Poem by Thomas Hardy

Her Haunting-Ground

Can it be so? It must be so,
That visions have not ceased to be
In this the chiefest sanctuary
Of her whose form we used to know.
– Nay, but her dust is far away,
And ‘where her dust is, shapes her shade,
If spirit clings to flesh,’ they say:
Yet here her life-parts most were played!

Her voice explored this atmosphere,
Her foot impressed this turf around,
Her shadow swept this slope and mound,
Her fingers fondled blossoms here;
And so, I ask, why, why should she
Haunt elsewhere, by a slighted tomb,
When here she flourished sorrow-free,
And, save for others, knew no gloom?

1. V.R. 1819–1901
2. Life and Death at Sunrise
3. Genitrix Laesa
4. Song from Heine
5. Over the Coffin

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