MY CICELY
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ALIVE?”—And I leapt in my wonder,Was faint of my joyance,And grasses and grove shone in garmentsOf glory to me. “She lives, in a plenteous well-being,To-day as aforehand;The dead bore the name—though a rare one—The name that bore she.” She lived . . . I, afar in the cityOf frenzy-led factions,Had squandered green years and maturerIn bowing the knee To Baals illusive and specious,Till chance had there voiced meThat one I loved vainly in nonageHad ceased her to be. The passion the planets had scowled on,And change had let dwindle,Her death-rumour smartly reliftedTo full apogee. I mounted a steed in the dawningWith acheful remembrance,And made for the ancient West HighwayTo far Exonb’ry. Passing heaths, and the House of Long Sieging,I neared the thin steepleThat tops the fair fane of Poore’s oldenEpiscopal see; And, changing anew my onbearer,I traversed the downlandWhereon the bleak hill-graves of ChieftainsBulge barren of tree; And still sadly onward I followedThat Highway the Icen,Which trails its pale riband down WessexO’er lynchet and lea. Along through the Stour-bordered Forum,Where Legions had wayfared,And where the slow river upglassesIts green canopy, And by Weatherbury Castle, and thencefromThrough Casterbridge held IStill on, to entomb her my visionSaw stretched pallidly. No highwayman’s trot blew the night-windTo me so life-weary,But only the creak of the gibbetsOr waggoners’ jee. Triple-ramparted Maidon gloomed graylyAbove me from southward,And north the hill-fortress of Eggar,And square Pummerie. The Nine-Pillared Cromlech, the Bride-streams,The Axe, and the OtterI passed, to the gate of the cityWhere Exe scents the sea; Till, spent, in the graveacre pausing,I learnt ’twas not my LoveTo whom Mother Church had just murmuredA last lullaby. —“Then, where dwells the Canon’s kinswoman,My friend of aforetime?”—(’Twas hard to repress my heart-heavingsAnd new ecstasy.) “She wedded.”—“Ah!”—“Wedded beneath her—She keeps the stage-hostelTen miles hence, beside the great Highway—The famed Lions-Three. “Her spouse was her lackey—no option’Twixt wedlock and worse things;A lapse over-sad for a ladyOf her pedigree!” I shuddered, said nothing, and wanderedTo shades of green laurel:Too ghastly had grown those first tidingsSo brightsome of blee! For, on my ride hither, I’d haltedAwhile at the Lions,And her—her whose name had once openedMy heart as a key— I’d looked on, unknowing, and witnessedHer jests with the tapsters,Her liquor-fired face, her thick accentsIn naming her fee. “O God, why this seeming derision!”I cried in my anguish:“O once Loved, O fair Unforgotten—That Thing—meant it thee! “Inurned and at peace, lost but sainted,Were grief I could compass;Depraved—’tis for Christ’s poor dependentA cruel decree!” I backed on the Highway; but passed notThe hostel. Within thereToo mocking to Love’s re-expressionWas Time’s repartee! Uptracking where Legions had wayfared,By cromlechs unstoried,And lynchets, and sepultured Chieftains,In self-colloquy, A feeling stirred in me and strengthenedThat _she_ was not my Love,But she of the garth, who lay rapt inHer long reverie. And thence till to-day I persuade meThat this was the true one;That Death stole intact her young dearnessAnd innocency. Frail-witted, illuded they call me;I may be. ’Tis betterTo dream than to own the debasementOf sweet Cicely. Moreover I rate it unseemlyTo hold that kind HeavenCould work such device—to her ruinAnd my misery. So, lest I disturb my choice vision,I shun the West Highway,Even now, when the knaps ring with rhythmsFrom blackbird and bee; And feel that with slumber half-consciousShe rests in the church-hay,Her spirit unsoiled as in youth-timeWhen lovers were we. [Picture: Sketch of top of church tower] * * * * * [Picture: Sketch of fields with trees]
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