The Complete Poetical Works. Томас Харди
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Название: The Complete Poetical Works

Автор: Томас Харди

Издательство: Bookwire

Жанр: Языкознание

Серия:

isbn: 9788027241361

isbn:

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      Thus I do but the phantom retain

       Of the maiden of yore

       As my relic; yet haply the best of her—fined in my brain

       It maybe the more

       That no line of her writing have I,

       Nor a thread of her hair,

       No mark of her late time as dame in her dwelling, whereby

       I may picture her there.

      March 1890.

Sketch of woman cover in sheet lying on couch

      Middle-Age Enthusiasms

       Table of Contents

      To M. H.

      We passed where flag and flower

       Signalled a jocund throng;

       We said: “Go to, the hour

       Is apt!”—and joined the song;

       And, kindling, laughed at life and care,

       Although we knew no laugh lay there.

      We walked where shy birds stood

       Watching us, wonder-dumb;

       Their friendship met our mood;

       We cried: “We’ll often come:

       We’ll come morn, noon, eve, everywhen!”

       —We doubted we should come again.

      We joyed to see strange sheens

       Leap from quaint leaves in shade;

       A secret light of greens

       They’d for their pleasure made.

       We said: “We’ll set such sorts as these!”

       —We knew with night the wish would cease.

      “So sweet the place,” we said,

       “Its tacit tales so dear,

       Our thoughts, when breath has sped,

       Will meet and mingle here!” . . .

       “Words!” mused we. “Passed the mortal door,

       Our thoughts will reach this nook no more.”

      In a Wood

       Table of Contents

      See “The Woodlanders”

      Pale beech and pine-tree blue,

       Set in one clay,

       Bough to bough cannot you

       Bide out your day?

       When the rains skim and skip,

       Why mar sweet comradeship,

       Blighting with poison-drip

       Neighbourly spray?

      Heart-halt and spirit-lame,

       City-opprest,

       Unto this wood I came

       As to a nest;

       Dreaming that sylvan peace

       Offered the harrowed ease—

       Nature a soft release

       From men’s unrest.

      But, having entered in,

       Great growths and small

       Show them to men akin—

       Combatants all!

       Sycamore shoulders oak,

       Bines the slim sapling yoke,

       Ivy-spun halters choke

       Elms stout and tall.

      Touches from ash, O wych,

       Sting you like scorn!

       You, too, brave hollies, twitch

       Sidelong from thorn.

       Even the rank poplars bear

       Illy a rival’s air,

       Cankering in black despair

       If overborne.

      Since, then, no grace I find

       Taught me of trees,

       Turn I back to my kind,

       Worthy as these.

       There at least smiles abound,

       There discourse trills around,

       There, now and then, are found

       Life-loyalties.

      1887: 1896.

      To a Lady

       Table of Contents

      Offended by a Book of the Writer’s

      Now that my page upcloses, doomed, maybe,

       Never to press thy cosy cushions more,

       Or wake thy ready Yeas as heretofore,

       Or stir thy gentle vows of faith in me:

      Knowing thy natural receptivity,

       I figure that, as flambeaux banish eve,

       My sombre image, warped by insidious heave

       Of those less forthright, must lose place in thee.

      So be it. I have borne such. Let thy dreams

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