Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE TELEGRAM, by THOMAS HARDY Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: O he's suffering - maybe dying - and I not there to aid Last Line: Ere a woman held me slave. | ||||||||
'O HE'S suffering - maybe dying - and I not there to aid, And smooth his bed and whisper to him! Can I nohow go? Only the nurse's brief twelve words thus hurriedly conveyed, As by stealth, to let me know. 'He was the best and brightest! - candour shone upon his brow, And I shall never meet again a soldier such as he, And I loved him ere I knew it, and perhaps he's sinking now, Far, far removed from me!' - The yachts ride mute at anchor and the fulling moon is fair, And the giddy folk are strutting up and down the smooth parade, And in her wild distraction she seems not to be aware That she lives no more a maid, But has vowed and wived herself to one who blessed the ground she trod To and from his scene of ministry, and thought her history known In its last particular to him - aye, almost as to God, And believed her quite his own. So rapt her mind's far-off regard she droops as in a swoon, And a movement of aversion mars her recent spousal grace, And in silence we two sit here in our waning honeymoon At this idle watering-place.... What now I see before me is a long lane overhung With lovelessness, and stretching from the present to the grave. And I would I were away from this, with friends I knew when young, Ere a woman held me slave. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MEN WHO MARCH AWAY' (SONG OF THE SOLDIERS) by THOMAS HARDY A BROKEN APPOINTMENT by THOMAS HARDY A CHRISTMAS GHOST-STORY; CHRISTMAS-EVE 1899 by THOMAS HARDY A THOUGHT IN TWO MOODS by THOMAS HARDY A THUNDERSTORM IN TOWN by THOMAS HARDY A TRAMPWOMAN'S TRAGEDY by THOMAS HARDY A WIFE IN LONDON by THOMAS HARDY ACCORDING TO THE MIGHTY WORKING by THOMAS HARDY |
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