Abt Vogler by Robert Browning
Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build, Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work, Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solomon willed Armies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk, Man, brute, reptile, fly,–alien of end and of aim, Adverse, each from […]
A Woman’s Last Word by Robert Browning
I. Let’s contend no more, Love, Strive nor weep: All be as before, Love, —Only sleep! II. What so wild as words are? I and thou In debate, as birds are, Hawk on bough! III. See the creature stalking While we speak! Hush and hide the talking, Cheek on cheek! IV. What so false as […]
A Toccata Of Galuppi’s by Robert Browning
I Oh Galuppi, Baldassaro, this is very sad to find! I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and blind; But although I give you credit, ’tis with such a heavy mind! II Here you come with your old music, and here’s all the good it brings. What, they lived once thus at […]
A Serenade At The Villa by Robert Browning
I. That was I, you heard last night, When there rose no moon at all, Nor, to pierce the strained and tight Tent of heaven, a planet small: Life was dead and so was light. II. Not a twinkle from the fly, Not a glimmer from the worm; When the crickets stopped their cry, When […]
A Pretty Woman by Robert Browning
I That fawn-skin-dappled hair of hers, And the blue eye Dear and dewy, And that infantine fresh air of hers! II To think men cannot take you, Sweet, And enfold you, Ay, and hold you, And so keep you what they make you, Sweet! III You like us for a glance, you know— For a […]
A Lovers’ Quarrel by Robert Browning
I. Oh, what a dawn of day! How the March sun feels like May! All is blue again After last night’s rain, And the South dries the hawthorn-spray. Only, my Love’s away! I’d as lief that the blue were grey, II. Runnels, which rillets swell, Must be dancing down the dell, With a foaming head […]
A Light Woman by Robert Browning
I. So far as our story approaches the end, Which do you pity the most of us three?— My friend, or the mistress of my friend With her wanton eyes, or me? II. My friend was already too good to lose, And seemed in the way of improvement yet, When she crossed his path with […]
A Grammarian’s Funeral by Robert Browning
SHORTLY AFTER THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING IN EUROPE. Let us begin and carry up this corpse, Singing together. Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes Each in its tether Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain, Cared-for till cock-crow: Look out if yonder be not day again Rimming the rock-row! That’s the appropriate […]
Zermatt To The Matterhorn. by Thomas Hardy
Thirty-two years since, up against the sun, Seven shapes, thin atomies to lower sight, Labouringly leapt and gained thy gabled height, And four lives paid for what the seven had won. They were the first by whom the deed was done, And when I look at thee, my mind takes flight To that day’s tragic […]
A Woman’s Fancy by Thomas Hardy
“Ah Madam; you’ve indeed come back here? ‘Twas sad-your husband’s so swift death, And you away! You shouldn’t have left him: It hastened his last breath.” “Dame, I am not the lady you think me; I know not her, nor know her name; I’ve come to lodge here-a friendless woman; My health my only aim.” […]
The Woman In The Rye by Thomas Hardy
‘Why do you stand in the dripping rye, Cold-lipped, unconscious, wet to the knee, When there are firesides near?’ said I. ‘I told him I wished him dead,’ said she. ‘Yea, cried it in my haste to one Whom I had loved, whom I well loved still; And die he did. And I hate the […]
A Week by Thomas Hardy
On Monday night I closed my door, And thought you were not as heretofore, And little cared if we met no more. I seemed on Tuesday night to trace Something beyond mere commonplace In your ideas, and heart, and face. On Wednesday I did not opine Your life would ever be one with mine, Though […]
The Year’s Awakening by Thomas Hardy
How do you know that the pilgrim track Along the belting zodiac Swept by the sun in his seeming rounds Is traced by now to the Fishes’ bounds And into the Ram, when weeks of cloud Have wrapt the sky in a clammy shroud, And never as yet a tinct of spring Has shown in […]
The Workbox by Thomas Hardy
See, here’s the workbox, little wife, That I made of polished oak.’ He was a joiner, of village life; She came of borough folk. He holds the present up to her As with a smile she nears And answers to the profferer, ”Twill last all my sewing years!’ ‘I warrant it will. And longer too. […]
