Thomas Hardy: Verses about Weather

She wore a '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.

Scene.--A wide stretch of fallow ground recently sown with wheat, and
frozen to iron hardness. Three large birds walking about thereon,
and wistfully eyeing the surface. Wind keen from north-east: sky a
dull grey.

(Triolet)

Rook.--Throughout the field I find no grain;
   The cruel frost encrusts the cornland!
Starling.--Aye: patient pecking now is vain
   Throughout the field, I find . . .
Rook.--No grain!
Pigeon.--Nor will be, comrade, till it rain,
   Or genial thawings loose the lorn land
   Throughout the field.
Rook.--I find no grain:
   The cruel frost encrusts the cornland!

There was a time in former years-
While my roof-tree was his-
When I should have been distressed by fears
At such a night as this!

I should have murmured anxiously,
'The prickling rain strikes cold;
His road is bare of hedge or tree,
And he is getting old.'

But now the fitful chimney-roar,
The drone of Thorncombe trees,
The Froom in flood upon the moor,
The mud of Mellstock Leaze,

The candle slanting sooty-wick'd,
The thuds upon the thatch,
The eaves drops on the window flicked,
The clanking garden-hatch,

And what they mean to wayfarers,
I scarcely heed or mind;
He has won that storm-tight roof of hers
Which Earth grants all her kind.

There was a time in former years--
While my roof-tree was his--
When I should have been distressed by fears
At such a night as this!

I should have murmured anxiously,
'The prickling rain strikes cold;
His road is bare of hedge or tree,
And he is getting old.'

But now the fitful chimney-roar,
The drone of Thorncombe trees,
The Froom in flood upon the moor,
The mud of Mellstock Leaze,

The candle slanting sooty-wick'd,
The thuds upon the thatch,
The eaves drops on the window flicked,
The clanking garden-hatch,

And what they mean to wayfarers,
I scarcely heed or mind;
He has won that storm-tight roof of hers
Which Earth grants all her kind.

There trudges one to a merry-making
With sturdy swing,
On whom the rain comes down.

To fetch the saving medicament
Is another bent,
On whom the rain comes down.

One slowly drives his herd to the stall
Ere ill befall,
On whom the rain comes down.

This bears his missives of life and death
With quickening breath,
On whom the rain comes down.

One watches for signals of wreck or war
From the hill afar,
On whom the rain comes down.

No care if he gain a shelter or none,
Unhired moves on,
On whom the rain comes down.

And another knows nought of its chilling fall
Upon him aat all,
On whom the rain comes down.

October 1904

In the wild October night-time, when the wind raved round the
land,
And the Back-sea met the front-sea, and our doors were blocked
with sand,
And we heard the drub of dead-man's bay, where the bones of
thousands are,
We knew not what the day had done for us at Trafalgar.
Had done,
Had done,
For us at Trafalgar!

'Pull hard, and make the nothe, or down we go!' One says,
says he.
We pulled; and bedtime brought the storm; but snug at home
slept we.
Yet all the while our gallants after fighting through the day,
Were beating up and down the dark, sou'west of Cadiz Bay.
The dark,
The dark,
Sou'west of Cadiz Bay!

The victors and the vanquished then the storm it tossed and tore,
As hard they strove, those worn-out men, upon that surly shore;
Dead Nelson and his half dead crew, his foes from near and far,
Were rolled together on the deep that night at Trafalgar!
The deep,
The deep,
That night at Trafalgar!

THEY sing their dearest songs--
He, she, all of them--yea,
Treble and tenor and bass.
And one to play;
With the candles mooning each face....
Ah, no; the years O!
How the sick leaves reel down in throngs!

They clear the creeping moss--
Elders and juniors--aye,
Making the pathways neat
And the garden gay;
And they build a shady seat....
Ah, no; the years, the years;
See, the white storm-birds wing across!

They are blithely breakfasting all--
Men and maidens--yea,
Under the summer tree,
With a glimpse of the bay,
While pet fowl come to the knee....
Ah, no; the years O!
And the rotten rose is ripped from the wall.

