Poems

Poems List

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Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

Rome: Building a New Street in the Ancient Quarter.

Rome: Building a New Street in the Ancient Quarter.
These numbered cliffs and gnarls of masonry
Outskeleton Time's central city, Rome;
Whereof each arch, entab…

214
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

Rome: At the Pyramid of Cestius. (Near the graves of Shelley & Keats)

Rome: At the Pyramid of Cestius. (Near the graves of Shelley & Keats)
Who, then, was Cestius,
And what is he to me? -
Amid thick thoughts and memories multitud…

221
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

Rom: On the Palatine (April, )

Rom: On the Palatine (April, )
We walked where Victor Jove was shrined awhile,
And passed to Livia's rich red mural show,
Whence, thridding cave and Criptoport…

219
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

Postponement

Postponement
SNOW-BOUND in woodland, a mournful word,
Dropt now and then from the bill of a bird,
Reached me on wind-wafts; and thus I heard,
Wearily wai…

243
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

On an Invitation to the United States

On an Invitation to the United States
I
My ardours for emprize nigh lost
Since Life has bared its bones to me,
I shrink to seek a modern coast
Whose…

224
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

No Buyers

No Buyers
A Load of brushes and baskets and cradles and chairs
Labours along the street in the rain:
With it a man, a woman, a pony with whiteybrown hairs. -- …

242
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

Neutral Tones

Neutral Tones
WE stood by a pond that winter day,
And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,
And a few leaves lay on the starving sod,
--They had f…

222
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

My spirit will not haunt the mound

My spirit will not haunt the mound
My spirit will not haunt the mound
Above my breast,
But travel, memory-possessed,
To where my tremulous being found

298
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

Mute Opinion

Mute Opinion
I
I traversed a dominion
Whose spokesmen spake out strong
Their purpose and opinion
Through pulpit, press, and song.
I scarce had…

197
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

Mismet

Mismet
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 …

271
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

Mad Judy

Mad Judy
When the hamlet hailed a birth
Judy used to cry:
When she heard our christening mirth
She would kneel and sigh.
She was crazed, we knew, a…

241
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

Middle-Age Enthusiasms

Middle-Age Enthusiasms
To M. H.
WE passed where flag and flower
Signalled a jocund throng;
We said: "Go to, the hour
Is apt!"--and joined the song;…

270
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

Lines On The Loss Of The Titanic

Lines On The Loss Of The "Titanic"
In a solitude of the sea
Deep from human vanity,
And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.
Steel cha…

380
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

Let Me Enjoy

Let Me Enjoy
Minor Key
I
Let me enjoy the earth no less
Because the all-enacting Might
That fashioned forth its loveliness
Had other aims th…

247
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

In Vision I Roamed

In Vision I Roamed
IN vision I roamed the flashing Firmament,
So fierce in blazon that the Night waxed wan,
As though with an awed sense of such ostent;

287
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

Lausanne, In Gibbon's Old Garden: - p.m.

Lausanne, In Gibbon's Old Garden: - p.m.
(The th anniversary of the completion of the "Decline and Fall" at the same hour
and place)
A spirit seems to pass,

204
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

In Time Of The Breaking Of Nations

In Time Of "The Breaking Of Nations"
I
Only a man harrowing clods
In a slow silent walk
With an old horse that stumbles and nods
Half asleep as they…

231
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

In The Vaulted Way

In The Vaulted Way
In the vaulted way, where the passage turned
To the shadowy corner that none could see,
You paused for our parting, - plaintively:
Tho…

235
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

In Tenebris

In Tenebris
Wintertime nighs;
But my bereavement-pain
It cannot bring again:
Twice no one dies.
Flower-petals flee;
But since it once hath be…

231
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

In the Old Theatre, Fiesole (April, )

In the Old Theatre, Fiesole (April, )
I traced the Circus whose gray stones incline
Where Rome and dim Etruria interjoin,
Till came a child who showed an ancie…

190
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

In A Eweleaze Near Weatherbury

In A Eweleaze Near Weatherbury
THE years have gathered grayly
Since I danced upon this leaze
With one who kindled gayly
Love's fitful ecstasies!
Bu…

223
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

In a Wood

In a Wood
In a Wood
Pale beech and pine-tree blue,
Set in one clay,
Bough to bough cannot you
Bide out your day?
When the rains skim and skip…

267
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

I said to Love

I said to Love
I said to Love,
"It is not now as in old days
When men adored thee and thy ways
All else above;
Named thee the Boy, the Bright, the …

293
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

I have lived with Shades

I have lived with Shades
I
I have lived with Shades so long,
So long have talked to them,
I sped to street and throng,
That sometimes they
In …

226