Wessex Poems and Other Verses

The Alarm

(TRADITIONAL)

IN MEMORY OF ONE OF THE WRITER'S FAMILY WHO WAS A VOLUNTEER DURING THE WAR WITH NAPOLEON

In a ferny byway
Near the great South-Wessex Highway,
     A homestead raised its breakfast-smoke aloft;
The dew-damps still lay steamless, for the sun had made no skyway,
     And twilight cloaked the croft.

It was almost past conceiving
Here, where woodbines hung inweaving,
     That quite closely hostile armaments might steer,
Save from seeing in the porchway a fair woman mutely grieving,
     And a harnessed Volunteer.

In haste he'd flown there
To his comely wife alone there,
     While marching south hard by, to still her fears,
For she soon would be a mother, and few messengers were known there
     In these campaigning years.

'Twas time to be Good-bying,
Since the assembly-hour was nighing
     In royal George's town at six that morn;
And betwixt its wharves and this retreat were ten good miles of hieing
     Ere ring of bugle-horn.

"I've laid in food, Dear,
And broached the spiced and brewed, Dear,
     And if our July hope should antedate,
Let the char-wench mount and gallop by the halterpath and wood, Dear,
     And fetch assistance straight.

"As for Buonaparte, forget him;
He's not like to land! But let him,
     Those strike with aim who strike for wives and sons!
And the war-boats built to float him; 'twere but wanted to upset him
     A slat from Nelson's guns!

"But, to assure thee,
And of creeping fears to cure thee,
     If he should be rumoured anchoring in the Road,
Drive with the nurse to Kingsbere; and let nothing thence allure thee
     Till we have him safe-bestowed.

"Now, to turn to marching matters:--
I've my knapsack, firelock, spatters,
     Crossbelts, priming horn, stock, bay'net, blackball, clay
Pouch, magazine, and flint-box that at every quick-step clatters;--
     My heart, Dear; that must stay!"

--With breathings broken
Farewell was kissed unspoken,
     And they parted there as morning stroked the panes;
And the Volunteer went on, and turned, and twirled his glove for token,
     And took the coastward lanes.

When above He'th Hills he found him,
He saw, on gazing round him,
     The Barrow-Beacon burning--burning low,
As if, perhaps, enkindled ever since he'd homeward bound him;
     And it meant: Expect the Foe!

Leaving the byway,
He entered on the highway,
     Where were cars and chariots, faring fast inland;
"He's anchored, Soldier!" shouted some: "God save thee, marching thy way,
     Th'lt front him on the strand!"

He slowed; he stopped; he paltered
Awhile with self, and faltered,
     "Why courting misadventure shoreward roam?
To Molly, surely! Seek the woods with her till times have altered;
     Charity favours home.

"Else, my denying
He'd come, she'll read as lying--
     Think the Barrow-Beacon must have met my eyes--
That my words were not unwareness, but deceit of her, while vying
     In deeds that jeopardize.

"At home is stocked provision,
And to-night, without suspicion,
     We might bear it with us to a covert near;
Such sin, to save a childing wife, would earn it Christ's remission,
     Though none forgive it here!"

While he stood thinking,
A little bird, perched drinking
     Among the crowfoot tufts the river bore,
Was tangled in their stringy arms and fluttered, almost sinking
     Near him, upon the moor.

He stepped in, reached, and seized it,
And, preening, had released it
     But that thought of Holy Writ occurred,
And Signs Divine ere battle, till it seemed him Heaven had pleased it
     As guide to send the bird.

"O Lord, direct me!. . .
Doth Duty now expect me
     To march a-coast, or guard my weak ones near?
Give this bird a flight according, that I hence learn to elect me
     The southward or the rear."

He loosed his clasp; when, rising,
The bird--as if surmising--
     Bore due to southward, crossing by the Froom,
And Durnover Great Field and Fort, the soldier clear advising--
     Prompted he deemed by Whom.

Then on he panted
By grim Mai-Don, and slanted
     Up the steep Ridge-way, hearkening between whiles;
Till nearing coast and harbour he beheld the shore-line planted
     With Foot and Horse for miles.

Mistrusting not the omen,
He gained the beach, where Yeomen
     Militia, Fencibles and Pikesmen bold,
With Regulars in thousands, were enmassed to meet the Foemen,
     Whose fleet had not yet shoaled.

Captain and Colonel,
Sere Generals, Ensigns vernal,
     Where there; of neighbour-natives, Michel, Smith,
Meggs, Bingham, Gambier, Cunningham, to face the said nocturnal
     Swoop on their land and kith.

But Buonoparte still tarried:
His project had miscarried;
     At the last hour, equipped for victory,
The fleet had paused; his subtle combinations had been parried
     By British strategy.

