They must forget, forget! They cannot know What once they were, Or memory would transfigure them, and show Them always fair. III AFTER THE CLUB-DANCE BLACK’ON frowns east on Maidon, And westward to the sea, But on neither is his frown laden With scorn, as his frown on me! At dawn my heart grew heavy, I could not sip the wine, I left the jocund bevy And that young man o’ mine. The roadside elms pass by me,— Why do I sink with shame When the birds a-perch there eye me? They, too, have done the same! IV THE MARKET-GIRL NOBODY took any notice of her as she stood on the causey kerb, All eager to sell her honey and apples and bunches of garden herb; And if she had offered to give her wares and herself with them too that day, I doubt if a soul would have cared to take a bargain so choice away. But chancing to trace her sunburnt grace that morning as I passed nigh, I went and I said “Poor maidy dear!—and will none of the people buy?” And so it began; and soon we knew what the end of it all must be, And I found that though no others had bid, a prize had been won by me. V THE INQUIRY AND are ye one of Hermitage— Of Hermitage, by Ivel Road, And do ye know, in Hermitage A thatch-roofed house where sengreens grow? And does John Waywood live there still— He of the name that there abode When father hurdled on the hill Some fifteen years ago? Does he now speak o’ Patty Beech, The Patty Beech he used to—see, Or ask at all if Patty Beech Is known or heard of out this way? —Ask ever if she’s living yet, And where her present home may be, And how she bears life’s fag and fret After so long a day? In years agone at Hermitage This faded face was counted fair, None fairer; and at Hermitage We swore to wed when he should thrive. But never a chance had he or I, And waiting made his wish outwear, And Time, that dooms man’s love to die, Preserves a maid’s alive. VI A WIFE WAITS WILL’S at the dance in the Club-room below, Where the tall liquor-cups foam; I on the pavement up here by the Bow, Wait, wait, to steady him home. Will and his partner are treading a tune, Loving companions they be; Willy, before we were married in June, Said he loved no one but me; Said he would let his old pleasures all go Ever to live with his Dear. Will’s at the dance in the Club-room below, Shivering I wait for him here. NOTE.—“The Bow” (line 3). The old name for the curved corner by the cross-streets in the middle of Casterbridge. VII AFTER THE FAIR THE singers are gone from the Cornmarket-place With their broadsheets of rhymes, The street rings no longer in treble and bass With their skits on the times, And the Cross, lately thronged, is a dim naked space That but echoes the stammering chimes.