Poem by Thomas Hardy

She Charged Me

She charged me with having said this and that
To another woman long years before,
In the very parlour where we sat, –

Sat on a night when the endless pour
Of rain on the roof and the road below
Bent the spring of the spirit more and more... 

– So charged she me; and the Cupid’s bow
Of her mouth was hard, and her eyes, and her face,
And her white forefinger lifted slow.

Had she done it gently, or shown a trace
That not too curiously would she view
A folly flown ere her reign had place,

A kiss might have closed it. But I knew
From the fall of each word, and the pause between,
That the curtain would drop upon us two
Ere long, in our play of slave and queen.

1. Genitrix Laesa
2. V.R. 1819–1901
3. Over the Coffin
4. Song from Heine
5. Song to an Old Burden

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