Collected poems of Thomas Hardy | ||
THE DEATH OF REGRET
I opened my shutter at sunrise,
And looked at the hill hard by,
And I heartily grieved for the comrade
Who wandered up there to die.
And looked at the hill hard by,
And I heartily grieved for the comrade
Who wandered up there to die.
I let in the morn on the morrow,
And failed not to think of him then,
As he trod up that rise in the twilight,
And never came down again.
And failed not to think of him then,
As he trod up that rise in the twilight,
And never came down again.
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I undid the shutter a week thence,
But not until after I'd turned
Did I call back his last departure
By the upland there discerned.
But not until after I'd turned
Did I call back his last departure
By the upland there discerned.
Uncovering the casement long later,
I bent to my toil till the gray,
When I said to myself, “Ah—what ails me,
To forget him all the day!”
I bent to my toil till the gray,
When I said to myself, “Ah—what ails me,
To forget him all the day!”
As daily I flung back the shutter
In the same blank bald routine,
He scarcely once rose to remembrance
Through a month of my facing the scene.
In the same blank bald routine,
He scarcely once rose to remembrance
Through a month of my facing the scene.
And ah, seldom now do I ponder
At the window as heretofore
On the long valued one who died yonder,
And wastes by the sycamore.
At the window as heretofore
On the long valued one who died yonder,
And wastes by the sycamore.
Collected poems of Thomas Hardy | ||