Thomas Hardy - Time's Laughingstocks, and Other Verses

Her lover entered. “Where’s my bird? —
My bird – my flower – my picotee?
First time of asking, soon the third!”
Ah, in my grave I well may be.

To me he whispered: “Since your call – ”
So spoke he then, alas for me —
“I’ve felt for her, and righted all.”
– I think of it to agony.

“She’s faint to-day – tired – nothing more – ”
Thus did I lie, alas for me.
I called her at her chamber door
As one who scarce had strength to be.

No voice replied. I went within —
O women! scourged the worst are we.
I shrieked. The others hastened in
And saw the stroke there dealt on me.

There she lay – silent, breathless, dead,
Stone dead she lay – wronged, sinless she! —
Ghost-white the cheeks once rosy-red:
Death had took her. Death took not me.

I kissed her colding face and hair,
I kissed her corpse – the bride to be! —
My punishment I cannot bear,
But pray God not to pity me

Here we broached the Christmas barrel,
Pushed up the charred log-ends;
Here we sang the Christmas carol,
And called in friends.

Time has tired me since we met here
When the folk now dead were young,
Since the viands were outset here
And quaint songs sung.

And the worm has bored the viol
That used to lead the tune,
Rust eaten out the dial
That struck night’s noon.

Now no Christmas brings in neighbours,
And the New Year comes unlit;
Where we sang the mole now labours,
And spiders knit.

Yet at midnight if here walking,
When the moon sheets wall and tree,
I see forms of old time talking,
Who smile on me.

In the black winter morning
No light will be struck near my eyes
While the clock in the stairway is warning
For five, when he used to rise.
Leave the door unbarred,
The clock unwound,
Make my lone bed hard —
Would ’twere underground!

When the summer dawns clearly,
And the appletree-tops seem alight,
Who will undraw the curtain and cheerly
Call out that the morning is bright?

When I tarry at market
No form will cross Durnover Lea
In the gathering darkness, to hark at
Grey’s Bridge for the pit-pat o’ me.

When the supper crock’s steaming,
And the time is the time of his tread,
I shall sit by the fire and wait dreaming
In a silence as of the dead.
Leave the door unbarred,
The clock unwound,
Make my lone bed hard —
Would ’twere underground!

He sees the world as a boisterous place
Where all things bear a laughing face,
And humorous scenes go hourly on,
Does John.

They find the world a pleasant place
Where all is ecstasy and grace,
Where a light has risen that cannot wane,
Do John and Jane.

They see as a palace their cottage-place,
Containing a pearl of the human race,
A hero, maybe, hereafter styled,
Do John and Jane with a baby-child.

They rate the world as a gruesome place,
Where fair looks fade to a skull’s grimace, —
As a pilgrimage they would fain get done —
Do John and Jane with their worthless son.

I thought they’d be strangers aroun’ me,
But she’s to be there!
Let me jump out o’ waggon and go back and drown me
At Pummery or Ten-Hatches Weir.

I thought: “Well, I’ve come to the Union —
The workhouse at last —
After honest hard work all the week, and Communion
O’ Zundays, these fifty years past.

“’Tis hard; but,” I thought, “never mind it:
There’s gain in the end:
And when I get used to the place I shall find it
A home, and may find there a friend.

“Life there will be better than t’other.
For peace is assured.
The men in one wing and their wives in another
Is strictly the rule of the Board.”

Just then one young Pa’son arriving
Steps up out of breath
To the side o’ the waggon wherein we were driving
To Union; and calls out and saith:

“Old folks, that harsh order is altered,
Be not sick of heart!
The Guardians they poohed and they pished and they paltered
When urged not to keep you apart.

“‘It is wrong,’ I maintained, ‘to divide them,
Near forty years wed.’
‘Very well, sir. We promise, then, they shall abide them
In one wing together,’ they said.”

Then I sank – knew ’twas quite a foredone thing
That misery should be
To the end!.. To get freed of her there was the one thing
Had made the change welcome to me.

To go there was ending but badly;
’Twas shame and ’twas pain;
“But anyhow,” thought I, “thereby I shall gladly
Get free of this forty years’ chain.”

I thought they’d be strangers aroun’ me,
But she’s to be there!
Let me jump out o’ waggon and go back and drown me
At Pummery or Ten-Hatches Weir.

Here alone by the logs in my chamber,
Deserted, decrepit —
Spent flames limning ghosts on the wainscot
Of friends I once knew —

My drama and hers begins weirdly
Its dumb re-enactment,
Each scene, sigh, and circumstance passing
In spectral review.

– Wealth was mine beyond wish when I met her —
The pride of the lowland —
Embowered in Tintinhull Valley
By laurel and yew;

And love lit my soul, notwithstanding
My features’ ill favour,
Too obvious beside her perfections
Of line and of hue.

But it pleased her to play on my passion,
And whet me to pleadings
That won from her mirthful negations
And scornings undue.

Then I fled her disdains and derisions
To cities of pleasure,
And made me the crony of idlers
In every purlieu.

Of those who lent ear to my story,
A needy Adonis
Gave hint how to grizzle her garden
From roses to rue,

Could his price but be paid for so purging
My scorner of scornings:
Thus tempted, the lust to avenge me
Germed inly and grew.

I clothed him in sumptuous apparel,
Consigned to him coursers,
Meet equipage, liveried attendants
In full retinue.