Thomas Hardy (Томас Гарди (Харди))
A Night of Questionings
On the eve of All-Souls’ Day I heard the dead men say Who lie by the tottering tower, To the dark and doubling wind At the midnight’s turning hour, When other speech had thinned: ‘What of the world now?’ The wind whiffed back: ‘Men still Who are born, do good, do ill Here, just as in your time: Till their years the locust hath eaten, Leaving them bare, downbeaten; Somewhiles in springtide rime, Somewhiles in summer glow, Somewhiles in winter snow: – No more I know.’ The same eve I caught cry To the selfsame wind, those dry As dust beneath the aisles Of old cathedral piles, Walled up in vaulted biers Through many Christian years: ‘What of the world now?’ Sighed back the circuiteer: ‘Men since your time, shrined here By deserved ordinance, Their own craft, or by chance, Which follows men from birth Even until under earth, But little difference show When ranged in sculptured row, Different as dyes although: – No more I know.’ On the selfsame eve, too, said Those swayed in the sunk sea-bed To the selfsame wind as it played With the tide in the starless shade From Comorin to Horn, And round by Wrath forlorn: ‘What of the world now?’ And the wind for a second ceased, Then whirred: ‘Men west and east, As each sun soars and dips, Go down to the sea in ships As you went – hither and thither; See the wonders of the deep, As you did, ere they sleep; But few at home care whither They wander to and fro; Themselves care little also! – No more I know.’ Said, too, on the selfsame eve The troubled skulls that heave And fust in the flats of France, To the wind wayfaring over Listlessly as in trance From the Ardennes to Dover, ‘What of the world now?’ And the farer moaned: ‘As when You mauled these fields, do men Set them with dark-drawn breaths To knave their neighbours’ deaths In periodic spasms! Yea, fooled by foul phantasms, In a strange cyclic throe Backward to type they go: – No more I know.’ That night, too, men whose crimes Had cut them off betimes, Who lay within the pales Of town and county jails With the rope-groove on them yet, Said to the same wind’s fret, ‘What of the world now?’ And the blast in its brooding tone Returned: ‘Men have not shown, Since you were stretched that morning, A white cap your adorning, More lovely deeds or true Through thus neck-knotting you; Or that they purer grow, Or ever will, I trow! – No more I know.’
Thomas Hardy’s other poems:
927
