Death poems
/ page 534 of 560 /
Leipzig
© Thomas Hardy
"OLD Norbert with the flat blue cap--
A German said to be--
Why let your pipe die on your lap,
Your eyes blink absently?"--
At An Inn
© Thomas Hardy
WHEN we as strangers sought
Their catering care,
Veiled smiles bespoke their thought
Of what we were.
Her Late Husband (King's-Hintock, 182-.)
© Thomas Hardy
"No--not where I shall make my own;
But dig his grave just by
The woman's with the initialed stone -
As near as he can lie -
After whose death he seemed to ail,
Though none considered why.
Thought Of Ph---a At News Of Her Death
© Thomas Hardy
NOT a line of her writing have I,
Not a thread of her hair,
No mark of her late time as dame in her dwelling, whereby
I may picture her there;
A Sign-Seeker
© Thomas Hardy
I MARK the months in liveries dank and dry,
The day-tides many-shaped and hued;
I see the nightfall shades subtrude,
And hear the monotonous hours clang negligently by.
The Two Men
© Thomas Hardy
THERE were two youths of equal age,
Wit, station, strength, and parentage;
They studied at the self-same schools,
And shaped their thoughts by common rules.
De Profundis
© Thomas Hardy
Wintertime nighs;
But my bereavement-pain
It cannot bring again:
Twice no one dies.
At the War Office, London
© Thomas Hardy
Last year I called this world of gain-givings
The darkest thinkable, and questioned sadly
If my own land could heave its pulse less gladly,
So charged it seemed with circumstance whence springs
The tragedy of things.
A Man (In Memory of H. of M.)
© Thomas Hardy
In Casterbridge there stood a noble pile,
Wrought with pilaster, bay, and balustrade
In tactful times when shrewd Eliza swayed. -
On burgher, squire, and clown
It smiled the long street down for near a mile
Mad Judy
© Thomas Hardy
When the hamlet hailed a birth
Judy used to cry:
When she heard our christening mirth
She would kneel and sigh.
She was crazed, we knew, and we
Humoured her infirmity.
The Fire At Tranter Sweatley's
© Thomas Hardy
She cried, "O pray pity me!" Nought would he hear;
Then with wild rainy eyes she obeyed,
She chid when her Love was for clinking off wi' her.
The pa'son was told, as the season drew near
To throw over pu'pit the names of the peäir
As fitting one flesh to be made.
Rome at the Pyramid of Cestius Near the Graves of Shelley and Keats
© Thomas Hardy
Who, then, was Cestius,
And what is he to me? -
Amid thick thoughts and memories multitudinous
One thought alone brings he.
A Wasted Illness
© Thomas Hardy
Through vaults of pain,
Enribbed and wrought with groins of ghastliness,
I passed, and garish spectres moved my brain
To dire distress.
To Life
© Thomas Hardy
O life with the sad seared face,
I weary of seeing thee,
And thy draggled cloak, and thy hobbling pace,
And thy too-forced pleasantry!
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.
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.
Her Death And After
© Thomas Hardy
'TWAS a death-bed summons, and forth I went
By the way of the Western Wall, so drear
On that winter night, and sought a gate--
The home, by Fate,
Of one I had long held dear.
The Dance At The Phoenix
© Thomas Hardy
To Jenny came a gentle youth
From inland leazes lone;
His love was fresh as apple-blooth
By Parrett, Yeo, or Tone.
Thoughts Of Phena
© Thomas Hardy
at news of her death Not a line of her writing have I
Not a thread of her hair,
No mark of her late time as dame in her dwelling, whereby
I may picture her there;
Nature's Questioning
© Thomas Hardy
WHEN I look forth at dawning, pool,
Field, flock, and lonely tree,
All seem to look at me
Like chastened children sitting silent in a school;
