Chapter I: ASKED the Lord: “Sire, is this true

Which hosts of theologians hold,
That when we creatures censure you
For shaping griefs and ails untold
(Deeming them punishments undue)
You rage, as Moses wrote of old?

When we exclaim: ‘Beneficent
He is not, for he orders pain,
Or, if so, not omnipotent:
To a mere child the thing is plain!’
Those who profess to represent
You, cry out: ‘Impious and profane!’”

He: “Save me from my friends, who deem
That I care what my creatures say!
Mouth as you list: sneer, rail, blaspheme,
O manikin, the livelong day,
Not one grief-groan or pleasure-gleam
Will you increase or take away.

“Why things are thus, whoso derides,
May well remain my secret still . . .
A fourth dimension, say the guides,
To matter is conceivable.
Think some such mystery resides
Within the ethic of my will.”

BY THE BARROWS

NOT far from Mellstock—so tradition saith—
Where barrows, bulging as they bosoms were
Of Multimammia stretched supinely there,
Catch night and noon the tempest’s wanton breath,

A battle, desperate doubtless unto death,
Was one time fought. The outlook, lone and bare,
The towering hawk and passing raven share,
And all the upland round is called “The He’th.”

Here once a woman, in our modern age,
Fought singlehandedly to shield a child—
One not her own—from a man’s senseless rage.
And to my mind no patriots’ bones there piled
So consecrate the silence as her deed
Of stoic and devoted self-unheed.

A WIFE AND ANOTHER

“WAR ends, and he’s returning
Early; yea,
The evening next to-morrow’s!”—
—This I say
To her, whom I suspiciously survey,

Holding my husband’s letter
To her view.—
She glanced at it but lightly,
And I knew
That one from him that day had reached her too.

There was no time for scruple;
Secretly
I filched her missive, conned it,
Learnt that he
Would lodge with her ere he came home to me.

To reach the port before her,
And, unscanned,
There wait to intercept them
Soon I planned:
That, in her stead, _I_ might before him stand.

So purposed, so effected;
At the inn
Assigned, I found her hidden:—
O that sin
Should bear what she bore when I entered in!

Her heavy lids grew laden
With despairs,
Her lips made soundless movements
Unawares,
While I peered at the chamber hired as theirs.

And as beside its doorway,
Deadly hued,
One inside, one withoutside
We two stood,
He came—my husband—as she knew he would.

No pleasurable triumph
Was that sight!
The ghastly disappointment
Broke them quite.
What love was theirs, to move them with such might!

“Madam, forgive me!” said she,
Sorrow bent,
“A child—I soon shall bear him . . .
Yes—I meant
To tell you—that he won me ere he went.”

Then, as it were, within me
Something snapped,
As if my soul had largened:
Conscience-capped,
I saw myself the snarer—them the trapped.

“My hate dies, and I promise,
Grace-beguiled,”
I said, “to care for you, be
Reconciled;
And cherish, and take interest in the child.”

Without more words I pressed him
Through the door
Within which she stood, powerless
To say more,
And closed it on them, and downstairward bore.

“He joins his wife—my sister,”
I, below,
Remarked in going—lightly—
Even as though
All had come right, and we had arranged it so . . .

As I, my road retracing,
Left them free,
The night alone embracing
Childless me,
I held I had not stirred God wrothfully.

THE ROMAN ROAD

THE Roman Road runs straight and bare
As the pale parting-line in hair
Across the heath. And thoughtful men
Contrast its days of Now and Then,
And delve, and measure, and compare;

Visioning on the vacant air
Helmed legionaries, who proudly rear
The Eagle, as they pace again
The Roman Road.

But no tall brass-helmed legionnaire
Haunts it for me. Uprises there
A mother’s form upon my ken,
Guiding my infant steps, as when
We walked that ancient thoroughfare,
The Roman Road.

THE VAMPIRINE FAIR

GILBERT had sailed to India’s shore,
And I was all alone:
My lord came in at my open door
And said, “O fairest one!”

He leant upon the slant bureau,
And sighed, “I am sick for thee!”
“My lord,” said I, “pray speak not so,
Since wedded wife I be.”

Leaning upon the slant bureau,
Bitter his next words came:
“So much I know; and likewise know
My love burns on the same!

“But since you thrust my love away,
And since it knows no cure,
I must live out as best I may
The ache that I endure.”

When Michaelmas browned the nether Coomb,
And Wingreen Hill above,
And made the hollyhocks rags of bloom,
My lord grew ill of love.

My lord grew ill with love for me;
Gilbert was far from port;
And—so it was—that time did see
Me housed at Manor Court.

About the bowers of Manor Court
The primrose pushed its head
When, on a day at last, report
Arrived of him I had wed.

“Gilbert, my lord, is homeward bound,
His sloop is drawing near,
What shall I do when I am found
Not in his house but here?”

“O I will heal the injuries
I’ve done to him and thee.
I’ll give him means to live at ease
Afar from Shastonb’ry.”

When Gilbert came we both took thought:
“Since comfort and good cheer,”
Said he, “So readily are bought,
He’s welcome to thee, Dear.”

So when my lord flung liberally
His gold in Gilbert’s hands,
I coaxed and got my brothers three
Made stewards of his lands.

And then I coaxed him to install
My other kith and kin,
With aim to benefit them all
Before his love ran thin.

And next I craved to be possessed
Of plate and jewels rare.
He groaned: “You give me, Love, no rest,
Take all the law will spare!”

And so in course of years my wealth
Became a goodly hoard,
My steward brethren, too, by stealth
Had each a fortune stored.

Thereafter in the gloom he’d walk,
And by and by began
To say aloud in absent talk,
“I am a ruined man!—

“I hardly could have thought,” he said,
“When first I looked on thee,
That one so soft, so rosy red,
Could thus have beggared me!”

Seeing his fair estates in pawn,
And him in such decline,
I knew that his domain had gone
To lift up me and mine.

Next month upon a Sunday morn
A gunshot sounded nigh:
By his own hand my lordly born
Had doomed himself to die.

“Live, my dear lord, and much of thine
Shall be restored to thee!”
He smiled, and said ’twixt word and sign,
“Alas—that cannot be!”

And while I searched his cabinet
For letters, keys, or will,
’Twas touching that his gaze was set
With love upon me still.

And when I burnt each document
Before his dying eyes,
’Twas sweet that he did not resent
My fear of compromise.

The steeple-cock gleamed golden when
I watched his spirit go:
And I became repentant then
That I had wrecked him so.

Three weeks at least had come and gone,
With many a saddened word,
Before I wrote to Gilbert on
The stroke that so had stirred.

And having worn a mournful gown,
I joined, in decent while,
My husband at a dashing town
To live in dashing style.

Yet though I now enjoy my fling,
And dine and dance and drive,
I’d give my prettiest emerald ring
To see my lord alive.

And when the meet on hunting-days
Is near his churchyard home,
I leave my bantering beaux to place
A flower upon his tomb;

And sometimes say: “Perhaps too late
The saints in Heaven deplore
That tender time when, moved by Fate,
He darked my cottage door.”

THE REMINDER

WHILE I watch the Christmas blaze
Paint the room with ruddy rays,
Something makes my vision glide
To the frosty scene outside.

There, to reach a rotting berry,
Toils a thrush,—constrained to very
Dregs of food by sharp distress,
Taking such with thankfulness.

Why, O starving bird, when I
One day’s joy would justify,
And put misery out of view,
Do you make me notice you!

THE RAMBLER