Thomas Hardy (Томас Гарди (Харди))
Love Watches a Window
‘Here in the window beaming across Is he – the lineaments like him so! – The saint whose name I do not know, With the holy robe and the cheek aglow. Here will I kneel as if worshipping God When all the time I am worshipping you, Whose Love I was – You that with me will nevermore tread anew The paradise-paths we trod!’ She came to that prominent pew each day, And sat there. Zealously she came And watched her Love – looking just the same From the rubied eastern tracery-frame – The man who had quite forsaken her And followed another, it was thought. – Be ’t as it may, Thinner, more thin, was the lady’s figure wrought By some ache, year on year. Well, now she’s dead, and dead is he From whom her heart once drew delight, Whose face glowed daily, lover-bright, High in the glass before her sight. And still the face is seen as clear In the rubied eastern window-gleam As formerly; But not seen now is a passioned woman’s dream Glowing beside it there.
Thomas Hardy’s other poems:
