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Read Ebook: Satires of Circumstance Lyrics and Reveries with Miscellaneous Pieces by Hardy Thomas
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Ebook has 890 lines and 48049 words, and 18 pages
Until then the faint scent Of the bordering flowers swam unheeded away, And I marked not the charm in the changes of day As the cloud-colours came and went.
Through the dark corridors Your walk was so soundless I did not know Your form from a phantom's of long ago Said to pass on the ancient floors,
Till you drew from the shade, And I saw the large luminous living eyes Regard me in fixed inquiring-wise As those of a soul that weighed,
Scarce consciously, The eternal question of what Life was, And why we were there, and by whose strange laws That which mattered most could not be.
TO MEET, OR OTHERWISE
WHETHER to sally and see thee, girl of my dreams, Or whether to stay And see thee not! How vast the difference seems Of Yea from Nay Just now. Yet this same sun will slant its beams At no far day On our two mounds, and then what will the difference weigh!
Yet I will see thee, maiden dear, and make The most I can Of what remains to us amid this brake Cimmerian Through which we grope, and from whose thorns we ache, While still we scan Round our frail faltering progress for some path or plan.
So, to the one long-sweeping symphony From times remote Till now, of human tenderness, shall we Supply one note, Small and untraced, yet that will ever be Somewhere afloat Amid the spheres, as part of sick Life's antidote.
THE DIFFERENCE
SINKING down by the gate I discern the thin moon, And a blackbird tries over old airs in the pine, But the moon is a sorry one, sad the bird's tune, For this spot is unknown to that Heartmate of mine.
Did my Heartmate but haunt here at times such as now, The song would be joyous and cheerful the moon; But she will see never this gate, path, or bough, Nor I find a joy in the scene or the tune.
THE SUN ON THE BOOKCASE
ONCE more the cauldron of the sun Smears the bookcase with winy red, And here my page is, and there my bed, And the apple-tree shadows travel along. Soon their intangible track will be run, And dusk grow strong And they be fled.
"WHEN I SET OUT FOR LYONNESSE"
WHEN I set out for Lyonnesse, A hundred miles away, The rime was on the spray, And starlight lit my lonesomeness When I set out for Lyonnesse A hundred miles away.
What would bechance at Lyonnesse While I should sojourn there No prophet durst declare, Nor did the wisest wizard guess What would bechance at Lyonnesse While I should sojourn there.
When I came back from Lyonnesse With magic in my eyes, None managed to surmise What meant my godlike gloriousness, When I came back from Lyonnesse With magic in my eyes.
A THUNDERSTORM IN TOWN
SHE wore a new "terra-cotta" dress, And we stayed, because of the pelting storm, Within the hansom's dry recess, Though the horse had stopped; yea, motionless We sat on, snug and warm.
Then the downpour ceased, to my sharp sad pain, And the glass that had screened our forms before Flew up, and out she sprang to her door: I should have kissed her if the rain Had lasted a minute more.
THE TORN LETTER
I tore your letter into strips No bigger than the airy feathers That ducks preen out in changing weathers Upon the shifting ripple-tips.
In darkness on my bed alone I seemed to see you in a vision, And hear you say: "Why this derision Of one drawn to you, though unknown?"
Yes, eve's quick mood had run its course, The night had cooled my hasty madness; I suffered a regretful sadness Which deepened into real remorse.
I thought what pensive patient days A soul must know of grain so tender, How much of good must grace the sender Of such sweet words in such bright phrase.
Uprising then, as things unpriced I sought each fragment, patched and mended; The midnight whitened ere I had ended And gathered words I had sacrificed.
But some, alas, of those I threw Were past my search, destroyed for ever: They were your name and place; and never Did I regain those clues to you.
I learnt I had missed, by rash unheed, My track; that, so the Will decided, In life, death, we should be divided, And at the sense I ached indeed.
That ache for you, born long ago, Throbs on; I never could outgrow it. What a revenge, did you but know it! But that, thank God, you do not know.
BEYOND THE LAST LAMP
WHILE rain, with eve in partnership, Descended darkly, drip, drip, drip, Beyond the last lone lamp I passed Walking slowly, whispering sadly, Two linked loiterers, wan, downcast: Some heavy thought constrained each face, And blinded them to time and place.
When I retrod that watery way Some hours beyond the droop of day, Still I found pacing there the twain Just as slowly, just as sadly, Heedless of the night and rain. One could but wonder who they were And what wild woe detained them there.
Though thirty years of blur and blot Have slid since I beheld that spot, And saw in curious converse there Moving slowly, moving sadly That mysterious tragic pair, Its olden look may linger on-- All but the couple; they have gone.
Whither? Who knows, indeed . . . And yet To me, when nights are weird and wet, Without those comrades there at tryst Creeping slowly, creeping sadly, That lone lane does not exist. There they seem brooding on their pain, And will, while such a lane remain.
THE FACE AT THE CASEMENT
IF ever joy leave An abiding sting of sorrow, So befell it on the morrow Of that May eve . . .
The travelled sun dropped To the north-west, low and lower, The pony's trot grew slower, And then we stopped.
"This cosy house just by I must call at for a minute, A sick man lies within it Who soon will die.
"He wished to marry me, So I am bound, when I drive near him, To inquire, if but to cheer him, How he may be."
A message was sent in, And wordlessly we waited, Till some one came and stated The bulletin.
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