separateness by ecstasy.
And thus I grasp thy amplitudes, of her Ungrasped, though helped by nigh-regarding eyes; Canst thou then hate me as an envier Who see unrecked what I so dearly prize? Believe me, Lost One, Love is lovelier The more it shapes its moan in selfish-wise.
1866.
DITTY
(E. L. G.)
Beneath a knap where flown Nestlings play, Within walls of weathered stone, Far away From the files of formal houses, By the bough the firstling browses, Lives a Sweet: no merchants meet, No man barters, no man sells Where she dwells.
Upon that fabric fair “Here is she!” Seems written everywhere Unto me. But to friends and nodding neighbours, Fellow-wights in lot and labours, Who descry the times as I, No such lucid legend tells Where she dwells.
Should I lapse to what I was Ere we met; (Such will not be, but because Some forget Let me feign it)—none would notice That where she I know by rote is Spread a strange and withering change. Like a drying of the wells Where she dwells.
To feel I might have kissed— Loved as true— Otherwhere, nor Mine have missed My life through, Had I never wandered near her, Is a smart severe—severer In the thought that she is nought, Even as I, beyond the dells Where she dwells.
And Devotion droops her glance To recall What bond-servants of Chance We are all. I but found her in that, going On my errant path unknowing, I did not out-skirt the spot That no spot on earth excels, —Where she dwells!
1870.
THE SERGEANT'S SONG
(1803)
When Lawyers strive to heal a breach, And Parsons practise what they preach; Then Boney he'll come pouncing down, And march his men on London town! Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lorum, Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lay!
When Justices hold equal scales, And Rogues are only found in jails; Then Boney he'll come pouncing down, And march his men on London town! Rollicum-rorum, &c.
When Rich Men find their wealth a curse, And fill therewith the Poor Man's purse; Then Boney he'll come pouncing down, And march his men on London town! Rollicum-rorum, &c.
When Husbands with their Wives agree, And Maids won't wed from modesty; Then Boney he'll come pouncing down, And march his men on London town! Rollicum-rorum, tol-tol-lorum, Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lay!
1878.
Published in “The Trumpet-Major” 1880.
VALENCIENNES
(1793)
By Corp'l Tullidge, in “The Trumpet Major.”
In Memory of S. C. (Pensioner). Died 184*
We trenched, we trumpeted and drummed, And from our mortars tons of iron hummed Ath'art the ditch, the month we bombed The Town o' Valencieën.
'Twas in the June o' Ninety-dree (The Duke o' Yark our then Commander been) The German Legion, Guards, and we Laid siege to Valencieën.
This was the first time in the war That French and English spilled each other's gore; —Few dreamt how far would roll the roar Begun at Valencieën!
'Twas said that we'd no business there A-topperèn the French for disagreën; However, that's not my affair— We were at Valencieën.
Such snocks and slats, since war began Never knew raw recruit or veteràn: Stone-deaf therence went many a man Who served at Valencieën.
Into the streets, ath'art the sky, A hundred thousand balls and bombs were fleën; And harmless townsfolk fell to die Each hour at Valencieën!
And, sweatèn wi' the bombardiers, A shell was slent to shards anighst my ears: —'Twas nigh the end of hopes and fears For me at Valencieën!
They bore my wownded frame to camp, And shut my gapèn skull, and washed en cleän, And jined en wi' a zilver clamp Thik night at Valencieën.
“We've fetched en back to quick from dead But never more on earth while rose is red Will drum rouse Corpel!” Doctor said O' me at Valencieën.
'Twer true. No voice o' friend or foe Can reach me now, or any livèn beën; And little have I power to know Since then at Valencieën!
I never hear the zummer hums O' bees; and don' know when the cuckoo comes; But night and day I hear the bombs We threw at Valencieën. . . .
As for the Duke o' Yark in war, There may be volk whose judgment o' en is meän; But this I say—he was not far From great at Valencieën.
O' wild wet nights, when all seems sad, My wownds come back, as though new wownds I'd had; But yet—at times I'm sort o' glad I fout at Valencieën.
Well: Heaven wi' its jasper halls Is now the on'y Town I care to be in. . . . Good Lord, if Nick should bomb the walls As we did Valencieën!
1878–1897.
SAN SEBASTIAN
(August 1813)
With Thoughts of Sergeant M--- (Pensioner), who died 185*
“Why, Sergeant, stray on the Ivel Way, As though at home there were spectres rife? From first to last 'twas a proud career! And your sunny years with a gracious wife Have brought you a daughter dear.