They change to a high new house,
He, she, all of them--aye,
Clocks and carpets and chairs
On the lawn all day,
And brightest things that are theirs....
Ah, no; the years, the years;
Down their carved names the raindrop plows.

Clouds spout upon her
Their waters amain
In ruthless disdain, -
Her who but lately
Had shivered with pain
As at touch of dishonour
If there had lit on her
So coldly, so straightly
Such arrows of rain:

One who to shelter
Her delicate head
Would quicken and quicken
Each tentative tread
If drops chanced to pelt her
That summertime spills
In dust-paven rills
When thunder-clouds thicken
And birds close their bills.

Would that I lay there
And she were housed here!
Or better, together
Were folded away there
Exposed to one weather
We both, - who would stray there
When sunny the day there,
Or evening was clear
At the prime of the year.

Soon will be growing
Green blades from her mound,
And daisies be showing
Like stars on the ground,
Till she form part of them -
Ay - the sweet heart of them,
Loved beyond measure
With a child's pleasure
All her life's round.

As I drive to the junction of lane and highway,
And the drizzle bedrenches the waggonette,
I look behind at the fading byway,
And see on its slope, now glistening wet,
Distinctly yet

Myself and a girlish form benighted
In dry March weather. We climb the road
Beside a chaise. We had just alighted
To ease the sturdy pony's load
When he sighed and slowed.

What we did as we climbed, and what we talked of
Matters not much, nor to what it led, -
Something that life will not be balked of
Without rude reason till hope is dead,
And feeling fled.

It filled but a minute. But was there ever
A time of such quality, since or before,
In that hill's story? To one mind never,
Though it has been climbed, foot-swift, foot-sore,
By thousands more.

Primaeval rocks form the road's steep border,
And much have they faced there, first and last,
Of the transitory in Earth's long order;
But what they record in colour and cast
Is - that we two passed.

And to me, though Time's unflinching rigour,
In mindless rote, has ruled from sight
The substance now, one phantom figure
Remains on the slope, as when that night
Saw us alight.

I look and see it there, shrinking, shrinking,
I look back at it amid the rain
For the very last time; for my sand is sinking,
And I shall traverse old love's domain
Never again.

With Thoughts of Sergeant M---- (Pensioner), who died 185-

"WHY, Sergeant, stray on the Ivel Way,
As though at home there were spectres rife?
From first to last 'twas a proud career!
And your sunny years with a gracious wife
Have brought you a daughter dear.

"I watched her to-day; a more comely maid,
As she danced in her muslin bowed with blue,
Round a Hintock maypole never gayed."
--"Aye, aye; I watched her this day, too,
As it happens," the Sergeant said.

"My daughter is now," he again began,
"Of just such an age as one I knew
When we of the Line, in the Foot-Guard van,
On an August morning--a chosen few--
Stormed San Sebastian.

"She's a score less three; so about was she--
The maiden I wronged in Peninsular days....
You may prate of your prowess in lusty times,
But as years gnaw inward you blink your bays,
And see too well your crimes!

"We'd stormed it at night, by the vlanker-light
Of burning towers, and the mortar's boom:
We'd topped the breach but had failed to stay,
For our files were misled by the baffling gloom;
And we said we'd storm by day.

"So, out of the trenches, with features set,
On that hot, still morning, in measured pace,
Our column climbed; climbed higher yet,
Past the fauss'bray, scarp, up the curtain-face,
And along the parapet.

"From the batteried hornwork the cannoneers
Hove crashing balls of iron fire;
On the shaking gap mount the volunteers
In files, and as they mount expire
Amid curses, groans, and cheers.

"Five hours did we storm, five hours re-form,
As Death cooled those hot blood pricked on;
Till our cause was helped by a woe within;
They swayed from the summit we'd leapt upon,
And madly we entered in.

"On end for plunder, 'mid rain and thunder
That burst with the lull of our cannonade,
We vamped the streets in the stifling air--
Our hunger unsoothed, our thirst unstayed--
And ransacked the buildings there.

"Down the stony steps of the house-fronts white
We rolled rich puncheons of Spanish grape,
Till at length, with the fire of the wine alight,
I saw at a doorway a fair fresh shape--
A woman, a sylph, or sprite.

