All Poems

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Revulsion

© Thomas Hardy

THOUGH I waste watches framing words to fetter
Some spirit to mine own in clasp and kiss,
Out of the night there looms a sense 'twere better
To fail obtaining whom one fails to miss.

A Christmas Ghost Story.

© Thomas Hardy

And what of logic or of truth appears
In tacking 'Anno Domini' to the years?
Near twenty-hundred livened thus have hied,
But tarries yet the Cause for which He died."

Her Immortality

© Thomas Hardy

UPON a noon I pilgrimed through
A pasture, mile by mile,
Unto the place where I last saw
My dead Love's living smile.

The Year's Awakening

© Thomas Hardy

How do you know that the pilgrim track
Along the belting zodiac
Swept by the sun in his seeming rounds
Is traced by now to the Fishes' bounds

Her Dilemma

© Thomas Hardy

THE two were silent in a sunless church,
Whose mildewed walls, uneven paving-stones,
And wasted carvings passed antique research;
And nothing broke the clock's dull monotones.

Tess's Lament

© Thomas Hardy

I I would that folk forgot me quite,
Forgot me quite!
I would that I could shrink from sight,
And no more see the sun.

(As sung by Mr. Charles Charrington in the play of "The Three Wayfarers")

© Thomas Hardy

O MY trade it is the rarest one,
Simple shepherds all--
My trade is a sight to see;
For my customers I tie, and take 'em up on high,
And waft 'em to a far countree!

Fragment

© Thomas Hardy

At last I entered a long dark gallery,
Catacomb-lined; and ranged at the side
Were the bodies of men from far and wide
Who, motion past, were nevertheless not dead.

Sapphic Fragment

© Thomas Hardy

Dead shalt thou lie; and nought
Be told of thee or thought,
For thou hast plucked not of the Muses' tree:
And even in Hades' halls
Amidst thy fellow-thralls
No friendly shade thy shade shall company!

At a Hasty Wedding

© Thomas Hardy

If hours be years the twain are blest,
For now they solace swift desire
By bonds of every bond the best,
If hours be years. The twain are blest

My Spirit Will Not Haunt The Mound

© Thomas Hardy

My spirit will not haunt the mound
Above my breast,
But travel, memory-possessed,
To where my tremulous being found
Life largest, best.

Architectural Masks

© Thomas Hardy

There is a house with ivied walls,
And mullioned windows worn and old,
And the long dwellers in those halls
Have souls that know but sordid calls,
And dote on gold.

Let Me Enjoy

© Thomas Hardy

Let me enjoy the earth no less
Because the all-enacting Might
That fashioned forth its loveliness
Had other aims than my delight.

Then seemed a Heart crying: "Whosoever they be
At root and bottom of this, who flung this flame
Between kin folk kin tongued even as are we,
Sinister, ugly, lurid, be their fame;
May their familiars grow to shun their name,
And their brood perish everlastingly."

Mismet

© Thomas Hardy

He was leaning by a face,
He was looking into eyes,
And he knew a trysting-place,
And he heard seductive sighs;

My Cicely

© Thomas Hardy

"ALIVE?"--And I leapt in my wonder,
Was faint of my joyance,
And grasses and grove shone in garments
Of glory to me.

The Dream-Follower

© Thomas Hardy

A dream of mine flew over the mead
To the halls where my old Love reigns;
And it drew me on to follow its lead:
And I stood at her window-panes;

No Buyers

© Thomas Hardy

A Load of brushes and baskets and cradles and chairs
Labours along the street in the rain:
With it a man, a woman, a pony with whiteybrown hairs. --
The man foots in front of the horse with a shambling sway

God-Forgotten

© Thomas Hardy

I towered far, and lo! I stood within
The presence of the Lord Most High,
Sent thither by the sons of earth, to win
Some answer to their cry.

The Caged Thrush Freed and Home Again (Villanelle)

© Thomas Hardy

"Men know but little more than we,
Who count us least of things terrene,
How happy days are made to be!