Poem by Thomas Hardy

The Lady in the Furs

‘I’m a lofty lovely woman,’
Says the lady in the furs,
In the glance she throws around her
On the poorer dames and sirs:
‘This robe, that cost three figures,
Yes, is mine,’ her nod avers.

‘True, my money did not buy it,
But my husband’s, from the trade;
And they, they only got it
From things feeble and afraid
By murdering them in ambush
With a cunning engine’s aid.

‘True, my hands, too, did not shape it
To the pretty cut you see,
But the hands of midnight workers
Who are strangers quite to me:
It was fitted, too, by dressers
Ranged around me toilsomely.

‘But I am a lovely lady,
Though sneerers say I shine
By robbing Nature’s children
Of apparel not mine,
And that I am but a broom-stick,
Like a scarecrow’s wooden spine.’

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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