Thomas Hardy (Томас Гарди (Харди))
After the Burial
The family had buried him, Their bread-bringer, their best: They had returned to the house, whose hush a dim Vague vacancy expressed. There sat his sons, mute, rigid-faced, His daughters, strained, red-eyed, His wife, whose wan, worn features, vigil-traced, Bent over him when he died. At once a peal bursts from the bells Of a large tall tower hard by: Along the street the jocund clangour swells, And upward to the sky. Probably it was a wedding-peal, Or possibly for a birth, Or townsman knighted for political zeal, This resonant mark of mirth. The mourners, heavy-browed, sat on Motionless. Well they heard, They could not help it; nevertheless thereon Spoke not a single word, Nor window did they close, to numb The bells’ insistent calls Of joy; but suffered the harassing din to come And penetrate their souls.
Thomas Hardy’s other poems:
