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Poems of the Past and Present

Thomas Hardy

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Section 1 of 42

POEMS OF THE PAST AND THE PRESENT

By Thomas Hardy




Contents:

V.R.  1819-1901
WAR POEMS -
   EMBARCATION
   DEPARTURE
   THE COLONEL'S SOLILOQUY
   THE GOING OF THE BATTERY
   AT THE WAR OFFICE, LONDON
   A CHRISTMAS GHOST-STORY
   THE DEAD DRUMMER
   A WIFE IN LONDON
   THE SOULS OF THE SLAIN
   SONG OF THE SOLDIERS' WIVES
   THE SICK GOD
POEMS OF PILGRIMAGE -
   GENOA AND THE MEDITERRANEAN
   SHELLEY'S SKYLARK
   IN THE OLD THEATRE, FIESOLE
   ROME:  ON THE PALATINE
   ROME:  BUILDING A NEW STREET IN THE ANCIENT QUARTER
   ROME:  THE VATICAN--SALA DELLE MUSE
   ROME:  AT THE PYRAMID OF CESTIUS
   LAUSANNE:  IN GIBBON'S OLD GARDEN
   ZERMATT:  TO THE MATTERHORN
   THE BRIDGE OF LODI
   ON AN INVITATION TO THE UNITED STATES
   THE MOTHER MOURNS
   "I SAID TO LOVE"
   A COMMONPLACE DAY
   AT A LUNAR ECLIPSE
   THE LACKING SENSE
   TO LIFE
   DOOM AND SHE
   THE PROBLEM
   THE SUBALTERNS
   THE SLEEP-WORKER
   THE BULLFINCHES
   GOD-FORGOTTEN
   THE BEDRIDDEN PEASANT TO AN UNKNOWING GOD
   BY THE EARTH'S CORPSE
   MUTE OPINION
   TO AN UNBORN PAUPER CHILD
   TO FLOWERS FROM ITALY IN WINTER
   ON A FINE MORNING
   TO LIZBIE BROWNE
   SONG OF HOPE
   THE WELL-BELOVED
   HER REPROACH
   THE INCONSISTENT
   A BROKEN APPOINTMENT
   "BETWEEN US NOW"
   "HOW GREAT MY GRIEF"
   "I NEED NOT GO"
   THE COQUETTE, AND AFTER
   A SPOT
   LONG PLIGHTED
   THE WIDOW
   AT A HASTY WEDDING
   THE DREAM-FOLLOWER
   HIS IMMORTALITY
   THE TO-BE-FORGOTTEN
   WIVES IN THE SERE
   THE SUPERSEDED
   AN AUGUST MIDNIGHT
   THE CAGED THRUSH FREED AND HOME AGAIN
   BIRDS AT WINTER NIGHTFALL
   THE PUZZLED GAME-BIRDS
   WINTER IN DURNOVER FIELD
   THE LAST CHRYSANTHEMUM
   THE DARKLING THRUSH
   THE COMET AT YALBURY OR YELL'HAM
   MAD JUDY
   A WASTED ILLNESS
   A MAN
   THE DAME OF ATHELHALL
   THE SEASONS OF HER YEAR
   THE MILKMAID
   THE LEVELLED CHURCHYARD
   THE RUINED MAID
   THE RESPECTABLE BURGHER ON "THE HIGHER CRITICISM"
   ARCHITECTURAL MASKS
   THE TENANT-FOR-LIFE
   THE KING'S EXPERIMENT
   THE TREE:  AN OLD MAN'S STORY
   HER LATE HUSBAND
   THE SELF-UNSEEING
   DE PROFUNDIS    I.
   DE PROFUNDIS  II.
   DE PROFUNDIS III.
   THE CHURCH-BUILDER
   THE LOST PYX:  A MEDIAEVAL LEGEND
   TESS'S LAMENT
   THE SUPPLANTER:  A TALE
IMITATIONS, ETC. -
   SAPPHIC FRAGMENT
   CATULLUS:  XXXI
   AFTER SCHILLER
   SONG:  FROM HEINE
   FROM VICTOR HUGO
   CARDINAL BEMBO'S EPITAPH ON RAPHAEL
RETROSPECT -
   "I HAVE LIVED WITH SHADES"
   MEMORY AND I
   [GREEK TITLE]



