Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, NIGHT IN THE OLD HOME, by THOMAS HARDY


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NIGHT IN THE OLD HOME, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: When the wasting embers redden the chimney-breast
Last Line: And, satisfied, placid, unfretting, watch time away beamingly!'


WHEN the wasting embers redden the chimney-breast,
And Life's bare pathway looms like a desert track to me,
And from hall and parlour the living have gone to their rest,
My perished people who housed them here come back to me.

They come and seat them around in their mouldy places,
Now and then bending towards me a glance of wistfulness,
A strange upbraiding smile upon all their faces,
And in the bearing of each a passive tristfulness.

'Do you uphold me, lingering and languishing here,
A pale late plant of your once strong stock?' I say to them;
'A thinker of crooked thoughts upon Life in the sere,
And on That which consigns men to night after showing the
day to them?'

'- O let be the Wherefore! We fevered our years not thus:
Take of Life what it grants, without question!' they
answer me seemingly.
'Enjoy, suffer, wait: spread the table here freely like us,
And, satisfied, placid, unfretting, watch Time away beamingly!'





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