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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=529498" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Her Death And After</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">'TWAS a death-bed summons, and forth I went<br> By the way of the Western Wall, so drear<br> On that winter night, and sought a gate--<br> The home, by Fate,<br> Of one I had long held dear.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> And there, as I paused by her tenement,<br> And the trees shed on me their rime and hoar,<br> I thought of the man who had left her lone--<br> Him who made her his own<br> When I loved her, long before.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> The rooms within had the piteous shine<br> The home-things wear which the housewife miss;<br> From the stairway floated the rise and fall<br> Of an infant's call,<br> Whose birth had brought her to this.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Her life was the price she would pay for that whine--<br> For a child by the man she did not love.<br> &quot;But let that rest forever,&quot; I said,<br> And bent my tread<br> To the chamber up above.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> She took my hand in her thin white own,<br> And smiled her thanks--though nigh too weak--<br> And made them a sign to leave us there;<br> Then faltered, ere<br> She could bring herself to speak.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> &quot;'Twas to see you before I go--he'll condone<br> Such a natural thing now my time's not much--<br> When Death is so near it hustles hence<br> All passioned sense<br> Between woman and man as such!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> &quot;My husband is absent. As heretofore<br> The City detains him. But, in truth,<br> He has not been kind.... I will speak no blame,<br> But--the child is lame;<br> O, I pray she may reach his ruth!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> &quot;Forgive past days--I can say no more--<br> Maybe if we'd wedded you'd now repine!...<br> But I treated you ill. I was punished. Farewell!<br> --Truth shall I tell?<br> Would the child were yours and mine!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> &quot;As a wife I was true. But, such my unease<br> That, could I insert a deed back in Time,<br> I'd make her yours, to secure your care;<br> And the scandal bear,<br> And the penalty for the crime!&quot;</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> --When I had left, and the swinging trees<br> Rang above me, as lauding her candid say,<br> Another was I. Her words were enough:<br> Came smooth, came rough,<br> I felt I could live my day.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Next night she died; and her obsequies<br> In the Field of Tombs, by the Via renowned,<br> Had her husband's heed. His tendance spent,<br> I often went<br> And pondered by her mound.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> All that year and the next year whiled,<br> And I still went thitherward in the gloam;<br> But the Town forgot her and her nook,<br> And her husband took<br> Another Love to his home.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> And the rumor flew that the lame lone child<br> Whom she wished for its safety child of mine,<br> Was treated ill when offspring came<br> Of the new-made dame,<br> And marked a more vigorous line.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> A smarter grief within me wrought<br> Than even at loss of her so dear;<br> Dead the being whose soul my soul suffused,<br> Her child ill-used,<br> I helpless to interfere!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> One eve as I stood at my spot of thought<br> In the white-stoned Garth, brooding thus her wrong,<br> Her husband neared; and to shun his view<br> By her hallowed mew<br> I went from the tombs among</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> To the Cirque of the Gladiators which faced--<br> That haggard mark of Imperial Rome,<br> Whose Pagan echoes mock the chime<br> Of our Christian time:<br> It was void, and I inward clomb.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Scarce had night the sun's gold touch displaced<br> From the vast Rotund and the neighboring dead<br> When her husband followed; bowed; half-passed,<br> With lip upcast;<br> Then, halting, sullenly said:</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> &quot;It is noised that you visit my first wife's tomb.<br> Now, I gave her an honored name to bear<br> While living, when dead. So I've claim to ask<br> By what right you task<br> My patience by vigiling there?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> &quot;There's decency even in death, I assume;<br> Preserve it, sir, and keep away;<br> For the mother of my first-born you<br> Show mind undue!<br> --Sir, I've nothing more to say.&quot;</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> A desperate stroke discerned I then--<br> God pardon--or pardon not--the lie;<br> She had sighed that she wished (lest the child should pine<br> Of slights) 'twere mine,<br> So I said: &quot;But the father I.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> &quot;That you thought it yours is the way of men;<br> But I won her troth long ere your day:<br> You learnt how, in dying, she summoned me?<br> 'Twas in fealty.<br> --Sir, I've nothing more to say,</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> &quot;Save that, if you'll hand me my little maid,<br> I'll take her, and rear her, and spare you toil.<br> Think it more than a friendly act none can;<br> I'm a lonely man,<br> While you've a large pot to boil.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> &quot;If not, and you'll put it to ball or blade--<br> To-night, to-morrow night, anywhen--<br> I'll meet you here.... But think of it,<br> And in season fit<br> Let me hear from you again.&quot;</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> --Well, I went away, hoping; but nought I heard<br> Of my stroke for the child, till there greeted me<br> A little voice that one day came<br> To my window-frame<br> And babbled innocently:</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> &quot;My father who's not my own, sends word<br> I'm to stay here, sir, where I belong!&quot;<br> Next a writing came: &quot;Since the child was the fruit<br> Of your passions brute,<br> Pray take her, to right a wrong.&quot;</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> And I did. And I gave the child my love,<br> And the child loved me, and estranged us none.<br> But compunctions loomed; for I'd harmed the dead<br> By what I'd said<br> For the good of the living one.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> --Yet though, God wot, I am sinner enough,<br> And unworthy the woman who drew me so,<br> Perhaps this wrong for her darling's good<br> She forgives, or would,<br> If only she could know!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Thomas+Hardy">Thomas Hardy</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=529498" data-title="Her Death And After de Thomas Hardy" data-description="'TWAS a death-bed summons, and forth I went
 By the way of the Western Wall, so drear
 On that winter night, and sought a gate--
 The home, by Fate,
 Of one I had long held dear.

 And there, as I paused by her tenement,
 And the trees shed on me ..."></div>
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