Poems of the Past and the Present

Name: Poems of the Past and the Present
Author: Hardy, Thomas

Hardy, Thomas

English poetry

The thick lids of Night closed upon me
         Alone at the Bill
         Of the Isle by the Race {253}—
      Many-caverned, bald, wrinkled of face—
   And with darkness and silence the spirit was on me
         To brood and be still.

                                    II

      No wind fanned the flats of the ocean,
         Or promontory sides,
         Or the ooze by the strand,
      Or the bent-bearded slope of the land,
   Whose base took its rest amid everlong motion
         Of criss-crossing tides.

                                   III

      Soon from out of the Southward seemed nearing
         A whirr, as of wings
         Waved by mighty-vanned flies,
      Or by night-moths of measureless size,
   And in softness and smoothness well-nigh beyond hearing
         Of corporal things.

                                    IV

      And they bore to the bluff, and alighted—
         A dim-discerned train
         Of sprites without mould,
      Frameless souls none might touch or might hold—
   On the ledge by the turreted lantern, farsighted
         By men of the main.

                                    V

      And I heard them say “Home!” and I knew them
         For souls of the felled
         On the earth’s nether bord
      Under Capricorn, whither they’d warred,
   And I neared in my awe, and gave heedfulness to them
         With breathings inheld.

                                    VI

      Then, it seemed, there approached from the northward
         A senior soul-flame
         Of the like filmy hue:
      And he met them and spake: “Is it you,
   O my men?”  Said they, “Aye!  We bear homeward and hearthward
         To list to our fame!”

                                   VII

      “I’ve flown there before you,” he said then:
         “Your households are well;
         But—your kin linger less
      On your glory arid war-mightiness
   Than on dearer things.”—“Dearer?” cried these from the dead then,
         “Of what do they tell?”

                                   VIII

      “Some mothers muse sadly, and murmur
         Your doings as boys—
         Recall the quaint ways
      Of your babyhood’s innocent days.
   Some pray that, ere dying, your faith had grown firmer,
         And higher your joys.

                                    IX

      “A father broods: ‘Would I had set him
         To some humble trade,
         And so slacked his high fire,
      And his passionate martial desire;
   Had told him no stories to woo him and whet him
         To this due crusade!”

                                    X

      “And, General, how hold out our sweethearts,
         Sworn loyal as doves?”
         —“Many mourn; many think
      It is not unattractive to prink
   Them in sables for heroes.   Some fickle and fleet hearts
         Have found them new loves.”

                                    XI

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Poems of the Past and the Present

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