Poem by Thomas Hardy

The Mound

For a moment pause: –
Just here it was;
And through the thin thorn hedge, by the rays of the moon,
I can see the tree in the field, and beside it the mound –
Now sheeted with snow – whereon we sat that June
When it was green and round,
And she crazed my mind by what she coolly told –
The history of her undoing,
(As I saw it), but she called ‘comradeship’,
That bred in her no rueing:
And saying she’d not be bound
For life to one man, young, ripe-yeared, or old,
Left me – an innocent simpleton to her viewing;
For, though my accompt of years outscored her own,
Hers had more hotly flown... 
We never met again by this green mound,
To press as once so often lip on lip,
And palter, and pause: –
Yes; here it was!

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