Poem by Thomas Hardy

A Parting-Scene

The two pale women cried,
But the man seemed to suffer more,
Which he strove hard to hide.
They stayed in the waiting-room, behind the door,
Till startled by the entering engine-roar,
As if they could not bear to have unfurled
Their misery to the eyes of all the world.

A soldier and his young wife
Were the couple; his mother the third,
Who had seen the seams of life.
He was sailing for the East I later heard.
– They kissed long, but they did not speak a word;
Then, strained, he went. To the elder the wife in tears
‘Too long; too long!’ burst out. (’Twas for five years.)

1. Genitrix Laesa
2. Song from Heine
3. V.R. 1819–1901
4. Paths of Former Time
5. Over the Coffin

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