Thomas Hardy - The Noble Lady's Tale lyrics

I   "We moved with pensive paces,    I and he,   And bent our faded faces    Wistfully, For something troubled him, and troubled me.   "The lanthorn feebly lightened    Our grey hall,   Where ancient brands had brightened    Hearth and wall, And shapes long vanished whither vanish all.   "'O why, Love, nightly, daily,'    I had said,   'Dost sigh, and smile so palely,    As if shed Were all Life's blossoms, all its dear things dead?'   "'Since silence sets thee grieving,'    He replied,   'And I abhor deceiving    One so tried, Why, Love, I'll speak, ere time us twain divide.'   "He held me, I remember,    Just as when   Our life was June—(September    It was then); And we walked on, until he spoke again.   "'Susie, an Irish mummer,    Loud-acclaimed   Through the gay London summer,    Was I; named A master in my art, who would be famed.   "'But lo, there beamed before me    Lady Su;   God's altar-vow she swore me    When none knew, And for her sake I bade the sock adieu.   "'My Lord your father's pardon    Thus I won:   He let his heart unharden    Towards his son, And honourably condoned what we had done;   "'But said—recall you, dearest? -    As for Su,   I'd see her—ay, though nearest    Me unto - Sooner entombed than in a stage purlieu!   "'Just so.—And here he housed us,    In this nook,   Where Love like balm has drowsed us:    Robin, rook, Our chief familiars, next to string and book.   "'Our days here, peace-enshrouded,    Followed strange   The old stage-joyance, crowded,    Rich in range; But never did my soul desire a change,   "'Till now, when far uncertain    Lips of yore   Call, call me to the curtain,    There once more, But ONCE, to tread the boards I trod before.   "'A night—the last and single    Ere I die -   To face the lights, to mingle    As did I Once in the game, and rivet every eye!'   "'To something drear, distressing    As the knell   Of all hopes worth possessing!' . . .     —What befell Seemed linked with me, but how I could not tell.   "Hours pa**ed; till I implored him,    As he knew   How faith and frankness toward him    Ruled me through, To say what ill I had done, and could undo.   "'FAITH—FRANKNESS. Ah! Heaven save such!'    Murmured he,   'They are wedded wealth! I gave such    Liberally, But you, Dear, not. For you suspected me.'   "I was about beseeching    In hurt haste   More meaning, when he, reaching    To my waist, Led me to pace the hall as once we paced.   "'I never meant to draw you    To own all,'   Declared he. 'But—I SAW you -    By the wall, Half-hid. And that was why I failed withal!'   "'Where? when?' said I—'Why, nigh me,    At the play   That night. That you should spy me,    Doubt my fay, And follow, furtive, took my heart away!'   "That I had never been there,    But had gone   To my locked room—unseen there,    Curtains drawn, Long days abiding—told I, wonder-wan.   "'Nay, 'twas your form and vesture,    Cloak and gown,   Your hooded features—gesture    Half in frown, That faced me, pale,' he urged, 'that night in town.   "'And when, outside, I handed    To her chair   (As courtesy demanded    Of me there) The leading lady, you peeped from the stair.   "Straight pleaded I: 'Forsooth, Love,    Had I gone,   I must have been in truth, Love,    Mad to don Such well-known raiment.' But he still went on   "That he was not mistaken    Nor misled. -   I felt like one forsaken,    Wished me dead, That he could think thus of the wife he had wed!   "His going seemed to waste him    Like a curse,   To wreck what once had graced him;    And, averse To my approach, he mused, and moped, and worse.   "Till, what no words effected    Thought achieved:   IT WAS MY WRAITH—projected,    He conceived, Thither, by my tense brain at home aggrieved.   "Thereon his credence centred    Till he died;   And, no more tempted, entered    Sanctified, The little vault with room for one beside." III   Thus far the lady's story. -    Now she, too,   Reclines within that hoary    Last dark mew In Mellstock Quire with him she loved so true.   A yellowing marble, placed there    Tablet-wise,   And two joined hearts enchased there    Meet the eyes; And reading their twin names we moralize:   Did she, we wonder, follow    Jealously?   And were those protests hollow? -    Or saw he Some semblant dame? Or can wraiths really be?   Were it she went, her honour,    All may hold,   Pressed truth at last upon her    Till she told - (Him only—others as these lines unfold.)   Riddle d**h-sealed for ever,    Let it rest! . . .   One's heart could blame her never    If one guessed That go she did. She knew her actor best.