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

Автор: Томас Харди

Издательство: Bookwire

Жанр: Языкознание

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isbn: 9788027241361

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СКАЧАТЬ Of me and mine diminish day by day,

       And yield their space to shine of smugger things;

       Till I shape to thee but in fitful gleams,

       And then in far and feeble visitings,

       And then surcease. Truth will be truth alway.

      To an Orphan Child

       Table of Contents

      A Whimsey

      Ah, child, thou art but half thy darling mother’s;

       Hers couldst thou wholly be,

       My light in thee would outglow all in others;

       She would relive to me.

       But niggard Nature’s trick of birth

       Bars, lest she overjoy,

       Renewal of the loved on earth

       Save with alloy.

      The Dame has no regard, alas, my maiden,

       For love and loss like mine—

       No sympathy with mind-sight memory-laden;

       Only with fickle eyne.

       To her mechanic artistry

       My dreams are all unknown,

       And why I wish that thou couldst be

       But One’s alone!

Sketch of broken key?

      Nature’s Questioning

       Table of Contents

      When I look forth at dawning, pool,

       Field, flock, and lonely tree,

       All seem to gaze at me

       Like chastened children sitting silent in a school;

      Their faces dulled, constrained, and worn,

       As though the master’s ways

       Through the long teaching days

       Their first terrestrial zest had chilled and overborne.

      And on them stirs, in lippings mere

       (As if once clear in call,

       But now scarce breathed at all)—

       “We wonder, ever wonder, why we find us here!

      “Has some Vast Imbecility,

       Mighty to build and blend,

       But impotent to tend,

       Framed us in jest, and left us now to hazardry?

      “Or come we of an Automaton

       Unconscious of our pains? . . .

       Or are we live remains

       Of Godhead dying downwards, brain and eye now gone?

      “Or is it that some high Plan betides,

       As yet not understood,

       Of Evil stormed by Good,

       We the Forlorn Hope over which Achievement strides?”

      Thus things around. No answerer I . . .

       Meanwhile the winds, and rains,

       And Earth’s old glooms and pains

       Are still the same, and gladdest Life Death neighbours nigh.

      The Impercipient

       Table of Contents

      (At A Cathedral Service)

      That from this bright believing band

       An outcast I should be,

       That faiths by which my comrades stand

       Seem fantasies to me,

       And mirage-mists their Shining Land,

       Is a drear destiny.

      Why thus my soul should be consigned

       To infelicity,

       Why always I must feel as blind

       To sights my brethren see,

       Why joys they’ve found I cannot find,

       Abides a mystery.

      Since heart of mine knows not that ease

       Which they know; since it be

       That He who breathes All’s Well to these

       Breathes no All’s-Well to me,

       My lack might move their sympathies

       And Christian charity!

      I am like a gazer who should mark

       An inland company

       Standing upfingered, with, “Hark! hark!

       The glorious distant sea!”

       And feel, “Alas, ’tis but yon dark

       And wind-swept pine to me!”

      Yet I would bear my shortcomings

       With meet tranquillity,

       But for the charge that blessed things

       I’d liefer have unbe.

       O, doth a bird deprived of wings

       Go earth-bound wilfully!

      * * * * *

      Enough. As yet disquiet clings

       About us. Rest shall we.

СКАЧАТЬ