Poem by Thomas Hardy

* * *

I looked up from my writing,
And gave a start to see,
As if rapt in my inditing,
The moon’s full gaze on me.

Her meditative misty head
Was spectral in its air,
And I involuntarily said,
‘What are you doing there?’

‘Oh, I’ve been scanning pond and hole
And waterway hereabout
For the body of one with a sunken soul
Who has put his life-light out.

‘Did you hear his frenzied tattle?
It was sorrow for his son
Who is slain in brutish battle,
Though he has injured none.

‘And now I am curious to look
Into the blinkered mind
Of one who wants to write a book
In a world of such a kind.’

Her temper overwrought me,
And I edged to shun her view,
For I felt assured she thought me
One who should drown him too.

1. At the Word ‘Farewell’
2. The Supplanter
3. Afternoon Service at Mellstock
4. The Children and Sir Nameless
5. Tragedian to Tragedienne

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