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    Wessex Poems and Other Verses
    Wessex Poems and Other Verses
    Wessex Poems and Other Verses
    Ebook130 pages56 minutes

    Wessex Poems and Other Verses

    By Thomas Hardy

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    About this ebook

    Of the miscellaneous collection of verse that follows, only four pieces have been published, though many were written long ago, and other partly written. In some few cases the verses were turned into prose and printed as such, it having been unanticipated at that time that they might see the light.

    Whenever an ancient and legitimate word of the district, for which there was no equivalent in received English, suggested itself as the most natural, nearest, and often only expression of a thought, it has been made use of, on what seemed good grounds.

    p. viThe pieces are in a large degree dramatic or personative in conception; and this even where they are not obviously so.

    The dates attached to some of the poems do not apply to the rough sketches given in illustration, which have been recently made, and, as may be surmised, are inserted for personal and local reasons rather than for their intrinsic qualities.

    T. H.
    LanguageEnglish
    Publisheranboco
    Release dateAug 28, 2016
    ISBN9783736411067
    Wessex Poems and Other Verses

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      Book preview

      Wessex Poems and Other Verses - Thomas Hardy

      Table of Contents

      BY THOMAS HARDY

      PREFACE TO WESSEX POEMS

      CONTENTS

      THE TEMPORARY THE ALL

      AMABEL

      HAP

      IN VISION I ROAMED TO —

      AT A BRIDAL TO —

      POSTPONEMENT

      A CONFESSION TO A FRIEND IN TROUBLE

      NEUTRAL TONES

      HER INITIALS

      HER DILEMMA (IN — CHURCH)

      REVULSION

      SHE, TO HIM I

      SHE, TO HIM II

      SHE, TO HIM III

      SHE, TO HIM IV

      THE SERGEANT’S SONG (1803)

      VALENCIENNES (1793)

      SAN SEBASTIAN (August 1813)

      THE STRANGER’S SONG

      THE BURGHERS (17–)

      LEIPZIG (1813)

      THE PEASANT’S CONFESSION

      THE ALARM (1803)

      HER DEATH AND AFTER

      THE DANCE AT THE PHŒNIX

      THE CASTERBRIDGE CAPTAINS (KHYBER PASS, 1842)

      A SIGN-SEEKER

      MY CICELY (17–)

      HER IMMORTALITY

      THE IVY-WIFE

      A MEETING WITH DESPAIR

      UNKNOWING

      FRIENDS BEYOND

      TO OUTER NATURE

      MIDDLE-AGE ENTHUSIASMS To M. H.

      TO AN ORPHAN CHILD A WHIMSEY

      NATURE’S QUESTIONING

      AT AN INN

      IN A EWELEAZE NEAR WEATHERBURY

      ADDITIONS

      THE FIRE AT TRANTER SWEATLEY’S

      HEIRESS AND ARCHITECT For A. W. B.

      THE TWO MEN

      LINES

      I LOOK INTO MY GLASS

      POEMS AND OTHER VERSES

      BY THOMAS HARDY

      PREFACE TO WESSEX POEMS

      Of the miscellaneous collection of verse that follows, only four pieces have been published, though many were written long ago, and other partly written.  In some few cases the verses were turned into prose and printed as such, it having been unanticipated at that time that they might see the light.

      Whenever an ancient and legitimate word of the district, for which there was no equivalent in received English, suggested itself as the most natural, nearest, and often only expression of a thought, it has been made use of, on what seemed good grounds.

      The pieces are in a large degree dramatic or personative in conception; and this even where they are not obviously so.

      The dates attached to some of the poems do not apply to the rough sketches given in illustration, which have been recently made, and, as may be surmised, are inserted for personal and local reasons rather than for their intrinsic qualities.

      T. H.

      September 1898.

      THE TEMPORARY THE ALL

      Change and chancefulness in my flowering youthtime,

      Set me sun by sun near to one unchosen;

      Wrought us fellow-like, and despite divergence,

         Friends interlinked us.

      "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, the while 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 achieving;

      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 undecrease;

      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, and 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

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