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The Works of Thomas Hardy in Prose and Verse. Wessex Ed. Verse
The Works of Thomas Hardy in Prose and Verse Wessex Ed Verse Author:Thomas Hardy General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1912 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: 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 waiting: -- " I planned her a nest in a leafless tree, But the passers eyed and twitted me, And said : ' How reckless a bird is he, Cheerily mating!' " Fear-filled, I stayed me till summer-tide, I n lewth of leaves to throne her bride ; But alas! her love for me waned and died Wearily waiting. " Ah, had I been like some I see, Born to an evergreen nesting-tree, None had eyed and twitted me, Cheerily mating!" 1866. A CONFESSION TO A FRIEND IN TROUBLE Your troubles shrink not, though I feel them less Here, far away, than when I tarried near ; I even smile old smiles -- with listlessness -- Yet smiles they are, not ghastly mockeries mere. A thought too strange to house within my brain Haunting its outer precincts I discern : . -- That / will not show zeal again to learn Your griefs, and, sharing them, renew my pain. . . . It goes, like murky bird or buccaneer That shapes its lawless figure on the main, And staunchness tends to banish utterly The unseemly instinct that had lodgment here ; Yet, comrade old, can bitterer knowledge be Than that, though banned, such instinct was in me! 1866. W. P. V. 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 fallen from an ash, and were gray. Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove Over tedious riddles solved years ago ; And words played between us to and...« less