The Wistful Lady by Thomas Hardy
‘Love, while you were away there came to me – From whence I cannot tell – A plaintive lady pale and passionless, Who bent her eyes upon me critically, And weighed me with a wearing wistfulness, As if she knew me well.’ ‘I saw no lady of that wistful sort As I came riding home. […]
The Puzzled Game-Birds by Thomas Hardy
They are not those who used to feed us When we were young-they cannot be – These shapes that now bereave and bleed us? They are not those who used to feed us, – For would they not fair terms concede us? – If hearts can house such treachery They are not those who used […]
A Spot by Thomas Hardy
In years defaced and lost, Two sat here, transport-tossed, Lit by a living love The wilted world knew nothing of: Scared momently By gaingivings, Then hoping things That could not be. Of love and us no trace Abides upon the place; The sun and shadows wheel, Season and season sereward steal; Foul days and fair […]
A Sign-Seeker by Thomas Hardy
I MARK the months in liveries dank and dry, The day-tides many-shaped and hued; I see the nightfall shades subtrude, And hear the monotonous hours clang negligently by. I view the evening bonfires of the sun On hills where morning rains have hissed; The eyeless countenance of the mist Pallidly rising when the summer droughts […]
“The Curtains Now Are Drawn” by Thomas Hardy
I The curtains now are drawn, And the spindrift strikes the glass, Blown up the jagged pass By the surly salt sou’-west, And the sneering glare is gone Behind the yonder crest, While she sings to me: “O the dream that thou art my Love, be it thine, And the dream that I am thy […]
A Poet by Thomas Hardy
Attentive eyes, fantastic heed, Assessing minds, he does not need, Nor urgent writs to sup or dine, Nor pledges in the roseate wine. For loud acclaim he does not care By the august or rich or fair, Nor for smart pilgrims from afar, Curious on where his hauntings are. But soon or later, when you […]
A Meeting With Despair by Thomas Hardy
AS evening shaped I found me on a moor Which sight could scarce sustain: The black lean land, of featureless contour, Was like a tract in pain. “This scene, like my own life,” I said, “is one Where many glooms abide; Toned by its fortune to a deadly dun- Lightless on every side. I glanced […]
A Man (In Memory of H. of M.) by Thomas Hardy
I In Casterbridge there stood a noble pile, Wrought with pilaster, bay, and balustrade In tactful times when shrewd Eliza swayed. – On burgher, squire, and clown It smiled the long street down for near a mile II But evil days beset that domicile; The stately beauties of its roof and wall Passed into sordid […]
A King’s Soliloquy [On the Night of His Funeral] by Thomas Hardy
From the slow march and muffled drum, And crowds distrest, And book and bell, at length I have come To my full rest. A ten years’ rule beneath the sun Is wound up here, And what I have done, what left undone, Figures out clear. Yet in the estimate of such It grieves me more […]
In A Wood by Thomas Hardy
Pale beech and pine-tree blue, Set in one clay, Bough to bough cannot you Bide out your day? When the rains skim and skip, Why mar sweet comradeship, Blighting with poison-drip Neighborly spray? Heart-halt and spirit-lame, City-opprest, Unto this wood I came As to a nest; Dreaming that sylvan peace Offered the harrowed ease- Nature […]
“I Sometimes Think” by Thomas Hardy
For F. E. H. I sometimes think as here I sit Of things I have done, Which seemed in doing not unfit To face the sun: Yet never a soul has paused a whit On such-not one. There was that eager strenuous press To sow good seed; There was that saving from distress In the […]
A Death-Day Recalled by Thomas Hardy
Beeny did not quiver, Juliot grew not gray, Thin Valency’s river Held its wonted way. Bos seemed not to utter Dimmest note of dirge, Targan mouth a mutter To its creamy surge. Yet though these, unheeding, Listless, passed the hour Of her spirit’s speeding, She had, in her flower, Sought and loved the places – […]
A Conversation At Dawn by Thomas Hardy
He lay awake, with a harassed air, And she, in her cloud of loose lank hair, Seemed trouble-tried As the dawn drew in on their faces there. The chamber looked far over the sea From a white hotel on a white-stoned quay, And stepping a stride He parted the window-drapery. Above the level horizon spread […]
A Confession To A Friend In Trouble by Thomas Hardy
