Poem by Thomas Hardy

He Did Not Know Me

   (Woman’s Sorrow Song)

He said: ‘I do not know you;
You are not she who came
And made my heart grow tame?’
I laughed: ‘The same!’

Still said he: ‘I don’t know you.’
‘But I am your Love!’ laughed I:
‘Yours – faithful ever – till I die,
And pulseless lie!’

Yet he said: ‘I don’t know you.’
Freakful, I went away,
And met pale Time, with ‘Pray,
What means his Nay?’

Said Time: ‘He does not know you
In your mask of Comedy.’
‘But,’ said I, ‘that I have chosen to be:
Tragedy he.’

‘True; hence he did not know you.’
‘But him I could recognize?’
‘Yea. Tragedy is true guise,
Comedy lies.’

1. Genitrix Laesa
2. V.R. 1819–1901
3. Song from Heine
4. Over the Coffin
5. Song to an Old Burden

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