HEIRESS AND ARCHITECT
by: Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
- HE sought
the Studios, beckoning to her side
- An arch-designer, for she planned to build.
- He was of wise contrivance, deeply skilled
- In every intervolve of high and wide--
- Well fit to be her guide.
-
- Whatever it be,
- Responded he,
- With cold, clear voice, and cold, clear view,
- In true accord with prudent fashionings
- For such vicissitudes as living brings,
- And thwarting not the law of stable things,
- That will I do.
-
- Shape me, she said, high walls with tracery
- And open ogive-work, that scent and hue
- Of buds, and travelling bees, may come in through,
- The note of birds, and singings of the sea,
- For these are much to me.
-
- An idle whim!
- Broke forth from him
- Whom nought could warm to gallantries:
- Cede all these buds and birds, the zephyrs call,
- And scents, and hues, and things that falter all,
- And choose as best the close and surly wall,
- For winters freeze.
-
- Then frame, she cried, wide fronts of crystal
glass,
- That I may show my laughter and my light--
- Light like the suns by day, the stars by night--
- Till rival heart-queens, envying, wail, Alas,
- Her glory! as they pass.
-
- O maid misled!
- He sternly said,
- Whose facile foresight pierced her dire;
- Where shall abide the soul when, sick of glee,
- It shrinks, and hides, and prays no eye may see?
- Those house them best who house for secrecy,
- For you will tire.
-
- A little chamber, then, with swan and dove
- Ranged thickly, and engrailed with rare device
- Of reds and purples, for a Paradise
- Wherein my Love may greet me, I my Love,
- When he shall know thereof?
-
- This, too, is ill,
- He answered still,
- The man who swayed her like a shade.
- An hour will come when sight of such sweet nook
- Would bring a bitterness too sharp to brook,
- When brighter eyes have won away his look;
- For you will fade.
-
- Then said she faintly: O, contrive some way--
- Some narrow winding turret, quite mine own,
- To reach a loft where I may grieve alone!
- It is a slight thing; hence do not, I pray,
- This last dear fancy slay!
-
- Such winding ways
- Fit not your days,
- Said he, the man of measuring eye;
- I must even fashion as my rule declares,
- To wit: Give space (since life ends unawares)
- To hale a coffined corpse adown the stairs;
- For you will die.
"Heiress and Architect"
is reprinted from Wessex Poems and Other Verses. Thomas
Hardy. New York: Harper, 1898. |
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