V.R.  1819-1901
A REVERIE



Moments the mightiest pass uncalendared,
      And when the Absolute
   In backward Time outgave the deedful word
      Whereby all life is stirred:
"Let one be born and throned whose mould shall constitute
The norm of every royal-reckoned attribute,"
      No mortal knew or heard.
   But in due days the purposed Life outshone -
      Serene, sagacious, free;
  --Her waxing seasons bloomed with deeds well done,
      And the world's heart was won . . .
Yet may the deed of hers most bright in eyes to be
Lie hid from ours--as in the All-One's thought lay she -
      Till ripening years have run.

SUNDAY NIGHT,
27th January 1901.



EMBARCATION
(Southampton Docks:  October, 1899)



Here, where Vespasian's legions struck the sands,
And Cerdic with his Saxons entered in,
And Henry's army leapt afloat to win
Convincing triumphs over neighbour lands,

Vaster battalions press for further strands,
To argue in the self-same bloody mode
Which this late age of thought, and pact, and code,
Still fails to mend.--Now deckward tramp the bands,
Yellow as autumn leaves, alive as spring;
And as each host draws out upon the sea
Beyond which lies the tragical To-be,
None dubious of the cause, none murmuring,

Wives, sisters, parents, wave white hands and smile,
As if they knew not that they weep the while.



DEPARTURE
(Southampton Docks:  October, 1899)



While the far farewell music thins and fails,
And the broad bottoms rip the bearing brine -
All smalling slowly to the gray sea line -
And each significant red smoke-shaft pales,

Keen sense of severance everywhere prevails,
Which shapes the late long tramp of mounting men
To seeming words that ask and ask again:
"How long, O striving Teutons, Slavs, and Gaels

Must your wroth reasonings trade on lives like these,
That are as puppets in a playing hand? -
When shall the saner softer polities
Whereof we dream, have play in each proud land,
And patriotism, grown Godlike, scorn to stand
Bondslave to realms, but circle earth and seas?"



THE COLONEL'S SOLILOQUY
(Southampton Docks:  October, 1899)



"The quay recedes.   Hurrah!  Ahead we go! . . .
It's true I've been accustomed now to home,
And joints get rusty, and one's limbs may grow
   More fit to rest than roam.

"But I can stand as yet fair stress and strain;
There's not a little steel beneath the rust;
My years mount somewhat, but here's to't again!
   And if I fall, I must.

"God knows that for myself I've scanty care;
Past scrimmages have proved as much to all;
In Eastern lands and South I've had my share
   Both of the blade and ball.

"And where those villains ripped me in the flitch
With their old iron in my early time,
I'm apt at change of wind to feel a twitch,
   Or at a change of clime.

"And what my mirror shows me in the morning
Has more of blotch and wrinkle than of bloom;
My eyes, too, heretofore all glasses scorning,
   Have just a touch of rheum . . .

"Now sounds 'The Girl I've left behind me,'--Ah,
The years, the ardours, wakened by that tune!
Time was when, with the crowd's farewell 'Hurrah!'
   'Twould lift me to the moon.

"But now it's late to leave behind me one
Who if, poor soul, her man goes underground,
Will not recover as she might have done
   In days when hopes abound.

"She's waving from the wharfside, palely grieving,
As down we draw . . . Her tears make little show,
Yet now she suffers more than at my leaving
   Some twenty years ago.

"I pray those left at home will care for her!
I shall come back; I have before; though when
The Girl you leave behind you is a grandmother,
   Things may not be as then."

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