Poems

Poems List

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Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

Her Late Husband (King's-Hintock, -.)

Her Late Husband (King's-Hintock, -.)
"No--not where I shall make my own;
But dig his grave just by
The woman's with the initialed stone -
As near as he …

254
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

Heredity

Heredity
I am the family face;
Flesh perishes, I live on,
Projecting trait and trace
Through time to times anon,
And leaping from place to place

204
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

Her Initals

Her Initals
UPON a poet's page I wrote
Of old two letters of her name;
Part seemed she of the effulgent thought
Whence that high singer's rapture came. <…

153
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

Her Dilemma

Her Dilemma
THE two were silent in a sunless church,
Whose mildewed walls, uneven paving-stones,
And wasted carvings passed antique research;
And nothing…

285
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

Heiress And Architect

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, …

282
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

Hap

Hap
IF but some vengeful god would call to me
From up the sky, and laugh: "Thou suffering thing,
Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,
That thy love's loss…

246
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

God-Forgotten

God-Forgotten
I towered far, and lo! I stood within
The presence of the Lord Most High,
Sent thither by the sons of earth, to win
Some answer to their cr…

346
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

Genoa and the Mediterranean.

Genoa and the Mediterranean.
O epic-famed, god-haunted Central Sea,
Heave careless of the deep wrong done to thee
When from Torino's track I saw thy face first…

215
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

From Victor Hugo

From Victor Hugo
Child, were I king, I'd yield my royal rule,
My chariot, sceptre, vassal-service due,
My crown, my porphyry-basined waters cool,
My flee…

182
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

Fragment

Fragment
At last I entered a long dark gallery,
Catacomb-lined; and ranged at the side
Were the bodies of men from far and wide
Who, motion past, were ne…

254
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

Embarcation (Southampton Docks: October, )

Embarcation (Southampton Docks: October, )
Here, where Vespasian's legions struck the sands,
And Cerdic with his Saxons entered in,
And Henry's army leapt aflo…

182
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

During Wind and Rain

During Wind and Rain
THEY sing their dearest songs--
He, she, all of them--yea,
Treble and tenor and bass.
And one to play;
With the candles moonin…

265
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

Ditty

Ditty
(E. L. G.)
BENEATH a knap where flown
Nestlings play,
Within walls of weathered stone,
Far away
From the files of formal houses,

291
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

Doom and She

Doom and She
I
There dwells a mighty pair -
Slow, statuesque, intense -
Amid the vague Immense:
None can their chronicle declare,
Nor why the…

284
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

Channel Firing

Channel Firing
That night your great guns, unawares,
Shook all our coffins as we lay,
And broke the chancel window-squares,
We thought it was the judgeme…

252
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

Departure (Southampton Docks: October, )

Departure (Southampton Docks: October, )
While the far farewell music thins and fails,
And the broad bottoms rip the bearing brine -
All smalling slowly to the…

204
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

Cardinal Bembo's Epitaph on Raphael

Cardinal Bembo's Epitaph on Raphael
Here's one in whom Nature feared--faint at such vying -
Eclipse while he lived, and decease at his dying.

282
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

Birds at Winter Nightfall (Triolet)

Birds at Winter Nightfall (Triolet)
Around the house the flakes fly faster,
And all the berries now are gone
From holly and cotoneaster
Around the house.…

201
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

Beeny Cliff

Beeny Cliff
I
O the opal and the sapphire of that wandering western sea,
And the woman riding high above with bright hair flapping free-
The woman whom I …

287
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

At the War Office, London (Affixing the Lists of Killed and Wounded:

At the War Office, London (Affixing the Lists of Killed and Wounded:
December, )
I
Last year I called this world of gain-givings
The darkest thinkable, an…

208
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

At An Inn

At An Inn
WHEN we as strangers sought
Their catering care,
Veiled smiles bespoke their thought
Of what we were.
They warmed as they opined
Us…

313
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

At Lulworth Cove a Century Back

At Lulworth Cove a Century Back
Had I but lived a hundred years ago
I might have gone, as I have gone this year,
By Warmwell Cross on to a Cove I know,
A…

261
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

At A Bridal

At A Bridal
WHEN you paced forth, to wait maternity,
A dream of other offspring held my mind,
Compounded of us twain as Love designed;
Rare forms, that c…

295
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy

At a Lunar Eclipse

At a Lunar Eclipse
Thy shadow, Earth, from Pole to Central Sea,
Now steals along upon the Moon's meek shine
In even monochrome and curving line
Of impert…

242