GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE
in memory of Christiana C.

That person was Mrs Christiana Coward, who had been the village postmistress at Lower Bockhampton near Dorchester when Hardy was growing up in the neighbouring village of Higher Bockhmpton, although the memory recounted here must have been of a time after Hardy had reached adulthood.

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!"

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