Poem by Thomas Hardy

Heredity

I am the family face;
Flesh perishes, I live on,
Projecting trait and trace
Through time to times anon,
And leaping from place to place
Over oblivion.

The years-heired feature that can
In curve and voice and eye
Despise the human span
Of durance – that is I;
The eternal thing in man,
That heeds no call to die.

1. Genitrix Laesa
2. V.R. 1819–1901
3. Song from Heine
4. Over the Coffin
5. Before My Friend Arrived

Thomas Aldrich Heredity ("A soldier of the Cromwell stamp")

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