Chapter I: Preface: To Wessex Poems

OF the miscellaneous collection of verse that follows, only four pieces have been published, though many were written long ago, and other 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

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 21 HER DILEMMA 23 REVULSION 27 SHE, TO HIM, I. 31 ,, ,, II. 33 ,, ,, III. 35 ,, ,, IV. 37 DITTY 39 THE SERGEANT’S SONG 43 VALENCIENNES 45 SAN SEBASTIAN 51 THE STRANGER’S SONG 59 THE BURGHERS 61 LEIPZIG 67 THE PEASANT’S CONFESSION 79 THE ALARM 91 HER DEATH AND AFTER 103 THE DANCE AT THE PHŒNIX 115 THE CASTERBRIDGE CAPTAINS 125 A SIGN-SEEKER 129 MY CICELY 133 HER IMMORTALITY 143 THE IVY-WIFE 147 A MEETING WITH DESPAIR 149 UNKNOWING 153 FRIENDS BEYOND 155 TO OUTER NATURE 159 THOUGHTS OF PHENA 163 MIDDLE-AGE ENTHUSIASMS 167 IN A WOOD 169 TO A LADY 173 TO AN ORPHAN CHILD 175 NATURE’S QUESTIONING 177 THE IMPERCIPIENT 181 AT AN INN 187 THE SLOW NATURE 191 IN A EWELEAZE NEAR WEATHERBURY 195 THE FIRE AT TRANTER SWEATLEY’S 201 HEIRESS AND ARCHITECT 211 THE TWO MEN 217 LINES 223 “I LOOK INTO MY GLASS” 227

[Picture: Sketch of tower with sun-dial]

THE TEMPORARY THE ALL

CHANGE and chancefulness in my flowering youthtime,
Set me sun by sun near to one unchosen;
Wrought us fellow-like, and despite divergence,
Friends interlinked us.

“Cherish him can I while the true one forthcome—
Come the rich fulfiller of my prevision;
Life is roomy yet, and the odds unbounded.”
So self-communed I.

Thwart my wistful way did a damsel saunter,
Fair, the while unformed to be all-eclipsing;
“Maiden meet,” held I, “till arise my forefelt
Wonder of women.”

Long a visioned hermitage deep desiring,
Tenements uncouth I was fain to house in;
“Let such lodging be for a breath-while,” thought I,
“Soon a more seemly.

“Then, high handiwork will I make my life-deed,
Truth and Light outshow; but the ripe time pending,
Intermissive aim at the thing sufficeth.”
Thus I . . . But lo, me!

Mistress, friend, place, aims to be bettered straightway,
Bettered not has Fate or my hand’s achieving;
Sole the showance those of my onward earth-track—
Never transcended!

AMABEL