The Dissemblers

"It was not you I came to please,
Only myself," flipped she;
"I like this spot of phantasies,
And thought you far from me."
But O, he was the secret spell
That led her to the lea!

"It was not she who shaped my ways,
Or works, or thoughts," he said.
"I scarcely marked her living days,
Or missed her much when dead."
But O, his joyance knew its knell
When daisies hid her head!

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

The Wound

Thomas Hardy, Simple Poetry

Conjecture

Thomas Hardy, Simple Poetry

Near Lanivet, 1872

Thomas Hardy, Simple Poetry

The Dead And The Living One

Thomas Hardy, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Her Secret

That love's dull smart distressed my heart
    He shrewdly learnt to see,
But that I was in love with a dead man
    Never suspected he.

He searched for the trace of a pictured face,
    He watched each missive come,
And a note that seemed like a love-line
    Made him look frozen and glum.

He dogged my feet to the city street,
    He followed me to the sea,
But not to the neighbouring churchyard
    Did he dream of following me.

Thomas Hardy

The Re-Enactment

    Between the folding sea-downs,
    In the gloom
    Of a wailful wintry nightfall,
    When the boom
Of the ocean, like a hammering in a hollow tomb,

    Throbbed up the copse-clothed valley
    From the shore
    To the chamber where I darkled,
    Sunk and sore
With gray ponderings why my Loved one had not come before

    To salute me in the dwelling
    That of late
    I had hired to waste a while in -
    Vague of date,
Quaint, and remote wherein I now expectant sate;

    On the solitude, unsignalled,
    Broke a man
    Who, in air as if at home there,
    Seemed to scan
Every fire-flecked nook of the apartment span by span.

    A stranger's and no lover's
    Eyes were these,
    Eyes of a man wh...

Thomas Hardy

Mismet

I

He was leaning by a face,
He was looking into eyes,
And he knew a trysting-place,
And he heard seductive sighs;
But the face,
And the eyes,
And the place,
And the sighs,
Were not, alas, the right ones the ones meet for him -
Though fine and sweet the features, and the feelings all abrim.

II

She was looking at a form,
She was listening for a tread,
She could feel a waft of charm
When a certain name was said;
But the form,
And the tread,
And the charm
Of name said,
Were the wrong ones for her, and ever would be so,
While the heritor of the right it would have saved her soul to know!

Thomas Hardy

In A London Flat

I

"You look like a widower," she said
Through the folding-doors with a laugh from the bed,
As he sat by the fire in the outer room,
Reading late on a night of gloom,
And a cab-hack's wheeze, and the clap of its feet
In its breathless pace on the smooth wet street,
Were all that came to them now and then . . .
"You really do!" she quizzed again.

II

And the Spirits behind the curtains heard,
And also laughed, amused at her word,
And at her light-hearted view of him.
"Let's get him made so just for a whim!"
Said the Phantom Ironic. "'Twould serve her right
If we coaxed the Will to do it some night."
"O pray not!" pleaded the younger one,
The Sprite of the Pities. "She said it in fun!"

III

But so it befell, whatever the...

Thomas Hardy

Heiress And Architect

For A. W. B.



She sought the Studios, beckoning to her side
An arch-designer, for she planned to build.
He was of wise contrivance, deeply skilled
In every intervolve of high and wide -
Well fit to be her guide.

"Whatever it be,"
Responded he,
With cold, clear voice, and cold, clear view,
"In true accord with prudent fashionings
For such vicissitudes as living brings,
And thwarting not the law of stable things,
That will I do."

"Shape me," she said, "high halls with tracery
And open ogive-work, that scent and hue
Of buds, and travelling bees, may come in through,
The note of birds, and singings of the sea,
For these are much to me."

"An idle whim!"
Broke forth from him
Whom nought could warm to gallantries...

Thomas Hardy

To An Actress

I read your name when you were strange to me,
Where it stood blazoned bold with many more;
I passed it vacantly, and did not see
Any great glory in the shape it wore.

O cruelty, the insight barred me then!
Why did I not possess me with its sound,
And in its cadence catch and catch again
Your nature's essence floating therearound?

Could THAT man be this I, unknowing you,
When now the knowing you is all of me,
And the old world of then is now a new,
And purpose no more what it used to be -
A thing of formal journeywork, but due
To springs that then were sealed up utterly?

1867.

Thomas Hardy