Thomas Hardy Poems

Why should this flower delay so long
   To show its tremulous plumes?
Now is the time of plaintive robin-song,
   When flowers are in their tombs.
...

"O 'Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!
Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?
And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?"-
"O didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she.
...

On Monday night I closed my door,
And thought you were not as heretofore,
And little cared if we met no more.
...

Pet was never mourned as you,
Purrer of the spotless hue,
Plumy tail, and wistful gaze
While you humoured our queer ways,
...

In a Wood


Pale beech and pine-tree blue,
...

Where once we danced, where once we sang,
Gentlemen,
The floors are sunken, cobwebs hang,
And cracks creep; worms have fed upon
...

Here we broached the Christmas barrel,
Pushed up the charred log-ends;
Here we sang the Christmas carol,
And called in friends.
...

I

WHEN you shall see me lined by tool of Time,
My lauded beauties carried off from me,
...

Here by the moorway you returned,
And saw the borough lights ahead
That lit your face - all undiscerned
To be in a week the face of the dead,
...

THEY bear him to his resting-place--
In slow procession sweeping by;
I follow at a stranger's space;
His kindred they, his sweetheart I.
...