Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AT THE DINNER TABLE, by THOMAS HARDY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AT THE DINNER TABLE, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: I sat at dinner in my prime
Last Line: In jest there fifty years before.
Subject(s): Love - Marital; Marriage; Wedded Love; Marriage - Love; Weddings; Husbands; Wives


I SAT at dinner in my prime,
And glimpsed my face in the sideboard-glass,
And started as if I had seen a crime,
And prayed the ghastly show might pass.

Wrenched wrinkled features met my sight,
Grinning back to me as my own;
I well-nigh fainted with affright
At finding me a haggard crone.

My husband laughed. He had slily set
A warping mirror there, in whim
To startle me. My eyes grew wet;
I spoke not all the eve to him.

He was sorry, he said, for what he had done,
And took away the distorting glass,
Uncovering the accustomed one;
And so it ended? No, alas,

Fifty years later, when he died,
I sat me in the selfsame chair,
Thinking of him. Till, weary-eyed,
I saw the sideboard facing there;

And from its mirror looked the lean
Thing I'd become, each wrinkle and score
The image of me that I had seen
In jest there fifty years before.





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