Thomas Hardy Poems

Beeny did not quiver,
Juliot grew not gray,
Thin Valency's river
Held its wonted way.
...

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.
...

When I set out for Lyonnesse,
A hundred miles away,
The rime was on the spray,
And starlight lit my lonesomeness
...

There trudges one to a merry-making
With sturdy swing,
On whom the rain comes down.
...

Well, World, you have kept faith with me,
Kept faith with me;
Upon the whole you have proved to be
Much as you said you were.
...

O the opal and the sapphire of that wandering western sea,
And the woman riding high above with bright hair flapping free-
The woman whom I loved so, and who loyally loved me.
...

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.
...

THEY sing their dearest songs--
He, she, all of them--yea,
Treble and tenor and bass.
And one to play;
...

Why did you give no hint that night
That quickly after the morrow's dawn,
And calmly, as if indifferent quite,
You would close your term here, up and be gone
...

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;
...