Thomas Hardy

Four Footprints

Here are the tracks upon the sand
Where stood last evening she and I –
Pressed heart to heart and hand to hand;
The morning sun has baked them dry.

I kissed her wet face – wet with rain,
For arid grief had burnt up tears,
While reached us as in sleeping pain
The distant gurgling of the weirs.

‘I have married him – yes; feel that ring;
’Tis a week ago that he put it on. . . . 
A dutiful daughter does this thing,
And resignation succeeds anon!

‘But that I body and soul was yours
Ere he’d possession, he’ll never know.
He’s a confident man. “The husband scores,”
He says, “in the long run” . . . Now, Dear, go!’

I went. And to-day I pass the spot;
It is only a smart the more to endure;
And she whom I held is as though she were not,
For they have resumed their honeymoon tour.