I

Beside the Mead of Memories,

Where Church-way mounts to Moaning Hill,

The sad man sighed his phantasies:

   He seems to sigh them still.

II

“’Twas the Birth-tide Eve, and the hamleteers

Made merry with ancient Mellstock zest,

But the Mellstock quire of former years

   Had entered into rest.

III

“Old Dewy lay by the gaunt yew tree,

And Reuben and Michael a pace behind,

And Bowman with his family

   By the wall that the ivies bind.

IV

“The singers had followed one by one,

Treble, and tenor, and thorough-bass;

And the worm that wasteth had begun

   To mine their mouldering place.

V

“For two-score years, ere Christ-day light,

Mellstock had throbbed to strains from these;

But now there echoed on the night

   No Christmas harmonies.

VI

“Three meadows off, at a dormered inn,

The youth had gathered in high carouse,

And, ranged on settles, some therein

   Had drunk them to a drowse.

VII

“Loud, lively, reckless, some had grown,

Each dandling on his jigging knee

Eliza, Dolly, Nance, or Joan—

   Livers in levity.

VIII

“The taper flames and hearthfire shine

Grew smoke-hazed to a lurid light,

And songs on subjects not divine

   Were warbled forth that night.

IX

“Yet many were sons and grandsons here

Of those who, on such eves gone by,

At that still hour had throated clear

   Their anthems to the sky.

X

“The clock belled midnight; and ere long

One shouted, ‘Now ’tis Christmas morn;

Here’s to our women old and young,

   And to John Barleycorn!’

XI

“They drink the toast and shout again:

The pewter-ware rings back the boom,

And for a breath-while follows then

   A silence in the room.

XII

“When nigh without, as in old days,

The ancient quire of voice and string

Seemed singing words of prayer and praise

   As they had used to sing:

XIII

“‘While shepherds watch’d their flocks by night,’—

Thus swells the long familiar sound

In many a quaint symphonic flight—

   To, ‘Glory shone around.’

XIV

“The sons defined their fathers’ tones,

The widow his whom she had wed,

And others in the minor moans

   The viols of the dead.

XV

“Something supernal has the sound

As verse by verse the strain proceeds,

And stilly staring on the ground

   Each roysterer holds and heeds.

XVI

“Towards its chorded closing bar

Plaintively, thinly, waned the hymn,

Yet lingered, like the notes afar

   Of banded seraphim.

XVII

“With brows abashed, and reverent tread,

The hearkeners sought the tavern door:

But nothing, save wan moonlight, spread

   The empty highway o’er.

XVIII

“While on their hearing fixed and tense

The aerial music seemed to sink,

As it were gently moving thence

   Along the river brink.

XIX

“Then did the Quick pursue the Dead

By crystal Froom that crinkles there;

And still the viewless quire ahead

   Voiced the old holy air.

XX

“By Bank-walk wicket, brightly bleached,

It passed, and ’twixt the hedges twain,

Dogged by the living; till it reached

   The bottom of Church Lane.

XXI

“There, at the turning, it was heard

Drawing to where the churchyard lay:

But when they followed thitherward

   It smalled, and died away.

XXII

“Each headstone of the quire, each mound,

Confronted them beneath the moon;

But no more floated therearound

   That ancient Birth-night tune.

XXIII

“There Dewy lay by the gaunt yew tree,

There Reuben and Michael, a pace behind,

And Bowman with his family

   By the wall that the ivies bind . . .

XXIV

“As from a dream each sobered son

Awoke, and musing reached his door:

’Twas said that of them all, not one

   Sat in a tavern more.”

XXV

—The sad man ceased; and ceased to heed

His listener, and crossed the leaze

From Moaning Hill towards the mead—

   The Mead of Memories.

1897.