Poem by Thomas Hardy

What Did It Mean?

What did it mean that noontide, when
You bade me pluck the flower
Within the other woman’s bower,
Whom I knew nought of then?

I thought the flower blushed deeplier – aye,
And as I drew its stalk to me
It seemed to breathe: ‘I am, I see,
Made use of in a human play.’

And while I plucked, upstarted sheer
As phantom from the pane thereby
A corpse-like countenance, with eye
That iced me by its baleful peer –
Silent, as from a bier... 

When I came back your face had changed,
It was no face for me;
O did it speak of hearts estranged,
And deadly rivalry
In times before
I darked your door,
To seise me of
Mere second love,
Which still the haunting first deranged?

1. V.R. 1819–1901
2. Genitrix Laesa
3. Song from Heine
4. Over the Coffin
5. The Forbidden Banns

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