Thomas Hardy Poems

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,
...

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.
...

(E. L. G.)

BENEATH a knap where flown
Nestlings play,
...

With Thoughts of Sergeant M---- (Pensioner), who died 185-

"WHY, Sergeant, stray on the Ivel Way,
As though at home there were spectres rife?
...

At nine in the morning there passed a church,
At ten there passed me by the sea,
At twelve a town of smoke and smirch,
...

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

I found me in a great surging space,
At either end a door,
And I said: "What is this giddying place,
With no firm-fixéd floor,
...

I

Here's the mould of a musical bird long passed from light,
Which over the earth before man came was winging;
...

I

I have risen again,
And awhile survey
...