Poem by Thomas Hardy

The Wind Blew Words

The wind blew words along the skies,
And these it blew to me
Through the wide dusk: ‘Lift up your eyes,
Behold this troubled tree,
Complaining as it sways and plies;
It is a limb of thee.

‘Yea, too, the creatures sheltering round –
Dumb figures, wild and tame,
Yea, too, thy fellows who abound –
Either of speech the same
Or far and strange – black, dwarfed, and browned,
They are stuff of thy own frame.’

I moved on in a surging awe
Of inarticulateness
At the pathetic Me I saw
In all his huge distress,
Making self-slaughter of the law
To kill, break, or suppress.

1. The Supplanter
2. Afternoon Service at Mellstock
3. At the Word ‘Farewell’
4. Tragedian to Tragedienne
5. The Three Tall Men

Print

1804 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version