Thomas Hardy (Томас Гарди (Харди))
The Strange House
(Max Gate, A.D. 2000) ‘I hear the piano playing – Just as a ghost might play.’ ‘ – O, but what are you saying? There’s no piano to-day; Their old one was sold and broken; Years past it went amiss.’ ‘ – I heard it, or shouldn’t have spoken: A strange house, this! ‘I catch some undertone here, From some one out of sight.’ ‘ – Impossible; we are alone here, And shall be through the night.’ ‘ – The parlour-door – what stirred it?’ ‘ – No one: no soul’s in range.’ ‘ – But, anyhow, I heard it, And it seems strange! ‘Seek my own room I cannot – A figure is on the stair!’ ‘ – What figure? Nay, I scan not Any one lingering there. A bough outside is waving, And that’s its shade by the moon.’ ‘ – Well, all is strange! I am craving Strength to leave soon.’ ‘ – Ah, maybe you’ve some vision Of showings beyond our sphere; Some sight, sense, intuition Of what once happened here? The house is old; they’ve hinted It once held two love-thralls, And they may have imprinted Their dreams on its walls? ‘They were – I think ’twas told me – Queer in their works and ways; The teller would often hold me With weird tales of those days. Some folk can not abide here, But we – we do not care Who loved, laughed, wept, or died here, Knew joy, or despair.’
Thomas Hardy’s other poems:
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