YOUR troubles shrink not, though I feel them less Here, far away, than when I tarried near; I even smile old smiles-with listlessness- Yet smiles they are, not ghastly mockeries mere. A thought too strange to house within my brain Haunting its outer precincts I discern: -That I will not show zeal again to learn […]
A Commonplace Day by Thomas Hardy
The day is turning ghost, And scuttles from the kalendar in fits and furtively, To join the anonymous host Of those that throng oblivion; ceding his place, maybe, To one of like degree. I part the fire-gnawed logs, Rake forth the embers, spoil the busy flames, and lay the ends Upon the shining dogs; Further […]
A Circular by Thomas Hardy
As ‘legal representative’ I read a missive not my own, On new designs the senders give For clothes, in tints as shown. Here figure blouses, gowns for tea, And presentation-trains of state, Charming ball-dresses, millinery, Warranted up to date. And this gay-pictured, spring-time shout Of Fashion, hails what lady proud? Her who before last year […]
A Christmas Ghost Story by Thomas Hardy
South of the Line, inland from far Durban, A mouldering soldier lies-your countryman. Awry and doubled up are his gray bones, And on the breeze his puzzled phantom moans Nightly to clear Canopus: “I would know By whom and when the All-Earth-gladdening Law Of Peace, brought in by that Man Crucified, Was ruled to be […]
Amabel by Thomas Hardy
I MARKED her ruined hues, Her custom-straitened views, And asked, “Can there indwell My Amabel?” I looked upon her gown, Once rose, now earthen brown; The change was like the knell Of Amabel. Her step’s mechanic ways Had lost the life of May’s; Her laugh, once sweet in swell, Spoilt Amabel. I mused: “Who sings […]
Ah, Are You Digging On My Grave? by Thomas Hardy
“Ah, are you digging on my grave, My loved one? – planting rue?” – “No: yesterday he went to wed One of the brightest wealth has bred. ‘It cannot hurt her now,’ he said, ‘That I should not be true.’” “Then who is digging on my grave, My nearest dearest kin?” – “Ah, no: they […]
After The Visit by Thomas Hardy
Come again to the place Where your presence was as a leaf that skims Down a drouthy way whose ascent bedims The bloom on the farer’s face. Come again, with the feet That were light on the green as a thistledown ball, And those mute ministrations to one and to all Beyond a man’s saying […]
After Schiller by Thomas Hardy
Knight, a true sister-love This heart retains; Ask me no other love, That way lie pains! Calm must I view thee come, Calm see thee go; Tale-telling tears of thine I must not know! ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — […]
After A Journey by Thomas Hardy
I come to interview a Voiceless ghost; Whither, O whither will its whim now draw me? Up the cliff, down, till I’m lonely, lost, And the unseen waters’ soliloquies awe me. Where you will next be there’s no knowing, Facing round about me everywhere, With your nut-coloured hair, And gray eyes, and rose-flush coming and […]
Additions: The Fire at Tranter Sweatley’s by Thomas Hardy
They had long met o’ Zundays-her true love and she- And at junketings, maypoles, and flings; But she bode wi’ a thirtover uncle, and he Swore by noon and by night that her goodman should be Naibor Sweatley-a gaffer oft weak at the knee From taking o’ sommat more cheerful than tea- Who tranted, and […]
“According to the Mighty Working” by Thomas Hardy
I When moiling seems at cease In the vague void of night-time, And heaven’s wide roomage stormless Between the dusk and light-time, And fear at last is formless, We call the allurement Peace. II Peace, this hid riot, Change, This revel of quick-cued mumming, This never truly being, This evermore becoming, This spinner’s wheel onfleeing […]
A Wife In London by Thomas Hardy
December 1899 I She sits in the tawny vapour That the Thames-side lanes have uprolled, Behind whose webby fold-on-fold Like a waning taper The street-lamp glimmers cold. A messenger’s knock cracks smartly, Flashed news in her hand Of meaning it dazes to understand Though shaped so shortly: He-he has fallen-in the far South Land… II […]
A Wasted Illness by Thomas Hardy
Through vaults of pain, Enribbed and wrought with groins of ghastliness, I passed, and garish spectres moved my brain To dire distress. And hammerings, And quakes, and shoots, and stifling hotness, blent With webby waxing things and waning things As on I went. “Where lies the end To this foul way?” I asked with weakening […]