Thomas Hardy

The Frozen Greenhouse

  (St Juliot)

‘There was a frost
Last night!’ she said,
‘And the stove was forgot
When we went to bed,
And the greenhouse plants
Are frozen dead!’

By the breakfast blaze
Blank-faced spoke she,
Her scared young look
Seeming to be
The very symbol
Of tragedy.

The frost is fiercer
Than then to-day,
As I pass the place
Of her once dismay,
But the greenhouse stands
Warm, tight, and gay,

While she who grieved
At the sad lot
Of her pretty plants –
Cold, iced, forgot –
Herself is colder,
And knows it not.