Thomas Hardy

A Woman’s Trust

If he should live a thousand years
He’d find it not again
That scorn of him by men
Could less disturb a woman’s trust
In him as a steadfast star which must
Rise scathless from the nether spheres:
If he should live a thousand years
He’d find it not again.

She waited like a little child,
Unchilled by damps of doubt,
While from her eyes looked out
A confidence sublime as Spring’s
When stressed by Winter’s loiterings.
Thus, howsoever the wicked wiled,
She waited like a little child
Unchilled by damps of doubt.

Through cruel years and crueller
Thus she believed in him
And his aurore, so dim;
That, after fenweeds, flowers would blow;
And above all things did she show
Her faith in his good faith with her;
Through cruel years and crueller
Thus she believed in him!