Thomas Hardy, the poet

'Olonely workman, standing there

In a dream, why do you stare and stare

At her grave, as no other grave there were?

'If your great gaunt eyes so importune

Her soul by the shine of this corpse-cold moon,

Maybe you'll raise her phantom soon!'

'Why, fool, it is what i would rather see

Than all the living folk there be;

But alas, there is no such joy for me!'

'Ah - she was one you loved, no doubt,

Through good and evil, through rain and drought,

And when she passed, all your sun went out?'

'Nay: she was the woman I did not love,

Whom all the others were ranked above,

Whom during her life I thought nothing of.'

by Thomas Hardy