The Complete Poetical Works. Томас Харди

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      Her Death and After

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      ’Twas a death-bed summons, and forth I went

       By the way of the Western Wall, so drear

       On that winter night, and sought a gate—

       The home, by Fate,

       Of one I had long held dear.

      And there, as I paused by her tenement,

       And the trees shed on me their rime and hoar,

       I thought of the man who had left her lone—

       Him who made her his own

       When I loved her, long before.

      The rooms within had the piteous shine

       That home-things wear when there’s aught amiss;

       From the stairway floated the rise and fall

       Of an infant’s call,

       Whose birth had brought her to this.

      Her life was the price she would pay for that whine—

       For a child by the man she did not love.

       “But let that rest for ever,” I said,

       And bent my tread

       To the chamber up above.

      She took my hand in her thin white own,

       And smiled her thanks—though nigh too weak—

       And made them a sign to leave us there

       Then faltered, ere

       She could bring herself to speak.

      “’Twas to see you before I go—he’ll condone

       Such a natural thing now my time’s not much—

       When Death is so near it hustles hence

       All passioned sense

       Between woman and man as such!

      “My husband is absent. As heretofore

       The City detains him. But, in truth,

       He has not been kind . . . I will speak no blame,

       But—the child is lame;

       O, I pray she may reach his ruth!

      “Forgive past days—I can say no more—

       Maybe if we’d wedded you’d now repine! . . .

       But I treated you ill. I was punished. Farewell!

       —Truth shall I tell?

       Would the child were yours and mine!

      “As a wife I was true. But, such my unease

       That, could I insert a deed back in Time,

       I’d make her yours, to secure your care;

       And the scandal bear,

       And the penalty for the crime!”

      —When I had left, and the swinging trees

       Rang above me, as lauding her candid say,

       Another was I. Her words were enough:

       Came smooth, came rough,

       I felt I could live my day.

      Next night she died; and her obsequies

       In the Field of Tombs, by the Via renowned,

       Had her husband’s heed. His tendance spent,

       I often went

       And pondered by her mound.

      All that year and the next year whiled,

       And I still went thitherward in the gloam;

       But the Town forgot her and her nook,

       And her husband took

       Another Love to his home.

      And the rumour flew that the lame lone child

       Whom she wished for its safety child of mine,

       Was treated ill when offspring came

       Of the new-made dame,

       And marked a more vigorous line.