Long have I framed weak phantasies of Thee,
 O Willer masked and dumb!
 Who makest Life become, -
As though by labouring all-unknowingly,
 Like one whom reveries numb.

How much of consciousness informs Thy will
 Thy biddings, as if blind,
 Of death-inducing kind,
Nought shows to us ephemeral ones who fill
 But moments in Thy mind.

Perhaps Thy ancient rote-restricted ways
 Thy ripening rule transcends;
 That listless effort tends
To grow percipient with advance of days,
 And with percipience mends.

For, in unwonted purlieus, far and nigh,
 At whiles or short or long,
 May be discerned a wrong
Dying as of self-slaughter; whereat I
 Would raise my voice in song.

[Greek Title]

The trees are afraid to put forth buds,
And there is timidity in the grass;
The plots lie gray where gouged by spuds,
 And whether next week will pass
Free of sly sour winds is the fret of each bush
 Of barberry waiting to bloom.

Yet the snowdrop's face betrays no gloom,
And the primrose pants in its heedless push,
Though the myrtle asks if it's worth the fight
 This year with frost and rime
 To venture one more time
On delicate leaves and buttons of white
From the selfsame bough as at last year's prime,
And never to ruminate on or remember
What happened to it in mid-December.

April 1917.

A Backward Spring

You did not come,
And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb. -
Yet less for loss of your dear presence there
Than that I thus found lacking in your make
That high compassion which can overbear
Reluctance for pure lovingkindness' sake
Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum,
 You did not come.

 You love not me,
And love alone can lend you loyalty;
- I know and knew it. But, unto the store
Of human deeds divine in all but name,
Was it not worth a little hour or more
To add yet this: Once, you, a woman, came
To soothe a time-torn man; even though it be
 You love not me?

A Broken Appointment

That night, that night,
That song, that song!
Will such again be evened quite
Through lifetimes long?

No mirth was shown
To outer seers,
But mood to match has not been known
In modern years.

O eyes that smiled,
O lips that lured;
That such would last was one beguiled
To think ensured!

That night, that night,
That song, that song;
O drink to its recalled delight,
Though tears may throng!

A Bygone Occasion (Song)

Up and be doing, all who have a hand
To lift, a back to bend. It must not be
In times like these that vaguely linger we
To air our vaunts and hopes; and leave our land

Untended as a wild of weeds and sand.
- Say, then, "I come!" and go, O women and men
Of palace, ploughshare, easel, counter, pen;
That scareless, scathless, England still may stand.

Would years but let me stir as once I stirred
At many a dawn to take the forward track,
And with a stride plunged on to enterprize,

I now would speed like yester wind that whirred
Through yielding pines; and serve with never a slack,
So loud for promptness all around outcries!

March 1917.

A Call To National Service

South of the Line, inland from far Durban,
A mouldering soldier lies - your countryman.
Awry and doubled up are his gray bones,
And on the breeze his puzzled phantom moans
Nightly to clear Canopus: "I would know
By whom and when the All-Earth-gladdening Law
Of Peace, brought in by that Man Crucified,
Was ruled to be inept, and set aside?

And what of logic or of truth appears
In tacking 'Anno Domini' to the years?
Near twenty-hundred livened thus have hied,
But tarries yet the Cause for which He died."

Christmas-eve, 1899.

A Christmas Ghost-Story

(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."

A Church Romance

As "legal representative"
I read a missive not my own,
On new designs the senders give
    For clothes, in tints as shown.

Here figure blouses, gowns for tea,
And presentation-trains of state,
Charming ball-dresses, millinery,
    Warranted up to date.

And this gay-pictured, spring-time shout
Of Fashion, hails what lady proud?
Her who before last year was out
    Was costumed in a shroud.

A Circular

The day is turning ghost,
And scuttles from the kalendar in fits and furtively,
 To join the anonymous host
Of those that throng oblivion; ceding his place, maybe,
 To one of like degree.

 I part the fire-gnawed logs,
Rake forth the embers, spoil the busy flames, and lay the ends
 Upon the shining dogs;
Further and further from the nooks the twilight's stride extends,
 And beamless black impends.

 Nothing of tiniest worth
Have I wrought, pondered, planned; no one thing asking blame or praise,
 Since the pale corpse-like birth
Of this diurnal unit, bearing blanks in all its rays -
 Dullest of dull-hued Days!

 Wanly upon the panes
The rain slides as have slid since morn my colourless thoughts; and yet
 Here, while Day's presence wanes,
And over him the sepulchre-lid is slowly lowered and set,
 He wakens my regret.

 Regret - though nothing dear
That I wot of, was toward in the wide world at his prime,
 Or bloomed elsewhere than here,
To die with his decease, and leave a memory sweet, sublime,
 Or mark him out in Time . . .

 - Yet, maybe, in some soul,
In some spot undiscerned on sea or land, some impulse rose,
 Or some intent upstole
Of that enkindling ardency from whose maturer glows
 The world's amendment flows;

 But which, benumbed at birth
By momentary chance or wile, has missed its hope to be
 Embodied on the earth;
And undervoicings of this loss to man's futurity
 May wake regret in me.

A Commonplace Day

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 learn
Your griefs, and sharing them, renew my pain . . .

It goes, like murky bird or buccaneer
That shapes its lawless figure on the main,
And each new impulse tends to make outflee
The unseemly instinct that had lodgment here;
Yet, comrade old, can bitterer knowledge be
Than that, though banned, such instinct was in me!

1866.

Thomas Hardy

[Greek Title]

A Backward Spring

A Broken Appointment

A Bygone Occasion (Song)

A Call To National Service

A Christmas Ghost-Story

A Church Romance

A Circular

A Commonplace Day

A Confession To A Friend In Trouble

Thomas Hardy

Poems for the New Year

[Greek Title]

A Backward Spring

A Broken Appointment

A Bygone Occasion (Song)

A Call To National Service

A Christmas Ghost-Story

A Church Romance

A Circular

A Commonplace Day

A Confession To A Friend In Trouble