Today's post concludes this collection of Thomas Hardy poems.

However, a new blog

The Thomas Hardy Poetry Path

will begin tomorrow 4th November at

thethomashardypoetrypath.blogspot.com

Satires of Circumstance No15

in 15 glimpses

In the Moonlight

'O lonely workman, standing there

In a dream, why do you stare and stare

At her grave, as no other grave there were?

'If your great gaunt eyes so importune

Her soul by the shine of this corpse-cold moon

Maybe you'll raise her phantom soon!'

'Why, fool, it is what I would rather see

Than all the living folk there be;

But alas, there is no such joy for me!'

'Ah -- she was one you loved, no doubt,

Through good and evil, through rain and drought,

And when she passed, all your sun went out?

'Nay: she was the woman I did not love,

Whom all the others were ranked above,

Whom during her life I thought nothing of.'

-o0o-

Satires of Circumstance No.14

in 15 glimpses

Over the Coffin

They stand confronting. the coffin between,

His wife of old, and his wife of late,

And the dead man whose they both had been

Seems listening aloof, as to things past date.

-- I have called,' says the first. 'Do you marvel or not?'

'In truth,' says the second, 'I do -- somewhat.'

'Well, there was a word to be said by me!...

I divorced that man because of you --

It seemed I must do it, boundenly;

But now I am older, and tell you true,

For life is little, and dead lies he;

I would I had let alone you two!

And both of us, scorning parochial ways,

Had lived like the wives in the patriarch's days.

-o0o-

Satires of Circumstance No.13

in 15 glimpses

On the Death-bed

'I'll tell -- being past all praying for --

Then promptly die.... He was out at the war,

And got some scent of the intimacy

That was under way between her and me;

And he stole back home, and appeared like a ghost

One night, at the very time almost

That I reached her house. Well, I shot him dead,

And secretly buried him. Nothing was said.

'The news of the battle came next day;

He was scheduled missing. I hurried away,

Got out there, visited the field,

And sent home word that a search revealed

He was one of the slain; though, lying alone

And stript, his body had not been known.

'But she suspected. I lost her love,

Yea, my hope, of earth, and of Heaven above;

And my time's now come, and I'll pay the score,

Though it be burning for evermore.'

-o0o-

A new blog

Every Day a Discovery on the Net

begins tomorrow 1st November

everydayadiscoveryonthenet.blogspot.com

-o0o- 

Satires of Circumstance No.12

in 15 glimpses

At the Draper's

'I stood at the back of the shop, my dear,
      But you did not perceive me.
Well, when they deliver what you were shown
      I shall know nothing of it, believe me!'
And he coughed and coughed as she paled and said,
      'O, I didn't see you come in there --
Why couldn't you speak?' -- 'Well, I didn't. I left
      That you should not notice I'd been there.
'You were viewing some lovely things. "Soon required
      For a widow, of latest fashion;"
And I knew 'twould upset you to meet the man
      Who had to be cold and ashen
'And screwed in a box before they could dress you
      "In the last new note in mourning,"
As they defined it. So, not to distress you,
I left you to your adorning.'

-o0o-

Satires of Circumstance No.11

in 15 glimpses

In the Restaurant

'But hear. If you stay, and the child be born,

It will pass as your husband's with the rest,

While, if we fly, the teeth of scorn

Will be gleaming at us from east to west;

And the child will come as a life despised;

I feel an elopement is ill-advised!'

'O you realize not what it is, my dear,

To a woman! Daily and hourly alarms

Lest the truth should out. How can I stay here

And nightly take him into my arms!

Come to the child no name or fame,

Let us go, and face it, and bear the shame.'

-o0o-

Satires of Circumstance No.10

in 15 glimpses

In the Nuptial Chamber

'O That mastering tune?' And up in the bed
Like a lace-robed phantom springs the bride;
'And why?' asks the man she had that day wed,
With a start, as the band plays on outside.
'Its the townsfolks' cheery compliment
Because of our marriage, my Innocent.'

'O but you don't know! 'Tis the passionate air
To which my old Love waltzed with me,
And I swore as we spun that none should share
My home, my kisses, till death, save he!
And he dominates me and thrills me through,
And its he I embrace while embracing you!'

-o0o-

Satires of Circumstance No.9

in 15 glimpses

At the Altar Rail

'My bride is not coming, alas!' says the groom,

And the telegram shakes in his hand. 'I own

It was hurried! We met at a dancing-room

When I went to the Cattle-Show alone,

And then, next night, where the Fountain leaps,

And the Street of the Quarter-Circle sweeps.

'Ay, she won me to ask her to be my wife --

'Twas foolish perhaps! -- to forsake the ways

Of the flaring town for a farmer's life.

She agreed. And we fixed it. Now she says:

"It's sweet of you, dear, to prepare me a nest,

But a swift, short, gay life suits me best.

What I really am you have never gleaned;

I had eaten the apple ere you were weaned."'

-o0o-