Poem by Thomas Hardy

On the Death-Bed

‘I’ll tell – being past all praying for –
Then promptly die. . . . He was out at the war,
And got some scent of the intimacy
That was under way between her and me;
And he stole back home, and appeared like a ghost
One night, at the very time almost
That I reached her house. Well, I shot him dead,
And secretly buried him. Nothing was said.

‘The news of the battle came next day;
He was scheduled missing. I hurried away,
Got out there, visited the field,
And sent home word that a search revealed
He was one of the slain; though, lying alone
And stript, his body had not been known.

‘But she suspected. I lost her love,
Yea, my hope of earth, and of Heaven above;
And my time’s now come, and I’ll pay the score,
Though it be burning for evermore.’

1. At the Word ‘Farewell’
2. The Three Tall Men
3. The Dead Bastard
4. The Supplanter
5. Evening Shadows

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