Wessex Poems and Other Verses

Light like the sun’s by day, the stars’ by night —
Till rival heart-queens, envying, wail, ‘Alas,
Her glory!’ as they pass.”

“O maid misled!”
He sternly said,
Whose facile foresight pierced her dire;
“Where shall abide the soul when, sick of glee,
It shrinks, and hides, and prays no eye may see?
Those house them best who house for secrecy,
For you will tire.”

“A little chamber, then, with swan and dove
Ranged thickly, and engrailed with rare device
Of reds and purples, for a Paradise
Wherein my Love may greet me, I my Love,
When he shall know thereof?”

“This, too, is ill,”
He answered still,
The man who swayed her like a shade.
“An hour will come when sight of such sweet nook
Would bring a bitterness too sharp to brook,
When brighter eyes have won away his look;
For you will fade.”

Then said she faintly: “O, contrive some way —
Some narrow winding turret, quite mine own,
To reach a loft where I may grieve alone!
It is a slight thing; hence do not, I pray,
This last dear fancy slay!”

“Such winding ways
Fit not your days,
”Said he, the man of measuring eye;
“I must even fashion as my rule declares,
To wit: Give space (since life ends unawares)
To hale a coffined corpse adown the stairs;
For you will die.”

    1867.

THE TWO MEN

There were two youths of equal age,
Wit, station, strength, and parentage;
They studied at the selfsame schools,
And shaped their thoughts by common rules.

One pondered on the life of man,
His hopes, his ending, and began
To rate the Market’s sordid war
As something scarce worth living for.

“I’ll brace to higher aims,” said he,
“I’ll further Truth and Purity;
Thereby to mend the mortal lot
And sweeten sorrow.  Thrive I not,

“Winning their hearts, my kind will give
Enough that I may lowly live,
And house my Love in some dim dell,
For pleasing them and theirs so well.”

Idly attired, with features wan,
In secret swift he laboured on:
Such press of power had brought much gold
Applied to things of meaner mould.

Sometimes he wished his aims had been
To gather gains like other men;
Then thanked his God he’d traced his track
Too far for wish to drag him back.

He lookèd from his loft one day
To where his slighted garden lay;
Nettles and hemlock hid each lawn,
And every flower was starved and gone.

He fainted in his heart, whereon
He rose, and sought his plighted one,
Resolved to loose her bond withal,
Lest she should perish in his fall.

He met her with a careless air,
As though he’d ceased to find her fair,
And said: “True love is dust to me;
I cannot kiss: I tire of thee!”

(That she might scorn him was he fain,
To put her sooner out of pain;
For incensed love breathes quick and dies,
When famished love a-lingering lies.)

Once done, his soul was so betossed,
It found no more the force it lost:
Hope was his only drink and food,
And hope extinct, decay ensued.

And, living long so closely penned,