A Maiden's Pledge

I do not wish to win your vow

To take me soon or late as bride,

And lift me from the nook where now

I tarry your farings to my side.

I am blissful ever to abide

In this green labyrinth - let all be,

If but, whatever may betide,

You do not leave off loving me!

Your comet-comings I will wait

With patience time shall not wear through;

The yellowing years will not abate

My largened love and truth to you,

Nor drive me to complaint undue

Of absence, much as I may pine,

If never another 'twixt us two

Shall come, and you stand wholly mine.

A quote from a Hardy novel

“How I have tried and tried to be a splendid woman, and how destiny has been against me! ...I do not deserve my lot! ...O, the cruelty of putting me into this ill-conceived world! I was capable of much; but I have been injured and blighted and crushed by things beyond my control! O, how hard it is of Heaven to devise such tortures for me, who have done no harm to heaven at all!”  

(The Return of the Native)

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