Thomas Hardy

The Curate’s Kindness

  A Workhouse Irony

I

I thought they’d be strangers aroun’ me,
But she’s to be there!
Let me jump out o’ waggon and go back and drown me
At Pummery or Ten-Hatches Weir.

II

I thought: ‘Well, I’ve come to the Union –
The workhouse at last –
After honest hard work all the week, and Communion
O’ Zundays, these fifty years past.

III

‘’Tis hard; but,’ I thought, ‘never mind it:
There’s gain in the end:
And when I get used to the place I shall find it
A home, and may find there a friend.

IV

‘Life there will be better than t’other,
For peace is assured.
The men in one wing and their wives in another
Is strictly the rule of the Board.’

V

Just then one young Pa’son arriving
Steps up out of breath
To the side o’ the waggon wherein we were driving
To Union; and calls out and saith:

VI

‘Old folks, that harsh order is altered,
Be not sick of heart !
The Guardians they poohed and they pished and they paltered
When urged not to keep you apart.

VII

‘ “It is wrong,” I maintained, “to divide them,
Near forty years wed.”
“Very well, sir. We promise, then, they shall abide them
In one wing together,” they said.’

VIII

Then I sank – knew ’twas quite a foredone thing
That misery should be
To the end! . . . To get freed of her there was the one thing
Had made the change welcome to me.

IX

To go there was ending but badly;
’Twas shame and ’twas pain;
‘But anyhow,’ thought I, ‘thereby I shall gladly
Get free of this forty years’ chain.’

X

I thought they’d be strangers aroun’ me,
But she’s to be there!
Let me jump out o’ waggon and go back and drown me
At Pummery or Ten-Hatches Weir.