"Afeard she fled, and with heated head
I pursued to the chamber she called her own;
--When might is right no qualms deter,
And having her helpless and alone
I wreaked my lust on her.

"She raised her beseeching eyes to me,
And I heard the words of prayer she sent
In her own soft language.... Seemingly
I copied those eyes for my punishment
In begetting the girl you see!

"So, to-day I stand with a God-set brand
Like Cain's, when he wandered from kindred's ken....
I served through the war that made Europe free;
I wived me in peace-year. But, hid from men,
I bear that mark on me.

"And I nightly stray on the Ivel Way
As though at home there were spectres rife;
I delight me not in my proud career;
And 'tis coals of fire that a gracious wife
Should have brought me a daughter dear!"

Some say the spot is banned; that the pillar Cross-and-Hand
   Attests to a deed of hell;
But of else than of bale is the mystic tale
   That ancient Vale-folk tell.

Ere Cernel's Abbey ceased hereabout there dwelt a priest,
   (In later life sub-prior
Of the brotherhood there, whose bones are now bare
   In the field that was Cernel choir).

One night in his cell at the foot of yon dell
   The priest heard a frequent cry:
"Go, father, in haste to the cot on the waste,
   And shrive a man waiting to die."

Said the priest in a shout to the caller without,
   "The night howls, the tree-trunks bow;
One may barely by day track so rugged a way,
   And can I then do so now?"

No further word from the dark was heard,
   And the priest moved never a limb;
And he slept and dreamed; till a Visage seemed
   To frown from Heaven at him.

In a sweat he arose; and the storm shrieked shrill,
   And smote as in savage joy;
While High-Stoy trees twanged to Bubb-Down Hill,
   And Bubb-Down to High-Stoy.

There seemed not a holy thing in hail,
   Nor shape of light or love,
From the Abbey north of Blackmore Vale
   To the Abbey south thereof.

Yet he plodded thence through the dark immense,
   And with many a stumbling stride
Through copse and briar climbed nigh and nigher
   To the cot and the sick man's side.

When he would have unslung the Vessels uphung
   To his arm in the steep ascent,
He made loud moan: the Pyx was gone
   Of the Blessed Sacrament.

Then in dolorous dread he beat his head:
   "No earthly prize or pelf
Is the thing I've lost in tempest tossed,
   But the Body of Christ Himself!"

He thought of the Visage his dream revealed,
   And turned towards whence he came,
Hands groping the ground along foot-track and field,
   And head in a heat of shame.

Till here on the hill, betwixt vill and vill,
   He noted a clear straight ray
Stretching down from the sky to a spot hard by,
   Which shone with the light of day.

And gathered around the illumined ground
   Were common beasts and rare,
All kneeling at gaze, and in pause profound
   Attent on an object there.

'Twas the Pyx, unharmed 'mid the circling rows
   Of Blackmore's hairy throng,
Whereof were oxen, sheep, and does,
   And hares from the brakes among;

And badgers grey, and conies keen,
   And squirrels of the tree,
And many a member seldom seen
   Of Nature's family.

The ireful winds that scoured and swept
   Through coppice, clump, and dell,
Within that holy circle slept
   Calm as in hermit's cell.

Then the priest bent likewise to the sod
   And thanked the Lord of Love,
And Blessed Mary, Mother of God,
   And all the saints above.

And turning straight with his priceless freight,
   He reached the dying one,
Whose passing sprite had been stayed for the rite
   Without which bliss hath none.

And when by grace the priest won place,
   And served the Abbey well,
He reared this stone to mark where shone
   That midnight miracle.

'More than half my life long
Did they weigh me falsely, to my bitter wrong,
But they all have shrunk away into the silence
Like a lost song.


'And the day has dawned and come
For forgiveness, when the past may hold it dumb
On the once reverberate words of hatred uttered
Half in delirium….


'With folded lips and hands
They lie and wait what next the Will commands,
And doubtless think, if think they can: 'Let discord
Sink with Life's sands!'


'By these late years their names,
Their virtues, their hereditary claims,
May be as near defacement at their grave-place
As are their fames.'