“I watched her to-day; a more comely maid, As she danced in her muslin bowed with blue, Round a Hintock maypole never gayed.” —“Aye, aye; I watched her this day, too, As it happens,” the Sergeant said.
“My daughter is now,” he again began, “Of just such an age as one I knew When we of the Line, the Forlorn-hope van, On an August morning—a chosen few— Stormed San Sebastian.
“She's a score less three; so about was she— The maiden I wronged in Peninsular days. . . . You may prate of your prowess in lusty times, But as years gnaw inward you blink your bays, And see too well your crimes!
“We'd stormed it at night, by the flapping light Of burning towers, and the mortar's boom: We'd topped the breach; but had failed to stay, For our files were misled by the baffling gloom; And we said we'd storm by day.
“So, out of the trenches, with features set, On that hot, still morning, in measured pace, Our column climbed; climbed higher yet, Past the fauss'bray, scarp, up the curtain-face, And along the parapet.
“From the batteried hornwork the cannoneers Hove crashing balls of iron fire; On the shaking gap mount the volunteers In files, and as they mount expire Amid curses, groans, and cheers.
“Five hours did we storm, five hours re-form, As Death cooled those hot blood pricked on; Till our cause was helped by a woe within: They were blown from the summit we'd leapt upon, And madly we entered in.
“On end for plunder, 'mid rain and thunder That burst with the lull of our cannonade, We vamped the streets in the stifling air— Our hunger unsoothed, our thirst unstayed— And ransacked the buildings there.
“From the shady vaults of their walls of white We rolled rich puncheons of Spanish grape,
THE STRANGER'S SONG
(As sung by Mr. Charles Charrington in the play of “The Three Wayfarers”)
O my trade it is the rarest one, Simple shepherds all— My trade is a sight to see; For my customers I tie, and take 'em up on high, And waft 'em to a far countree!
My tools are but common ones, Simple shepherds all— My tools are no sight to see: A little hempen string, and a post whereon to swing. Are implements enough for me!
To-morrow is my working day, Simple shepherds all— To-morrow is a working day for me: For the farmer's sheep is slain, and the lad who did it ta'en, And on his soul may God ha' mer-cy!
Printed in “The Three Strangers,” 1883.
THE BURGHERS
(17**)
The sun had wheeled from Grey's to Dammer's Crest, And still I mused on that Thing imminent: At length I sought the High-street to the West.
The level flare raked pane and pediment And my wrecked face, and shaped my nearing friend Like one of those the Furnace held unshent.
“I've news concerning her,” he said. “Attend. They fly to-night at the late moon's first gleam: Watch with thy steel: two righteous thrusts will end
Her shameless visions and his passioned dream. I'll watch with thee, to testify thy wrong— To aid, maybe.—Law consecrates the scheme.”
I started, and we paced the flags along Till I replied: “Since it has come to this I'll do it! But alone. I can be strong.”
Three hours past Curfew, when the Froom's mild hiss Reigned sole, undulled by whirr of merchandize, From Pummery-Tout to where the Gibbet is,
I crossed my pleasaunce hard by Glyd'path Rise, And stood beneath the wall. Eleven strokes went, And to the door they came, contrariwise,
And met in clasp so close I had but bent My lifted blade on either to have let Their two souls loose upon the firmament.
But something held my arm. “A moment yet As pray-time ere you wantons die!” I said; And then they saw me. Swift her gaze was set
With eye and cry of love illimited Upon her Heart-king. Never upon me Had she thrown look of love so thoroughsped! . . .
At once she flung her faint form shieldingly On his, against the vengeance of my vows; The which o'erruling, her shape shielded he.
Blanked by such love, I stood as in a drowse, And the slow moon edged from the upland nigh, My sad thoughts moving thuswise: “I may house
And I may husband her, yet what am I But licensed tyrant to this bonded pair? Says Charity, Do as ye would be done by.” . . .
Hurling my iron to the bushes there, I bade them stay. And, as if brain and breast Were passive, they walked with me to the stair.
Inside the house none watched; and on we prest Before a mirror, in whose gleam I read Her beauty, his,—and mine own mien unblest;
Till at her room I turned. “Madam,” I said, “Have you the wherewithal for this? Pray speak. Love fills no cupboard. You'll need daily bread.”
“We've nothing, sire,” she lipped; “and nothing seek. 'Twere base in me to rob my lord unware; Our hands will earn a pittance week by week.”
And next I saw she had piled her raiment rare Within the garde-robes, and her household purse, Her jewels, her least lace of personal wear;
And stood in homespun. Now grown wholly hers, I handed her the gold, her jewels all, And him the choicest of her robes diverse.
