The Satin Shoes

"If ever I walk to church to wed,
    As other maidens use,
And face the gathered eyes," she said,
    "I'll go in satin shoes!"

She was as fair as early day
    Shining on meads unmown,
And her sweet syllables seemed to play
    Like flute-notes softly blown.

The time arrived when it was meet
    That she should be a bride;
The satin shoes were on her feet,
    Her father was at her side.

They stood within the dairy door,
    And gazed across the green;
The church loomed on the distant moor,
    But rain was thick between.

"The grass-path hardly can be stepped,
    The lane is like a pool!" -
Her dream is shown to be inept,
    Her wish they overrule.

"To go forth shod in satin soft
    A coach would be required!"
For thickest boots the shoes were doffed -
    Those shoes her soul desired . . .

All day the bride, as overborne,
    Was seen to brood apart,
And that the shoes had not been worn
    Sat heavy on her heart.

From her wrecked dream, as months flew on,
    Her thought seemed not to range.
What ails the wife?" they said anon,
    "That she should be so strange?" . . .

Ah what coach comes with furtive glide -
    A coach of closed-up kind?
It comes to fetch the last year's bride,
    Who wanders in her mind.

She strove with them, and fearfully ran
    Stairward with one low scream:
"Nay coax her," said the madhouse man,
    "With some old household theme."

"If you will go, dear, you must fain
    Put on those shoes the pair
Meant for your marriage, which the rain
    Forbade you then to wear."

She clapped her hands, flushed joyous hues;
    "O yes I'll up and ride
If I am to wear my satin shoes
    And be a proper bride!"

Out then her little foot held she,
    As to depart with speed;
The madhouse man smiled pleasantly
    To see the wile succeed.

She turned to him when all was done,
    And gave him her thin hand,
Exclaiming like an enraptured one,
    "This time it will be grand!"

She mounted with a face elate,
    Shut was the carriage door;
They drove her to the madhouse gate,
    And she was seen no more . . .

Yet she was fair as early day
    Shining on meads unmown,
And her sweet syllables seemed to play
    Like flute-notes softly blown.

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 Moon Looks In

Thomas Hardy, Simple Poetry

Where Three Roads Joined

Thomas Hardy, Simple Poetry

The Inconsistent

Thomas Hardy, Simple Poetry

The Pink Frock

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.

The Well-Beloved

I wayed by star and planet shine
Towards the dear one's home
At Kingsbere, there to make her mine
When the next sun upclomb.

I edged the ancient hill and wood
Beside the Ikling Way,
Nigh where the Pagan temple stood
In the world's earlier day.

And as I quick and quicker walked
On gravel and on green,
I sang to sky, and tree, or talked
Of her I called my queen.

- "O faultless is her dainty form,
And luminous her mind;
She is the God-created norm
Of perfect womankind!"

A shape whereon one star-blink gleamed
Glode softly by my side,
A woman's; and her motion seemed
The motion of my bride.

And yet methought she'd drawn erstwhile
Adown the ancient leaze,
Where once were pile and peristyle
For men's id...

Thomas Hardy

The Dame Of Athelhall

I

"Soul! Shall I see thy face," she said,
"In one brief hour?
And away with thee from a loveless bed
To a far-off sun, to a vine-wrapt bower,
And be thine own unseparated,
And challenge the world's white glower?

II

She quickened her feet, and met him where
They had predesigned:
And they clasped, and mounted, and cleft the air
Upon whirling wheels; till the will to bind
Her life with his made the moments there
Efface the years behind.

III

Miles slid, and the sight of the port upgrew
As they sped on;
When slipping its bond the bracelet flew
From her fondled arm. Replaced anon,
Its cameo of the abjured one drew
Her musings thereupon.

IV

The gaud with his image once had been
A gift from h...

Thomas Hardy

A Sound In The Night

"What do I catch upon the night-wind, husband? -
What is it sounds in this house so eerily?
It seems to be a woman's voice: each little while I hear it,
And it much troubles me!"

"'Tis but the eaves dripping down upon the plinth-slopes:
Letting fancies worry thee! sure 'tis a foolish thing,
When we were on'y coupled half-an-hour before the noontide,
And now it's but evening."

"Yet seems it still a woman's voice outside the castle, husband,
And 'tis cold to-night, and rain beats, and this is a lonely place.
Didst thou fathom much of womankind in travel or adventure
Ere ever thou sawest my face?"

"It may be a tree, bride, that rubs his arms acrosswise,
If it is not the eaves-drip upon the lower slopes,
Or the river at the bend, where it whirls about the ...

Thomas Hardy

In The Days Of Crinoline

A plain tilt-bonnet on her head
She took the path across the leaze.
- Her spouse the vicar, gardening, said,
"Too dowdy that, for coquetries,
    So I can hoe at ease.

But when she had passed into the heath,
And gained the wood beyond the flat,
She raised her skirts, and from beneath
Unpinned and drew as from a sheath
    An ostrich-feathered hat.

And where the hat had hung she now
Concealed and pinned the dowdy hood,
And set the hat upon her brow,
And thus emerging from the wood
    Tripped on in jaunty mood.

The sun was low and crimson-faced
As two came that way from the town,
And plunged into the wood untraced . . .
When separately therefrom they paced
    The sun had quite gone down.

The hat and feather disappear...

Thomas Hardy

Goody Two-Shoes.

Versified by Mrs. Clara Doty Bates.


Two-Shoes, Two-Shoes,
Little Goody Two-Shoes!
Do you know about her? Well,
I'm ready now to tell
How the little creature came
By so odd a name.

It was very long ago,
In the days of good Queen Bess,
When upon the cold world's care,
Fatherless and motherless,

There were thrown two helpless ones,
Destitute as they could be;
Tom, they called the little boy,
And the girl was Margery.

Many a day they cried for food
When the cup-board shelves were bare;
Many an hour they roamed the streets
Scarcely knowing why or where.

As to kindred, all were dead;
As to shelter, they had none;
As to shoes, Tom had a pair;
Little Margery had but one!

One-Shoe, One-Shoe,

Clara Doty Bates

A Conversation At Dawn

He lay awake, with a harassed air,
And she, in her cloud of loose lank hair,
    Seemed trouble-tried
As the dawn drew in on their faces there.

The chamber looked far over the sea
From a white hotel on a white-stoned quay,
    And stepping a stride
He parted the window-drapery.

Above the level horizon spread
The sunrise, firing them foot to head
    From its smouldering lair,
And painting their pillows with dyes of red.

"What strange disquiets have stirred you, dear,
This dragging night, with starts in fear
    Of me, as it were,
Or of something evil hovering near?"

"My husband, can I have fear of you?
What should one fear from a man whom few,
    Or none, had matched
In that late long spell of delays undue!"

H...

Thomas Hardy