When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay, And the May month ***** its glad green leaves like wings,Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbours say, “He…
Posts published in “Thomas Hardy Poems”
“Ah, are you digging on my grave, My loved one?—planting rue?”—”No: yesterday he went to wedOne of the brightest wealth has bred.‘It cannot hurt her now,’ he said,‘That I should…
I There is a house with ivied walls,And mullioned windows worn and old,And the long dwellers in those hallsHave souls that know but sordid calls,And dote on gold. II In…
Had I but lived a hundred years agoI might have gone, as I have gone this year,By Warmwell Cross on to a Cove I know,And Time have placed his finger…
‘There is not much that I can do, For I’ve no money that’s quite my own!’Spoke up the pitying child—A little boy with a violinAt the station before the train…
There trudges one to a merry-making With sturdy swing,On whom the rain comes down. To fetch the saving medicamentIs another bent,On whom the rain comes down. One slowly drives his…
Between us now and here—Two thrown togetherWho are not wont to wearLife’s flushest feather— Who see the scenes slide past,The daytimes dimming fast,Let there be truth at last,Even if despair.…
You did not come,And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb.Yet less for loss of your dear presence thereThan that I thus found lacking in your makeThat high compassion…
I rose at night and visitedThe Cave of the Unborn,And crowding shapes surrounded meFor tidings of the life to be,Who long had prayed the silent HeadTo speed their advent morn.…
That night your great guns, unawares,Shook all our coffins as we lay,And broke the chancel window-squares,We thought it was the Judgement-day And sat upright. While drearisomeArose the howl of wakened…
He often would ask usThat, when he died,After playing so manyTo their last rest,If out of us anyShould here abide,And it would not task us,We would with our lutesPlay over…
The church flings forth a battled shade Over the moon-blanched sward:The church; my gift; whereto I paidMy all in hand and hoard;Lavished my gainsWith stintless painsTo glorify the Lord. I…
Your troubles shrink not, though I feel them less Here, far away, than when I tarried near;I even smile old smiles—with listlessness— Yet smiles they are, not ghastly mockeries mere. A thought…
(Lines on the loss of the “Titanic”) I In a solitude of the sea Deep from human vanity,And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she. II …
To Jenny came a gentle youth From inland leazes lone;His love was fresh as apple-blooth By Parrett, Yeo, or Tone.And duly he entreated herTo be his tender minister, And call…
I leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was spectre-gray,And Winter’s dregs made desolate The weakening eye of day.The tangled bine-stems scored the sky Like strings of broken lyres,And all…
They hail me as one living,But don’t they knowThat I have died of late years,Untombed although? I am but a shape that stands here,A pulseless mould,A pale past picture, screeningAshes…
It faces west, and round the back and sides High beeches, bending, hang a veil of boughs,And sweep against the roof. Wild honeysucksClimb on the walls, and seem to sprout…
They throw in Drummer Hodge, to restUncoffined—just as found:His landmark is a kopje-crestThat breaks the veldt around:And foreign constellations westEach night above his mound. Young Hodge the drummer never knew—Fresh…
One without looks in tonightThrough the curtain-*****From the sheet of glistening white;One without looks in tonightAs we sit and thinkBy the fender-brink. We do not discern those eyesWatching in the…
I If seasons all were summers,And leaves would never fall,And hopping casement-comersWere foodless not at all,And fragile folk might be hereThat white winds bid depart;Then one I used to see…
They had long met o’ Zundays—her true love and she— And at junketings, maypoles, and flings;But she bode wi’ a thirtover uncle, and heSwore by noon and by night…
We two kept house, the Past and I,The Past and I;I tended while it hovered nigh,Leaving me never alone.It was a spectral housekeepingWhere fell no jarring tone,As strange, as still…
Why did you give no hint that nightThat quickly after the morrow’s dawn,And calmly, as if indifferent quite,You would close your term here, up and be gone Where I could…
If but some vengeful *** would call to meFrom up the sky, and laugh: “Thou suffering thing,Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,that thy love’s loss is my hate’s profiting!”…