“I'll take you to the doorway in the wall, And then adieu,” I told them. “Friends, withdraw.” They did so; and she went—beyond recall.
And as I paused beneath the arch I saw Their moonlit figures—slow, as in surprise— Descend the slope, and vanish on the haw.
“‘Fool,’ some will say,” I thought.—“But who is wise, Save God alone, to weigh my reasons why?” —“Hast thou struck home?” came with the boughs' night-sighs.
It was my friend. “I have struck well. They fly, But carry wounds that none can cicatrize.” —“Not mortal?” said he. “Lingering—worse,” said I.
LEIPZIG
(1813)
Scene.—The Master-tradesmen's Parlour at the Old Ship Inn, Casterbridge. Evening.
“Old Norbert with the flat blue cap— A German said to be— Why let your pipe die on your lap, Your eyes blink absently?”
—“Ah! . . . Well, I had thought till my cheek was wet Of my mother—her voice and mien When she used to sing and pirouette, And tap the tambourine
“To the march that yon street-fiddler plies: She told me 'twas the same She'd heard from the trumpets, when the Allies Burst on her home like flame.
“My father was one of the German Hussars, My mother of Leipzig; but he, Being quartered here, fetched her at close of the wars, And a Wessex lad reared me.
“And as I grew up, again and again She'd tell, after trilling that air, Of her youth, and the battles on Leipzig plain And of all that was suffered there! . . .
“—'Twas a time of alarms. Three Chiefs-at-arms Combined them to crush One, And by numbers' might, for in equal fight He stood the matched of none.
“Carl Schwarzenberg was of the plot, And Blücher, prompt and prow, And Jean the Crown-Prince Bernadotte: Buonaparte was the foe.
“City and plain had felt his reign From the North to the Middle Sea, And he'd now sat down in the noble town Of the King of Saxony.
“October's deep dew its wet gossamer threw Upon Leipzig's lawns, leaf-strewn, Where lately each fair avenue Wrought shade for summer noon.
“To westward two dull rivers crept Through miles of marsh and slough, Whereover a streak of whiteness swept— The Bridge of Lindenau.
“Hard by, in the City, the One, care-tossed, Sat pondering his shrunken power; And without the walls the hemming host Waxed denser every hour.
“He had speech that night on the morrow's designs With his chiefs by the bivouac fire, While the belt of flames from the enemy's lines Flared nigher him yet and nigher.
“Three rockets then from the girdling trine Told, ‘Ready!’ As they rose Their flashes seemed his Judgment-Sign For bleeding Europe's woes.
“'Twas seen how the French watch-fires that night Glowed still and steadily; And the Three rejoiced, for they read in the sight That the One disdained to flee. . . .
“—Five hundred guns began the affray On next day morn at nine; Such mad and mangling cannon-play Had never torn human line.
“Around the town three battles beat, Contracting like a gin; As nearer marched the million feet Of columns closing in.
“The first battle nighed on the low Southern side; The second by the Western way; The nearing of the third on the North was heard; —The French held all at bay.
“Against the first band did the Emperor stand; Against the second stood Ney; Marmont against the third gave the order-word: —Thus raged it throughout the day.
“Fifty thousand sturdy souls on those trampled plains and knolls, Who met the dawn hopefully, And were lotted their shares in a quarrel not theirs, Dropt then in their agony.
“‘O,’ the old folks said, ‘ye Preachers stern! O so-called Christian time! When will men's swords to ploughshares turn? When come the promised prime?’ . . .
“—The clash of horse and man which that day began, Closed not as evening wore; And the morrow's armies, rear and van, Still mustered more and more.
“From the City towers the Confederate Powers Were eyed in glittering lines, And up from the vast a murmuring passed As from a wood of pines.
“‘'Tis well to cover a feeble skill By numbers' might!’ scoffed He; ‘But give me a third of their strength, I'd fill Half Hell with their soldiery!’
“All that day raged the war they waged, And again dumb night held reign, Save that ever upspread from the dank deathbed A miles-wide pant of pain.
“Hard had striven brave Ney, the true Bertrand, Victor, and Augereau, Bold Poniatowski, and Lauriston, To stay their overthrow;
“But, as in the dream of one sick to death There comes a narrowing room That pens him, body and limbs and breath, To wait a hideous doom,
“So to Napoleon, in the hush That held the town and towers Through these dire nights, a creeping crush Seemed borne in with the hours.
“One road to the rearward, and but one, Did fitful Chance allow; 'Twas where the Pleiss' and Elster run— The Bridge of Lindenau.
