PAYING CALLS I WENT by footpath and by stile On certain ones I had not seen It was the time of midsummer When they had used to roam; I spoke to one and other of them By mound and stone and tree Of things we had done ere days were dim, But they spoke not to me. FRIENDS BEYOND WILLIAM DEWY, Tranter Reuben, Farmer Ledlow late at plough, Robert's kin, and John's, and Ned's, And the Squire, and Lady Susan, lie in Mellstock churchyard now! Gone," I call them, gone for good, that group of local hearts and heads; Yet at mothy curfew-tide, And at midnight when the noon-heat breathes it back from walls and leads They've a way of whispering to me-fellowwight who yet abide― In the muted, measured note Of a ripple under archways, or a lone cave's stillicide: "We have triumphed: this achievement turns the bane to antidote, Unsuccesses to success, Many thought-worn eves and morrows to a morrow free of thought. FRIENDS BEYOND 113 'No more need we corn and clothing, feel of old terrestrial stress; Chill detraction stirs no sigh; Fear of death has even bygone us: death gave all that we possess." W. D.-" Ye mid burn the old base-viol that I set such value by." Squire " You may hold the manse in fee, You may wed my spouse, may let my children's memory of me die." Lady-" You may have my rich brocades, my laces; take each household key; Ransack coffer, desk, bureau ; Quiz the few poor treasures hid there, con the letters kept by me." Far.-" Ye mid zell my favourite heifer, ye mid let the charlock grow, Foul the grinterns, give up thrift.” Wife" If ye break my best blue china, children, I shan't care or ho." All "We've no wish to hear the tidings, how the people's fortunes shift; What your daily doings are ; Who are wedded, born, divided; if your lives beat slow or swift. Curious not the least are we if our intents you make or mar, 114 FRIENDS BEYOND If you quire to our old tune, If the City stage still passes, if the weirs still roar afar." -Thus, with very gods' composure, freed those crosses late and soon Which, in life, the Trine allow (Why, none witteth), and ignoring all that haps beneath the moon, William Dewy, Tranter Reuben, Farmer Ledlow late at plough, Robert's kin, and John's, and Ned's, And the Squire, and Lady Susan, murmur mildly to me now. IN FRONT OF THE LANDSCAPE PLUNGING and labouring on in a tide of visions, Dolorous and dear, Forward I pushed my way as amid waste waters Stretching around, Through whose eddies there glimmered the customed landscape Yonder and near Blotted to feeble mist. And the coomb and the upland Foliage-crowned, Ancient chalk-pit, milestone, rills in the grassflat Stroked by the light, Seemed but a ghost-like gauze, and no substantial Meadow or mound. What were the infinite spectacles bulking fore most Under my sight, |