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Thomas Hardy
1840-1928

Sir W. Robertson Nicoll (People and Books) was to note in respect to Hardy's Far from the Maddening Crowd (1874), that: "There is not a book perhaps so rich in gems of thought and speech." Hardy works for which he is most noted in addition, are: Tess of the D'urbervilles (1891) and The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886).

Two Lips

I kissed them in fancy when I came
Away in the morning glow:
I kissed them through the glass of her picture-frame:
She did knot know.
I kissed them in love, in troth, in laughter,
When she knew all; long so!
That I should kiss them in a shroud thereafter
She did knot know.

In Time of the “Breaking of the Nations”

Only a man harrowing clods
In a slow silent walk
With an old horse that stumbles and nods
Half asleep as they stalk.
Only thin smoke without flame
From the heaps of couch-grass;
Yet this will go onward the same
Though Dynasties pass.
Yound a maid and her wight
Come with wispering by:
War’s annals will cloud in night
Ere their story die.

During Wind and Rain

THEY sing their dearest songs--
He, she, all of them--yea,
Treble and tenor and bass.
And one to play;
With the candles mooning each face....
Ah, no; the years O!
How the sick leaves reel down in throngs!

They clear the creeping moss--
Elders and juniors--aye,
Making the pathways neat
And the garden gay;
And they build a shady seat....
Ah, no; the years, the years;
See, the white storm-birds wing across!

They are blithely breakfasting all--
Men and maidens--yea,
Under the summer tree,
With a glimpse of the bay,
While pet fowl come to the knee....
Ah, no; the years O!
And the rotten rose is ripped from the wall.

They change to a high new house,
He, she, all of them--aye,
Clocks and carpets and chairs
On the lawn all day,
And brightest things that are theirs....
Ah, no; the years, the years;
Down their carved names the raindrop plows.

ON THE DEPARTURE PLATFORM

We kissed at the barrier, and passing through
She left me, and moment by moment got
Smaller and smaller, until to my view
She was but a spot;

A wee white spot of muslin fluff
That doun the diminishing platform bore
Through hustling crowds of gentle and rough
To the carriage door.

Under the lamplight's fitful glowers,
Behind dark groups from far and near,
Whose interests were apart from ours,
She would disappear,

Then show again, till ceased to see
That flexible from, that nebulous white;
And she who was more then my life to me
Had vanished quite.

We have penned new plans since that fair fond day,
And in season she will appear again -
Perhaps in the same soft white array -
But never as then!

-'And why, young man, must eternally fly
A joy you'll repeat, if you love her well?'
- O friend, nought happens twice thus; why,
I cannot tell!

"AH, are you digging on my grave,

My loved one? -- planting rue?"

-- "No: yesterday he went to wed

One of the brightest wealth has bred.

'It cannot hurt her now,' he said,

'That I should not be true.'"

"Then who is digging on my grave,

My nearest dearest kin?"

-- "Ah, no: they sit and think, 'What use!

What good will planting flowers produce?

No tendance of her mound can loose

Her spirit from Death's gin.'"

"But someone digs upon my grave?

My enemy? -- prodding sly?"

-- "Nay: when she heard you had passed the Gate

That shuts on all flesh soon or late,

She thought you no more worth her hate,

And cares not where you lie.

"Then, who is digging on my grave?

Say -- since I have not guessed!"

-- "O it is I, my mistress dear,

Your little dog , who still lives near,

And much I hope my movements here

Have not disturbed your rest?"

"Ah yes! You dig upon my grave...

Why flashed it not to me

That one true heart was left behind!

What feeling do we ever find

To equal among human kind

A dog's fidelity!"

"Mistress, I dug upon your grave

To bury a bone, in case

I should be hungry near this spot

When passing on my daily trot.

I am sorry, but I quite forgot

It was your resting place."

The Self-Unseeing

Here is the ancient floor,
Footworn and hollowed and thin,
Here was the former door
Where the dead feet walked in.

She sat here in her chair,
Smiling into fire;
He who played stood there,
Bowing it higher and higher.

Childlike, I danced in a dream;
Blessing emblazoned that day;
Everything glowed with gleam;
Yet we were looking away!

The Voice

WOMAN much missed, how you call to me, call to me,

Saying that now you are not as you were

When you had changed from the one who was all to me,

But as at first, when our day was fair.

 

Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then,

Standing as when I drew near to the town

Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then,

Even to the original air-blue gown!

 

Or is it only the breeze, in its listlessness

Travelling across the wet mead to me here,

You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness,

Heard no more again far or near?

 

Thus I; faltering forward,

Leaves around me falling,

Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward,

And the woman calling.

A Thunderstorm in Town

(A Reminiscence, 1893)

 

SHE wore a new 'terra-cotta' dress,

And we stayed, because of the pelting storm,

Within the hansom's dry recess,

Though the horse had stopped; yea, motionless

We sat on, snug and warm.

Then the dounpour ceased, to my sharp sad pain,

And the glass that had screened our forms before

Flew up, and out she sprang to her door:

I should have kissed her if the rain

Had lasted a minute more.

© 2000 Elena and Yacov Feldman