Thomas Hardy

Geographical Knowledge

 (A Memory of Christiana C–)

Where Blackmoor was, the road that led
To Bath, she could not show,
Nor point the sky that overspread
Towns ten miles off or so.

But that Calcutta stood this way,
Cape Horn there figured fell,
That here was Boston, here Bombay,
She could declare full well.

Less known to her the track athwart
Froom Mead or Yell’ham Wood
Than how to make some Austral port
In seas of surly mood.

She saw the glint of Guinea’s shore
Behind the plum-tree nigh,
Heard old unruly Biscay’s roar
In the weir’s purl hard by... 

‘My son’s a sailor, and he knows
All seas and many lands,
And when he’s home he points and shows
Each country where it stands.

‘He’s now just there – by Gib’s high rock –
And when he gets, you see,
To Portsmouth here, behind the clock,
Then he’ll come back to me!’