“The nineteenth dawned. Down street and Platz The wasted French sank back, Stretching long lines across the Flats And on the bridgeway track:
“When there surged on the sky an earthen wave, And stones, and men, as though Some rebel churchyard crew updrave Their sepulchres from below.
“To Heaven is blown Bridge Lindenau; Wrecked regiments reel therefrom; And rank and file in masses plough The sullen Elster-Strom.
“A gulf was Lindenau; and dead Were fifties, hundreds, tens; And every current rippled red With Marshal's blood and men's.
“The smart Macdonald swam therein, And barely won the verge; Bold Poniatowski plunged him in Never to re-emerge.
“Then stayed the strife. The remnants wound Their Rhineward way pell-mell; And thus did Leipzig City sound An Empire's passing bell;
“While in cavalcade, with band and blade, Came Marshals, Princes, Kings; And the town was theirs. . . . Ay, as simple maid, My mother saw these things!
“And whenever those notes in the street begin, I recall her, and that far scene, And her acting of how the Allies marched in, And her tap of the tambourine!”
THE PEASANT'S CONFESSION
“Si le maréchal Grouchy avait été rejoint par l'officier que Napoléon lui avait expédié la veille à dix heures du soir, toute question eût disparu. Mais cet officier n'était point parvenu à sa destination, ainsi que le maréchal n'a cessé de l'affirmer toute sa vie, et il faut l'en croire, car autrement il n'aurait eu aucune raison pour hésiter. Cet officier avait-il été pris? avait-il passé à l'ennemi? C'est ce qu'on a toujours ignoré.” —Thiers, Histoire de l' Empire.“Waterloo.”
Good Father! . . . It was eve in middle June, And war was waged anew By great Napoleon, who for years had strewn Men's bones all Europe through.
Three nights ere this, with columned corps he'd cross'd The Sambre at Charleroi, To move on Brussels, where the English host Dallied in Parc and Bois.
The yestertide we'd heard the gloomy gun Growl through the long-sunned day From Quatre-Bras and Ligny; till the dun Twilight suppressed the fray;
Albeit therein—as lated tongues bespoke— Brunswick's high heart was drained, And Prussia's Line and Landwehr, though unbroke, Stood cornered and constrained.
And at next noon-time Grouchy slowly passed With thirty thousand men: We hoped thenceforth no army, small or vast, Would trouble us again.
My hut lay deeply in a vale recessed, And never a soul seemed nigh When, reassured at length, we went to rest— My children, wife, and I.
But what was this that broke our humble ease? What noise, above the rain, Above the dripping of the poplar trees That smote along the pane?
—A call of mastery, bidding me arise, Compelled me to the door, At which a horseman stood in martial guise— Splashed—sweating from every pore.
Had I seen Grouchy! Yes? What track took he? Could I lead thither on?— Fulfilment would ensure much gold for me, Perhaps more gifts anon.
“I bear the Emperor's mandate,” then he said, “Charging the Marshal straight To strike between the double host ahead Ere they co-operate,
“Engaging Blücher till the Emperor put Lord Wellington to flight, And next the Prussians. This to set afoot Is my emprise to-night.”
I joined him in the mist; but, pausing, sought To estimate his say. Grouchy had made for Wavre; and yet, on thought, I did not lead that way.
I mused: “If Grouchy thus and thus be told, The clash comes sheer hereon; My farm is stript. While, as for gifts of gold, Money the French have none.
“Grouchy unwarned, moreo'er, the English win, And mine is left to me— They buy, not borrow.”—Hence did I begin To lead him treacherously.
And as we edged Joidoigne with cautious view Dawn pierced the humid air; And still I easted with him, though I knew Never marched Grouchy there.
Near Ottignies we passed, across the Dyle (Lim'lette left far aside), And thence direct toward Pervez and Noville Through green grain, till he cried:
“I doubt thy conduct, man! no track is here— I doubt thy gagèd word!” Thereat he scowled on me, and prancing near, He pricked me with his sword.
“Nay, Captain, hold! We skirt, not trace the course Of Grouchy,” said I then: “As we go, yonder went he, with his force Of thirty thousand men.”
—At length noon nighed; when west, from Saint-John's-Mound, A hoarse artillery boomed, And from Saint-Lambert's upland, chapel-crowned, The Prussian squadrons loomed.
Then leaping to the wet wild path we had kept, “My mission fails!” he cried; “Too late for Grouchy now to intercept, For, peasant, you have lied!”
He turned to pistol me. I sprang, and drew The sabre from his flank, And 'twixt his nape and shoulder, ere he knew, I struck, and dead he sank.
