Poem by Thomas Hardy

The Sunshade

Ah – it’s the skeleton of a lady’s sunshade,
Here at my feet in the hard rock’s chink,
Merely a naked sheaf of wires! –
Twenty years have gone with their livers and diers
Since it was silked in its white or pink.

Noonshine riddles the ribs of the sunshade,
No more a screen from the weakest ray;
Nothing to tell us the hue of its dyes,
Nothing but rusty bones as it lies
In its coffin of stone, unseen till to-day.

Where is the woman who carried that sunshade
Up and down this seaside place? –
Little thumb standing against its stem,
Thoughts perhaps bent on a love-stratagem,
Softening yet more the already soft face!

Is the fair woman who carried that sunshade
A skeleton just as her property is,
Laid in the chink that none may scan?
And does she regret – if regret dust can –
The vain things thought when she flourished this?

Swanage Cliffs

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

Print

1412 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version