Thomas Hardy

The Church and the Wedding

‘I’ll restore this old church for our marriage:
I’ve ordered the plans:
Style of wedding your choice – foot or carriage –
By licence, or banns.’

He restored it, as though built newly:
The bishop was won
To preach, who pronounced it truly
A thing well done.

But the wedding waits; long, long has waited;
And guesswork is dumb
Why those who were there to have mated
Do not come.

And when the nights moan like the wailings
Of souls sore-tried,
The folk say who pass the church-palings
They hear inside

Strange sounds as of anger and sadness
That cut the heart’s core,
And shaken words bitter to madness;
And then no more.