A Wasted Illness

THROUGH vaults of pain, Enribbed and wrought with groins of ghastliness, I passed, and garish spectres moved my brain To dire distress.

And hammerings, And quakes, and shoots, and stifling hotness, blent With webby waxing things and waning things As on I went.

“Where lies the end To this foul way?” I asked with weakening breath. Thereon ahead I saw a door extend— The door to death.

It loomed more clear: “At last!” I cried. “The all-delivering door!” And then, I knew not how, it grew less near Than theretofore.

And back slid I Along the galleries by which I came, And tediously the day returned, and sky, And life—the same.

And all was well: Old circumstance resumed its former show, And on my head the dews of comfort fell As ere my woe.

I roam anew, Scarce conscious of my late distress . . . And yet Those backward steps through pain I cannot view Without regret.

For that dire train Of waxing shapes and waning, passed before, And those grim aisles, must be traversed again To reach that door.

A MAN (IN MEMORY OF H. OF M.)

I

IN Casterbridge there stood a noble pile, Wrought with pilaster, bay, and balustrade In tactful times when shrewd Eliza swayed.— On burgher, squire, and clown It smiled the long street down for near a mile

II

But evil days beset that domicile; The stately beauties of its roof and wall Passed into sordid hands. Condemned to fall Were cornice, quoin, and cove, And all that art had wove in antique style.

III

Among the hired dismantlers entered there One till the moment of his task untold. When charged therewith he gazed, and answered bold: “Be needy I or no, I will not help lay low a house so fair!

IV

“Hunger is hard. But since the terms be such— No wage, or labour stained with the disgrace Of wrecking what our age cannot replace To save its tasteless soul— I’ll do without your dole. Life is not much!”

V

Dismissed with sneers he backed his tools and went, And wandered workless; for it seemed unwise To close with one who dared to criticize And carp on points of taste: To work where they were placed rude men were meant.

VI

Years whiled. He aged, sank, sickened, and was not: And it was said, “A man intractable And curst is gone.” None sighed to hear his knell, None sought his churchyard-place; His name, his rugged face, were soon forgot.

VII

The stones of that fair hall lie far and wide, And but a few recall its ancient mould; Yet when I pass the spot I long to hold As truth what fancy saith: “His protest lives where deathless things abide!”