HER DILEMMA
by: Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
- HE TWO were
silent in a sunless church,
- Whose mildewed walls, uneven paving-stones,
- And wasted carvings passed antique research;
- And nothing broke the clocks dull monotones.
-
- Leaning against a wormy poppy-head,
- So wan and worn that he could scarcely stand,
- --For he was soon to die,--he softly said,
- Tell me you love me!--holding hard her hand.
-
- She would have given a world to breathe yes truly,
- So much his life seemed hanging on her mind,
- And hence she lied, her heart persuaded throughly,
- Twas worth her soul to be a moment kind.
-
- But the sad need thereof, his nearing death,
- So mocked humanity that she shamed to prize
- A world conditioned thus, or care for breath
- Where Nature such dilemmas could devise.
"Her Dilemma" is reprinted
from Wessex Poems and Other Verses. Thomas Hardy. New
York: Harper, 1898. |
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POEMS BY THOMAS HARDY |
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