Homeward returning
Anon, no beacons burning,
     No alarms, the Volunteer, in modest bliss,
Te Deum sang with wife and friends: "We praise Thee, Lord, discerning
     That Thou hast helped in this!"

Her Death and After

The summons was urgent: and forth I went--

By the way of the Western Wall, so drear

On that winter night, and sought a gate,

Where one, by Fate,

    Lay dying that I held dear.

And there, as I paused by her tenement,

And the trees shed on me their rime and hoar,

I thought of the man who had left her lone--

Him who made her his own

    When I loved her, long before.

The rooms within had the piteous shine

That home-things wear when there's aught amiss;

From the stairway floated the rise and fall

Of an infant's call,

    Whose birth had brought her to this.

Her life was the price she would pay for that whine--

For a child by the man she did not love.

"But let that rest for ever," I said,

And bent my tread

    To the bedchamber above.

She took my hand in her thin white own,

And smiled her thanks--though nigh too weak--

And made them a sign to leave us there,

Then faltered, ere

    She could bring herself to speak.

"Just to see you--before I go--he'd condone

Such a natural thing now my time's not much--

When Death is so near it hustles hence

All passioned sense

    Between woman and man as such!

"My husband is absent. As heretofore

The City detains him. But, in truth,

He has not been kind. . . . I will speak no blame,

But--the child is lame;

    O, I pray she may reach his ruth!

"Forgive past days--I can say no more--

Maybe had we wed you would now repine!. . .

But I treated you ill. I was punished. Farewell!

--Truth shall I tell?

    Would the child were yours and mine!

"As a wife I was true. But, such my unease

That, could I insert a deed back in Time,

I'd make her yours, to secure your care;

And the scandal bear,

    And the penalty for the crime!"

--When I had left, and the swinging trees

Rang above me, as lauding her candid say,

Another was I. Her words were enough:

Came smooth, came rough,

    I felt I could live my day.

Next night she died; and her obsequies

In the Field of Tombs where the earthworks frowned

Had her husband's heed. His tendance spent,

I often went

    And pondered by her mound.

All that year and the next year whiled,

And I still went thitherward in the gloam;

But the Town forgot her and her nook

And her husband took

    Another Love to his home.

And the rumour flew that the lame lone child

Whom she wished for its safety child of mine,

Was treated ill when offspring came

Of the new-made dame,

    And marked a more vigorous line.

A smarter grief within me wrought

Than even at loss of her so dear--

That the being whose soul my soul suffused

Had a child ill-used

    While I dared not interfere!

One eve as I stood at my spot of thought

In the white-stoned Garth, brooding thus her wrong,

Her husband neared; and to shun his nod

By her hallowed sod

    I went from the tombs among

To the Cirque of the Gladiators which faced--

That haggard mark of Imperial Rome,

Whose Pagan echoes mock the chime

Of our Christian time

    From its hollows of chalk and loam.

The sun's gold touch was scarce displaced

From the vast Arena where men once bled,

When her husband followed; bowed; half-passed

With lip upcast;

    Then halting sullenly said:

"It is noised that you visit my first wife's tomb.

Now, I gave her an honoured name to bear

While living, when dead. So I've claim to ask

By what right you task

    My patience by vigiling there?

"There's decency even in death, I assume;

Preserve it, sir, and keep away;

For the mother of my first-born you

Show mind undue!

    --Sir, I've nothing more to say."

A desperate stroke discerned I then--

God pardon--or pardon not-- the lie;

She had sighed that she wished (lest the child should pine

Of slights) 'twere mine,

    So I said: "But the father I.

"That you thought it yours is the way of men;

But I won her troth long ere your day:

You learnt how, in dying, she summoned me?

'Twas in fealty.

    --Sir, I've nothing more to say,

"Save that, if you'll hand me my little maid,

I'll take her, and rear her, and spare you toil.

Think it more than a friendly act none can;

I'm a lonely man,

    While you've a large pot to boil.

"If not, and you'll put it to ball or blade--

To-night, to-morrow night, anywhen--

I'll meet you here. . . . But think of it,

And in season fit

    Let me hear from you again."

--Well, I went away, hoping; but nought I heard

Of my stroke for the child, till there greeted me

A little voice that one day came

To my window-frame

    And babbled innocently:

"My father who's not my own, sends word

I'm to stay here, sir, where I belong!"

Next a writing came: "Since the child was the fruit

Of your lawless suit,

    Pray take her, to right a wrong."

And I did. And I gave the child my love,

And the child loved me, and estranged us none.

But compunctions loomed; for I'd harmed the dead

By what I said

    For the good of the living one.

--Yet though, God wot, I am sinner enough,

And unworthy the woman who drew me so.

Perhaps this wrong for her darling's good

She forgives, or would,

    If only she could know!