Thomas Hardy (1840–1928). Wessex Poems and Other Verses. 1898.
26. Her Death and After
’T
By the way of the Western Wall, so drear
On that winter night, and sought a gate—
The home, by Fate,
Of one I had long held dear.
And the trees shed on me their rime and hoar,
I thought of the man who had left her lone—
Him who made her his own
When I loved her, long before.
The home-things wear which the housewife miss;
From the stairway floated the rise and fall
Of an infant’s call,
Whose birth had brought her to this.
For a child by the man she did not love.
“But let that rest forever,” I said,
And bent my tread
To the chamber up above.
And smiled her thanks—though nigh too weak—
And made them a sign to leave us there;
Then faltered, ere
She could bring herself to speak.
Such a natural thing now my time’s not much—
When Death is so near it hustles hence
All passioned sense
Between woman and man as such!
The City detains him. But, in truth,
He has not been kind.… I will speak no blame,
But—the child is lame;
O, I pray she may reach his ruth!
Maybe if we’d wedded you’d now repine!…
But I treated you ill. I was punished. Farewell!
—Truth shall I tell?
Would the child were yours and mine!
That, could I insert a deed back in Time,
I’d make her yours, to secure your care;
And the scandal bear,
And the penalty for the crime!”
Rang above me, as lauding her candid say,
Another was I. Her words were enough:
Came smooth, came rough,
I felt I could live my day.
In the Field of Tombs, by the Via renowned,
Had her husband’s heed. His tendance spent,
I often went
And pondered by her mound.
And I still went thitherward in the gloam;
But the Town forgot her and her nook,
And her husband took
Another Love to his home.
Whom she wished for its safety child of mine,
Was treated ill when offspring came
Of the new-made dame,
And marked a more vigorous line.
Than even at loss of her so dear;
Dead the being whose soul my soul suffused,
Her child ill-used,
I helpless to interfere!
In the white-stoned Garth, brooding thus her wrong,
Her husband neared; and to shun his view
By her hallowed mew
I went from the tombs among
That haggard mark of Imperial Rome,
Whose Pagan echoes mock the chime
Of our Christian time:
It was void, and I inward clomb.
From the vast Rotund and the neighboring dead
When her husband followed; bowed; half-passed,
With lip upcast;
Then, halting, sullenly said:
Now, I gave her an honored name to bear
While living, when dead. So I’ve claim to ask
By what right you task
My patience by vigiling there?
Preserve it, sir, and keep away;
For the mother of my first-born you
Show mind undue!
—Sir, I’ve nothing more to say.”
God pardon—or pardon not—the lie;
She had sighed that she wished (lest the child should pine
Of slights) ’twere mine,
So I said: “But the father I.
But I won her troth long ere your day:
You learnt how, in dying, she summoned me?
’Twas in fealty.
—Sir, I’ve nothing more to say,
I’ll take her, and rear her, and spare you toil.
Think it more than a friendly act none can;
I’m a lonely man,
While you’ve a large pot to boil.
To-night, to-morrow night, anywhen—
I’ll meet you here.… But think of it,
And in season fit
Let me hear from you again.”
Of my stroke for the child, till there greeted me
A little voice that one day came
To my window-frame
And babbled innocently:
I’m to stay here, sir, where I belong!”
Next a writing came: “Since the child was the fruit
Of your passions brute,
Pray take her, to right a wrong.”
And the child loved me, and estranged us none.
But compunctions loomed; for I’d harmed the dead
By what I’d said
For the good of the living one.
And unworthy the woman who drew me so,
Perhaps this wrong for her darling’s good
She forgives, or would,
If only she could know!