Thomas Hardy (Томас Гарди (Харди))
Every Artemisia
‘Your eye-light wanes with an ail of care, Frets freeze gray your face and hair.’ ‘I was the woman who met him, Then cool and keen, Whiling away Time, with its restless scene on scene Every day.’ ‘Your features fashion as in a dream Of things that were, or used to seem.’ ‘I was the woman who won him: Steadfast and fond Was he, while I Tepidly took what he gave, nor conned Wherefore or why.’ ‘Your house looks blistered by a curse, As if a wraith ruled there, or worse.’ ‘I was the woman who slighted him: Far from my town Into the night He went... My hair, then auburn-brown, Pangs have wanned white.’ ‘Your ways reflect a monstrous gloom; Your voice speaks from within a tomb.’ ‘I was the woman who buried him: My misery God laughed to scorn: The people said: “ ’Twere well if she Had not been born!” ’ ‘You plod to pile a monument So madly that your breath is spent.’ ‘I am the woman who god him: I build, to ease My scalding fires, A temple topping the Deities’ Fanes of my sires.’
Thomas Hardy’s other poems:
907
