The Complete Poetical Works. Томас Харди

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СКАЧАТЬ Was breathing in aërie accents,

       With dirgeful refrain,

      Weary plaint that Mankind, in these late days,

       Had grieved her by holding

       Her ancient high fame of perfection

       In doubt and disdain . . .

      —“I had not proposed me a Creature

       (She soughed) so excelling

       All else of my kingdom in compass

       And brightness of brain

      “As to read my defects with a god-glance,

       Uncover each vestige

       Of old inadvertence, annunciate

       Each flaw and each stain!

      “My purpose went not to develop

       Such insight in Earthland;

       Such potent appraisements affront me,

       And sadden my reign!

      “Why loosened I olden control here

       To mechanize skywards,

       Undeeming great scope could outshape in

       A globe of such grain?

      “Man’s mountings of mind-sight I checked not,

       Till range of his vision

       Has topped my intent, and found blemish

       Throughout my domain.

      “He holds as inept his own soul-shell—

       My deftest achievement—

       Contemns me for fitful inventions

       Ill-timed and inane:

      “No more sees my sun as a Sanct-shape,

       My moon as the Night-queen,

       My stars as august and sublime ones

       That influences rain:

      “Reckons gross and ignoble my teaching,

       Immoral my story,

       My love-lights a lure, that my species

       May gather and gain.

      “‘Give me,’ he has said, ‘but the matter

       And means the gods lot her,

       My brain could evolve a creation

       More seemly, more sane.’

      —“If ever a naughtiness seized me

       To woo adulation

       From creatures more keen than those crude ones

       That first formed my train—

      “If inly a moment I murmured,

       ‘The simple praise sweetly,

       But sweetlier the sage’—and did rashly

       Man’s vision unrein,

      “I rue it! . . . His guileless forerunners,

       Whose brains I could blandish,

       To measure the deeps of my mysteries

       Applied them in vain.

      “From them my waste aimings and futile

       I subtly could cover;

       ‘Every best thing,’ said they, ‘to best purpose

       Her powers preordain.’—

      “No more such! . . . My species are dwindling,

       My forests grow barren,

       My popinjays fail from their tappings,

       My larks from their strain.

      “My leopardine beauties are rarer,

       My tusky ones vanish,

       My children have aped mine own slaughters

       To quicken my wane.

      “Let me grow, then, but mildews and mandrakes,

       And slimy distortions,

       Let nevermore things good and lovely

       To me appertain;

      “For Reason is rank in my temples,

       And Vision unruly,

       And chivalrous laud of my cunning

       Is heard not again!”

      “I Said to Love”

       Table of Contents

      I said to Love,

       “It is not now as in old days

       When men adored thee and thy ways

       All else above;

       Named thee the Boy, the Bright, the One

       Who spread a heaven beneath the sun,”

       I said to Love.

      I said to him,

       “We now know more of thee than then;

       We were but weak in judgment when,

       With hearts abrim,

       We clamoured thee that thou would’st please

       Inflict on us thine agonies,”

       I said to him.

      I said to Love,

       “Thou art not young, thou art not fair,

       No faery darts, no cherub air,

       Nor swan, nor dove

       Are thine; but features pitiless,

       And iron daggers of distress,”

       I said to Love.

      “Depart then, Love! . . .

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