THE IVY-WIFE
by: Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
- LONGED
to love a full-boughed beech
- And be as high as he:
- I stretched an arm within his reach,
- And signalled unity.
- But with his drip he forced a breach,
- And tried to poison me.
-
- I gave the grasp of partnership
- To one of other race--
- A plane: he barked him strip by strip
- From upper bough to base;
- And me therewith; for gone my grip,
- My arms could not enlace.
-
- In new affection next I strove
- To coll an ash I saw,
- And he in trust received my love;
- Till with my soft green claw
- I cramped and bound him as I wove
- Such was my love: ha-ha!
-
- By this I gained his strength and height
- Without his rivalry.
- But in my triumph I lost sight
- Of afterhaps. Soon he,
- Being bark-bound, flagged, snapped, fell outright,
- And in his fall felled me!
"The Ivy-Wife" 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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