Her Reproach

Thomas Hardy 1840 (Stinsford) – 1928 (Dorchester, Dorset)



Con the dead page as 'twere live love: press on!
Cold wisdom's words will ease thy track for thee;
Aye, go; cast off sweet ways, and leave me wan
To biting blasts that are intent on me.

But if thy object Fame's far summits be,
Whose inclines many a skeleton o'erlies
That missed both dream and substance, stop and see
How absence wears these cheeks and dims these eyes!

It surely is far sweeter and more wise
To water love, than toil to leave anon
A name whose glory-gleam will but advise
Invidious minds to quench it with their own,

And over which the kindliest will but stay
A moment, musing, "He, too, had his day!"

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

36 sec read
63

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABAB BCBC CACX DD
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 626
Words 119
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 2

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy, was not a Scottish Minister, not a Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland nor a Professor of Eccesiastical History at Edinburgh University. more…

All Thomas Hardy poems | Thomas Hardy Books

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