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A Broken Appointment

23 May 2023

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You did not come, 

And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb, 

Yet less for loss of your dear presence there 

Than that I thus found lacking in your make 

That high compassion which can overbear 

Reluctance for pure lovingkindness’ sake 

Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum, 

You did not come. 

  

You love not me, 

And love alone can lend you loyalty; 

I know and knew it. But, unto the store 

Of human deeds divine in all but name, 

Was it not worth a little hour or more 

To add yet this: Once you, a woman, came 

To soothe a time-torn man; even though it be 

You love not me?  

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Articles
Best Poems of Thomas Hardy
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Works of famous english writer Thomas Hardy in poetry.
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The Ruined Maid

14 April 2023
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"O 'Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!  Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?  And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?" "O didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she.

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The Darkling Thrush

14 April 2023
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I leant upon a coppice gate  When Frost was spectre-grey,  And Winter's dregs made desolate  The weakening eye of day.  The tangled bine-stems scored the sky  Like strings of broken lyres,  And

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The Voice

14 April 2023
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Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me,  Saying that now you are not as you were  When you had changed from the one who was all to me,  But as at first, when our day was fair.     Can

4

In Tenebris

26 April 2023
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Wintertime nighs;  But my bereavement-pain  It cannot bring again:  Twice no one dies.     Flower-petals flee;  But, since it once hath been,  No more that severing scene  Can harrow me.    

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I Looked Up From My Writing

26 April 2023
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I looked up from my writing,     And gave a start to see,  As if rapt in my inditing,     The moon's full gaze on me.     Her meditative misty head     Was spectral in its air,  And I involunta

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A Thunderstorm in Town

23 May 2023
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She wore a 'terra-cotta' dress, And we stayed, because of the pelting storm, Within the hansom's dry recess, Though the horse had stopped; yea, motionless We sat on, snug and warm. Th

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A Broken Appointment

23 May 2023
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You did not come,  And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb,  Yet less for loss of your dear presence there  Than that I thus found lacking in your make  That high compassion which can overbear

8

During Wind And Rain

24 May 2023
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They sing their dearest songs He, she, all of them—yea,  Treble and tenor and bass,  And one to play;  With the candles mooning each face Ah, no; the years O!  How the sick leaves reel down in t

9

The Convergence of the Twain

24 May 2023
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I  In a solitude of the sea  Deep from human vanity,  And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.     II  Steel chambers, late the pyres  Of her salamandrine fires,  Cold curre

10

According to the Mighty Working

25 May 2023
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When moiling seems at cease  In the vague void of night-time,  And heaven's wide roomage stormless  Between the dusk and light-time,  And fear at last is formless,  We call the allurement Peace. 

11

And There Was A Great Calm

25 May 2023
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There had been years of Passion—scorching, cold,  And much Despair, and Anger heaving high,  Care whitely watching, Sorrows manifold,  Among the young, among the weak and old,  And the pensive Spi

12

At Lulworth Cove A Century Back

26 May 2023
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Had I but lived a hundred years ago  I might have gone, as I have gone this year,  By Warmwell Cross on to a Cove I know,  And Time have placed his finger on me there:     "You see that man?" I m

13

Before Marching and After

26 May 2023
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 Orion swung southward aslant  Where the starved Egdon pine-trees had thinned,  The Pleiads aloft seemed to pant  With the heather that twitched in the wind;  But he looked on indifferent to sight

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Channel Firing

27 May 2023
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That night your great guns, unawares,  Shook all our coffins as we lay,  And broke the chancel window-squares,  We thought it was the Judgment-day     And sat upright. While drearisome  Arose th

15

The Chosen

27 May 2023
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“A woman for whom great gods might strive!”  I said, and kissed her there:  And then I thought of the other five,  And of how charms outwear.     I thought of the first with her eating eyes,  An

16

The Dead Man Walking

27 May 2023
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They hail me as one living,  But don't they know  That I have died of late years,  Untombed although?     I am but a shape that stands here,  A pulseless mould,  A pale past picture, screening 

17

The Echo Elf Answers

27 May 2023
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How much shall I love her?  For life, or not long?  “Not long.”     Alas! When forget her?  In years, or by June?  “By June.”     And whom woo I after?  No one, or a throng?  “A throng.”   

18

The Masked Face

29 May 2023
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I found me in a great surging space,  At either end a door,  And I said: "What is this giddying place,  With no firm-fixéd floor,  That I knew not of before?"  "It is Life," said a mask-clad face

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Men Who March Away

29 May 2023
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What of the faith and fire within us  Men who march away  Ere the barn-cocks say  Night is growing gray,  Leaving all that here can win us;  What of the faith and fire within us  Men who march a

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Neutral Tones

29 May 2023
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We stood by a pond that winter day,  And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,  And a few leaves lay on the starving sod;  They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.     Your eyes on me w

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