Thomas Hardy Poems

Child, were I king, I'd yield my royal rule,
   My chariot, sceptre, vassal-service due,
My crown, my porphyry-basined waters cool,
My fleets, whereto the sea is but a pool,
...

I

"Percussus sum sicut foenum, et aruit cor meum."
- Ps. ci
...

It faces west, and round the back and sides
High beeches, bending, hang a veil of boughs,
And sweep against the roof. Wild honeysucks
Climb on the walls, and seem to sprout a wish
...

While the far farewell music thins and fails,
And the broad bottoms rip the bearing brine -
All smalling slowly to the gray sea line -
And each significant red smoke-shaft pales,
...

I

Last year I called this world of gain-givings
The darkest thinkable, and questioned sadly
...

I said to Love,
"It is not now as in old days
When men adored thee and thy ways
All else above;
...

Minor Key

I
...

WHEN we as strangers sought
Their catering care,
Veiled smiles bespoke their thought
Of what we were.
...

When the wasting embers redden the chimney-breast,
And Life's bare pathway looms like a desert track to me,
And from hall and parlour the living have gone to their rest,
My perished people who housed them here come back to me.
...

While the far farewell music thins and fails,
And the broad bottoms rip the bearing brine -
All smalling slowly to the gray sea line -
And each significant red smoke-shaft pales,
...