Thomas Hardy

* * *

You were the sort that men forget;
Though I – not yet! –
Perhaps not ever. Your slighted weakness
Adds to the strength of my regret!

You’d not the art – you never had
For good or bad –
To make men see how sweet your meaning,
Which, visible, had charmed them glad.

You would, by words inept let fall,
Offend them all,
Even if they saw your warm devotion
Would hold your life’s blood at their call.

You lacked the eye to understand
Those friends offhand
Whose mode was crude, though whose dim purport
Outpriced the courtesies of the bland.

I am now the only being who
Remembers you
It may be. What a waste that Nature
Grudged soul so dear the art its due!