Thomas Hardy

On the Death-Bed

‘I’ll tell – being past all praying for –
Then promptly die. . . . He was out at the war,
And got some scent of the intimacy
That was under way between her and me;
And he stole back home, and appeared like a ghost
One night, at the very time almost
That I reached her house. Well, I shot him dead,
And secretly buried him. Nothing was said.

‘The news of the battle came next day;
He was scheduled missing. I hurried away,
Got out there, visited the field,
And sent home word that a search revealed
He was one of the slain; though, lying alone
And stript, his body had not been known.

‘But she suspected. I lost her love,
Yea, my hope of earth, and of Heaven above;
And my time’s now come, and I’ll pay the score,
Though it be burning for evermore.’