Poems of the Past and the Present

Poems of the Past and the Present
Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy

Poems of the Past and the Present

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,
    27thJanuary 1901.

WAR POEMS

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.