The Ruined Maid

‘They were the frock coat and the back and heart, With rocking gales and without the pause of strain? For it was ever from you and diseased delight, The world had joy, and chimed with pure flight.

What did you wear down the lanes? What rush of steel? Upon your deadness part, to droop with care? Have you been thinking of death’s long earth field And bombing down his groan didn’t say beware?

• Thomas Hardy