A Woman’s Fancy by Thomas Hardy

“Ah Madam; you’ve indeed come back here?
‘Twas sad-your husband’s so swift death,
And you away! You shouldn’t have left him:
It hastened his last breath.”
“Dame, I am not the lady you think me;
I know not her, nor know her name;
I’ve come to lodge here-a friendless woman;
My health my only aim.”
She came; she lodged. Wherever she rambled
They held her as no other than
The lady named; and told how her husband
Had died a forsaken man.
So often did they call her thuswise
Mistakenly, by that man’s name,
So much did they declare about him,
That his past form and fame
Grew on her, till she pitied his sorrow
As if she truly had been the cause-
Yea, his deserter; and came to wonder
What mould of man he was.
“Tell me my history!” would exclaim she;
“OUR history,” she said mournfully.
“But YOU know, surely, Ma’am?” they would answer,
Much in perplexity.
Curious, she crept to his grave one evening,
And a second time in the dusk of the morrow;
Then a third time, with crescent emotion
Like a bereaved wife’s sorrow.
No gravestone rose by the rounded hillock;
-“I marvel why this is?” she said.
– “He had no kindred, Ma’am, but you near.”
-She set a stone at his head.
She learnt to dream of him, and told them:
“In slumber often uprises he,
And says: ‘I am joyed that, after all, Dear,
You’ve not deserted me!”
At length died too this kinless woman,
As he had died she had grown to crave;
And at her dying she besought them
To bury her in his grave.
Such said, she had paused; until she added:
“Call me by his name on the stone,
As I were, first to last, his dearest,
Not she who left him lone!”
And this they did. And so it became there
That, by the strength of a tender whim,
The stranger was she who bore his name there,
Not she who wedded him.

—————

The End

And that’s the End of the Poem

© Poetry Monster, 2021.

Poems by topic and subject.

Poetry Monster — the ultimate repository of world poetry.

Poetry Monster — the multilingual library of poetic works. Here you’ll find original poems, poetry translations, ancient verses, ballads and even folk tales.

Poetry Monster (or even The Poetry Monster) — is also an international multilingual community of poets and poetry connoisseurs. Join us:

Register.

Some external links: The Bat’s Poetry Cave. — Fledermaus’s poetry site. Talking Writing Monster. — the irreverent and irrelevant chatter on subjects both serious and not quite. A free for all board. You can scribble anything on it without registration (but it doesn’t let spammers in). You can even post your poems. Qwant.com. — a search engine from France. It’s an alternative because there are a few alternatives, like Bing, Duckduckgo, and Ecosia. And there is Yandex, the ultimate language-oriented search engine for the Russophone world. Commercial Links: Russian Commerce – the foreign trade assistance agency Other links: Poems and poetry in Russian (if you are reading this in English, as you obviously are, then you’d have to switch the language, the language switch is on the menu. More on languages)