The Complete Poetical Works. Томас Харди
Чтение книги онлайн.

Читать онлайн книгу The Complete Poetical Works - Томас Харди страница 42

Название: The Complete Poetical Works

Автор: Томас Харди

Издательство: Bookwire

Жанр: Языкознание

Серия:

isbn: 9788027241361

isbn:

СКАЧАТЬ thee,

       But there be laws in force on high

       Which say it must not be.”

      II

      —“I would not freeze thee, shorn one,” cried

       The North, “knew I but how

       To warm my breath, to slack my stride;

       But I am ruled as thou.”

      III

      —“To-morrow I attack thee, wight,”

       Said Sickness. “Yet I swear

       I bear thy little ark no spite,

       But am bid enter there.”

      IV

      —“Come hither, Son,” I heard Death say;

       “I did not will a grave

       Should end thy pilgrimage to-day,

       But I, too, am a slave!”

      V

      We smiled upon each other then,

       And life to me wore less

       That fell contour it wore ere when

       They owned their passiveness.

      The Sleep-Worker

       Table of Contents

      When wilt thou wake, O Mother, wake and see—

       As one who, held in trance, has laboured long

       By vacant rote and prepossession strong—

       The coils that thou hast wrought unwittingly;

      Wherein have place, unrealized by thee,

       Fair growths, foul cankers, right enmeshed with wrong,

       Strange orchestras of victim-shriek and song,

       And curious blends of ache and ecstasy?—

      Should that morn come, and show thy opened eyes

       All that Life’s palpitating tissues feel,

       How wilt thou bear thyself in thy surprise?—

      Wilt thou destroy, in one wild shock of shame,

       Thy whole high heaving firmamental frame,

       Or patiently adjust, amend, and heal?

      The Bullfinches

       Table of Contents

      Brother Bulleys, let us sing

       From the dawn till evening!—

       For we know not that we go not

       When the day’s pale pinions fold

       Unto those who sang of old.

      When I flew to Blackmoor Vale,

       Whence the green-gowned faeries hail,

       Roosting near them I could hear them

       Speak of queenly Nature’s ways,

       Means, and moods,—well known to fays.

      All we creatures, nigh and far

       (Said they there), the Mother’s are:

       Yet she never shows endeavour

       To protect from warrings wild

       Bird or beast she calls her child.

      Busy in her handsome house

       Known as Space, she falls a-drowse;

       Yet, in seeming, works on dreaming,

       While beneath her groping hands

       Fiends make havoc in her bands.

      How her hussif’ry succeeds

       She unknows or she unheeds,

       All things making for Death’s taking!

       —So the green-gowned faeries say

       Living over Blackmoor way.

      Come then, brethren, let us sing,

       From the dawn till evening!—

       For we know not that we go not

       When the day’s pale pinions fold

       Unto those who sang of old.

      God-Forgotten

       Table of Contents

      I towered far, and lo! I stood within

       The presence of the Lord Most High,

       Sent thither by the sons of earth, to win

       Some answer to their cry.

      —“The Earth, say’st thou? The Human race?

       By Me created? Sad its lot?

       Nay: I have no remembrance of such place:

       Such world I fashioned not.”—

      —“O Lord, forgive me when I say

       Thou spak’st the word, and mad’st it all.”—

       “The Earth of men—let me bethink me . . . Yea!

       I dimly do recall

      “Some tiny sphere I built long back

       (Mid millions of such shapes of mine)

       So named . . . It perished, surely—not a wrack

       Remaining, or a sign?

      “It lost my interest from the first,

       My aims therefor succeeding ill;

       Haply it died of doing as it durst?”—

       СКАЧАТЬ