Wessex Poems and Other Verses

by Thomas Hardy

Wessex Poems

and Other Verses

 

By

THOMAS HARDY

Author of "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" etc.

 

With
30 Illustrations by the Author

 

 

NEW YORK AND LONDON

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

1899

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

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Desperate Remedies. Two on a Tower. The Woodlanders. Far from the Madding Crowd. Wessex Tales. Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Jude the Obscure.

The Hand of Ethelberta. A Pair of Blue Eves. The Mayor of Casterbridge. The Trumpet-Major. Under the Greenwood Tree. Return of the Native. The Well-Beloved.

Uniform Edition. Illustrated. Crown 8vo, Cloth, $1,50 per volume.

Life's Little Ironies. Tales. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental $1,25.

A Group of Noble Dames. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1,25.

Fellow-Townsmen. 32mo, Cloth, 35 cents.

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NEW YORK AND LONDON:

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS.

 

Copyright, 1898, by Harper & Brothers.

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All rights reserved.

PREFACE

OF the miscellaneous collection of verse that follows, only four pieces have been published, though many were written long ago, and others partly written. In some few cases the verses were turned into prose and printed as such, it having been unanticipated at that time that they might see the light.

Whenever an ancient and legitimate word of the district, for which there was no equivalent in received English, suggested itself as the most natural, nearest, and often only expression of a thought, it has been made use of, on what seemed good grounds.

The pieces are in a large degree dramatic or personative in conception; and this even where they are not obviously so.

The dates attached to some of the poems do not apply to the rough sketches given in illustration, which have been recently made, and, as may be surmised, are inserted for personal and local reasons rather than for their intrinsic qualities.

T. H.

September 1898.

CONTENTS

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page

The Temporary the All ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

1

Amabel ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

4

Hap ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

7

"In Vision I Roamed" ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

9

At a Bridal ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

11

Postponement ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

13

A Confession to a Friend in Trouble ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

15

Neutral Tones ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

17

She ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

19

Her Initials ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

20

Her Dilemma ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

21

Revulsion ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

25

She, to Him, I ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

29

"" II ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

31

"" III ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

33

"" IV ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

35

Ditty ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

37

The Sergeant's Song ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

40

Valenciennes ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

42

San Sebastian ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

47

The Stranger's Song ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

54

The Burghers ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

56

Leipzig ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

62

The Peasant's Confession ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

74

The Alarm ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

86

Her Death and After ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

97

The Dance at the Phœnix ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

108

The Casterbridge Captains ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

117

A Sign-Seeker ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

120

My Cicely ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

124

Her Immortality ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

132

The Ivy-Wife ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

138

A Meeting with Despair ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

140

Unknowing ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

143

Friends Beyond ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

145

To Outer Nature ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

149

Thoughts of Ph—a ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

152

Middle-Age Enthusiasms ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

156

In a Wood ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

158

To a Lady ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

161

To an Orphan Child ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

163

Nature's Questioning ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

165

The Impercipient ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

168

At an Inn ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

173

The Slow Nature ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

176

In a Eweleaze near Weatherbury ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

179

The Fire at Tranter Sweatley's ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

185

Heiress and Architect ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

194

The Two Men ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

200

Lines ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

205

"I Look into my Glass" ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

209

"At mothy curfew-tide
They've a way of whispering to me."

—Friends Beyond, p. 145.