In The Moonlight

Portrait of Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy 1840–1928

"O lonely workman, standing there In a dream, why do you stare and stare At her grave, as no other grave where there?"

"If your great gaunt eyes so importune Her soul by the shine of this corpse-cold moon, Maybe you'll raise her phantom soon!"

"Why, fool, it is what I would rather see Than all the living folk there be; But alas, there is no such joy for me!"

"Ah - she was one you loved, no doubt, Through good and evil, through rain and drought, And when she passed, all your sun went out?"

"Nay: she was the woman I did not love, Whom all the other were ranked above, Whom during her life I thought nothing of."

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