- Such thoughts bechanced to seize
A traveller's mind - a man of memories -
As he set foot within the western city
Where had died these


Who in their lifetime deemed
Him their chief enemy - one whose brain had schemed
To get their dingy greatness deeplier dingied
And disesteemed.


So, sojourning in their town,
He mused on them and on their once renown, said,
'I'll seek their resting-place to-morrow
Ere I lie down,


'And end, lest I forget,
Those ires of many years that I regret,
Renew their names, that men may see some liegeness
Is left them yet.'


Duly next day he went
And sought the church he had known them to frequent,
And wandered in the precincts, set on eyeing
Where they lay pent,


Till by remembrance led
He stood at length beside their slighted bed,
Above which, truly, scarce a line or letter
Could now be read.


'Thus years obliterate
Their graven worth, their chronicle, their date!
At once I'll garnish and revive the record
Of their past state,


'That still the sage may say
In pensive progress here where they decay,
'This stone records a luminous line whose talents
Told in their day.''


While speaking thus he turned,
For a form shadowed where they lay inurned,
And he beheld a stranger in foreign vesture,
And tropic-burned.


'Sir, I am right pleased to view
That ancestors of mine should interest you,
For I have come of purpose here to trace them….
They are time-worn, true,


'But that's a fault, at most,
Sculptors can cure. On the Pacific coast
I have vowed for long that relics of my forbears
I'd trace ere lost,


'And hitherward I come,
Before this same old Time shall strike me numb,
To carry it out.' - 'Strange, this is!' said the other;
'What mind shall plumb


'Coincident design!
Though these my father's enemies were and mine,
I nourished a like purpose - to restore them
Each letter and line.'


'Such magnanimity
Is now not needed, sir; for you will see
That since I am here, a thing like this is, plainly,
Best done by me.'


The other bowed, and left,
Crestfallen in sentiment, as one bereft
Of some fair object he had been moved to cherish,
By hands more deft.


And as he slept that night
The phantoms of the ensepulchred stood upright
Before him, trembling that he had set him seeking
Their charnel-site.


And, as unknowing his ruth,
Asked as with terrors founded not on truth
Why he should want them. 'Ha,' they hollowly hackered,
'You come, forsooth,


'By stealth to obliterate
Our graven worth, our chronicle, our date,
That our descendant may not gild the record
Of our past state,


'And that no sage may say
In pensive progress near where we decay:
'This stone records a luminous line whose talents
Told in their day.''


Upon the morrow he went
And to that town and churchyard never bent
His ageing footsteps till, some twelvemonths onward,
An accident


Once more detained him there;
And, stirred by hauntings, he must needs repair
To where the tomb was. Lo, it stood still wasting
In no man's care.


'The travelled man you met
The last time,' said the sexton, 'has not yet
Appeared again, though wealth he had in plenty.
- Can he forget?


'The architect was hired
And came here on smart summons as desired,
But never the descendent came to tell him
What he required.'


And so the tomb remained
Untouched, untended, crumbling, weather-stained,
And though the one-time foe was fain to right it
He still refrained.


'I'll set about it when
I am sure he'll come no more. Best wait till then.'
But so it was that never the stranger entered
That city again.


And the well-meaner died
While waiting tremulously unsatisfied
That no return of the family's foreign scion
Would still betide.


And many years slid by,
And active church-restorers cast their eye
Upon the ancient garth and hoary building
The tomb stood nigh.


And when they had scraped each wall,
Pulled out the stately pews, and smartened all,
'It will be well,' declared the spruce church-warden,
'To overhaul


'And broaden this path where shown;
Nothing prevents it but an old tombstone
Pertaining to a family forgotten,
Of deeds unknown.


'Their names can scarce be read,
Depend on't, all who care for them are dead.'
So went the tomb, whose shards were as path-paving
Distributed.


Over it and about
Men's footsteps beat, and wind and waterspout,
Until the names, aforetime gnawed by weathers,
Were quite worn out.


So that no sage can say
In pensive progress near where they decay,
'This stone records a luminous line whose talents
Told in their day.'