Thomas Hardy (Томас Гарди (Харди))
A Watering-Place Lady Inventoried
A sweetness of temper unsurpassed and unforgettable, A mole on the cheek whose absence would have been regrettable, A ripple of pleasant converse full of modulation, A bearing of inconveniences without vexation, Till a cynic would find her amiability provoking, Tempting him to indulge in mean and wicked joking. Flawlessly oval of face, especially cheek and chin, With a glance of a quality that beckoned for a glance akin, A habit of swift assent to any intelligence broken, Before the fact to be conveyed was fully spoken And she could know to what her colloquist would win her, – This from a too alive impulsion to sympathy in her, – All with a sense of the ridiculous, keen yet charitable; In brief, a rich, profuse attractiveness unnarratable. I should have added her hints that her husband prized her but slenderly, And that (with a sigh) ’twas a pity she’d no one to treat her tenderly.
Thomas Hardy’s other poems:
