Bereft, She Thinks She Dreams

I dream that the dearest I ever knew
    Has died and been entombed.
I am sure it's a dream that cannot be true,
    But I am so overgloomed
By its persistence, that I would gladly
    Have quick death take me,
Rather than longer think thus sadly;
    So wake me, wake me!

It has lasted days, but minute and hour
    I expect to get aroused
And find him as usual in the bower
    Where we so happily housed.
Yet stays this nightmare too appalling,
    And like a web shakes me,
And piteously I keep on calling,
    And no one wakes me!

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) was an English novelist and poet. Born in Dorset, his works often featured the semi-fictional region of Wessex. Hardy was initially trained as an architect, but he later pursued writing full-time. His novels, including 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles,' 'Far from the Madding Crowd,' and 'Jude the Obscure,' are known for their critical portrayal of Victorian society and its mores. As a poet, he is recognized for his explorations of human suffering and the indifferent forces of nature. Hardy's legacy is profound, influencing both literature and criticism.

Thomas Hardy

My Spirit Will Not Haunt The Mound

Thomas Hardy, Simple Poetry

Cross-Currents

Thomas Hardy, Simple Poetry

The Farm-Woman's Winter

Thomas Hardy, Simple Poetry

Transformations

Thomas Hardy, Simple Poetry

English

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At Waking

When night was lifting,
And dawn had crept under its shade,
Amid cold clouds drifting
Dead-white as a corpse outlaid,
With a sudden scare
I seemed to behold
My Love in bare
Hard lines unfold.

Yea, in a moment,
An insight that would not die
Killed her old endowment
Of charm that had capped all nigh,
Which vanished to none
Like the gilt of a cloud,
And showed her but one
Of the common crowd.

She seemed but a sample
Of earth's poor average kind,
Lit up by no ample
Enrichments of mien or mind.
I covered my eyes
As to cover the thought,
And unrecognize
What the morn had taught.

O vision appalling
When the one believed-in thing
Is seen falling, falling,
With all to which hope can cling.
Of...

Thomas Hardy

An Upbraiding

Now I am dead you sing to me
The songs we used to know,
But while I lived you had no wish
Or care for doing so.

Now I am dead you come to me
In the moonlight, comfortless;
Ah, what would I have given alive
To win such tenderness!

When you are dead, and stand to me
Not differenced, as now,
But like again, will you be cold
As when we lived, or how?

Thomas Hardy

Bereft

In the black winter morning
No light will be struck near my eyes
While the clock in the stairway is warning
For five, when he used to rise.
Leave the door unbarred,
The clock unwound,
Make my lone bed hard -
Would 'twere underground!

When the summer dawns clearly,
And the appletree-tops seem alight,
Who will undraw the curtain and cheerly
Call out that the morning is bright?

When I tarry at market
No form will cross Durnover Lea
In the gathering darkness, to hark at
Grey's Bridge for the pit-pat o' me.

When the supper crock's steaming,
And the time is the time of his tread,
I shall sit by the fire and wait dreaming
In a silence as of the dead.
Leave the door unbarred,
The clock unwound,
Make my lone bed hard -

Thomas Hardy

The Dead And The Living One

The dead woman lay in her first night's grave,
And twilight fell from the clouds' concave,
And those she had asked to forgive forgave.

The woman passing came to a pause
By the heaped white shapes of wreath and cross,
And looked upon where the other was.

And as she mused there thus spoke she:
"Never your countenance did I see,
But you've been a good good friend to me!"

Rose a plaintive voice from the sod below:
"O woman whose accents I do not know,
What is it that makes you approve me so?"

"O dead one, ere my soldier went,
I heard him saying, with warm intent,
To his friend, when won by your blandishment:

"'I would change for that lass here and now!
And if I return I may break my vow
To my present Love, and contrive somehow

Thomas Hardy

A Dream

In the night I dreamed that you had died,
    And I thought you lay in your winding sheet;
And I kneeled low by your coffin side,
    With my cheek on your heart that had ceased to beat.

And I thought as I looked on your form so still,
    A terrible woe, and an awful pain,
Fierce as vultures that slay and kill,
    Tore at my bosom and maddened my brain.

And then it seemed that the chill of death
    Over me there like a mantle fell,
And I knew by my fluttering, failing breath
    That the end was near, and all was well.

I woke from my dream in the black midnight -
    It was only a dream at worst or best -
But I lay and thought till the dawn of light,
    Had the dream been true we had both been blest.

Better to kneel by your still de...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

In Death Divided

I

    I shall rot here, with those whom in their day
    You never knew,
    And alien ones who, ere they chilled to clay,
    Met not my view,
Will in your distant grave-place ever neighbour you.

II

    No shade of pinnacle or tree or tower,
    While earth endures,
    Will fall on my mound and within the hour
    Steal on to yours;
One robin never haunt our two green covertures.

III

    Some organ may resound on Sunday noons
    By where you lie,
    Some other thrill the panes with other tunes
    Where moulder I;
No selfsame chords compose our common lullaby.

IV

    The simply-cut memorial at my head
    Perhaps may take
    A Gothic form, and that above your bed
    Be Greek in make;...

Thomas Hardy