The Subalterns

Thomas Hardy

"Poor wanderer," said the leaden sky,

"I fain would lighten thee,

But there are laws in force on high

Which say it must not be."

--"I would not freeze thee, shorn one," cried

The North, "knew I but how

To warm my breath, to slack my stride;

But I am ruled as thou."

III

--"To-morrow I attack thee, wight,"

Said Sickness. "Yet I swear

I bear thy little ark no spite,

But am bid enter there."

--"Come hither, Son," I heard Death say;

"I did not will a grave

Should end thy pilgrimage to-day,

But I, too, am a slave!"

We smiled upon each other then,

And life to me had less

Of that fell look it wore ere when

They owned their passiveness.

Poems by This Author

Afterwards by Thomas Hardy
When the Present has latched its postern behind my

An August Midnight by Thomas Hardy
A shaded lamp and a waving blind

At the Entering of the New Year by Thomas Hardy
Our songs went up and out the chimney

At the Piano by Thomas Hardy
A Woman was playing

Channel Firing by Thomas Hardy
That night your great guns, unawares,

During Wind and Rain by Thomas Hardy
They sing their dearest songs

Hap by Thomas Hardy
If but some vengeful god would call to me

Her Father by Thomas Hardy
I met her, as we had privily planned,

How Great My Grief by Thomas Hardy
How great my grief, my joys how few

I Found Her Out There by Thomas Hardy
I found her out there

In the Garden by Thomas Hardy
We waited for the sun

The Convergence of the Twain by Thomas Hardy
In a solitude of the sea

The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy
I leant upon a coppice gate

The Glimpse by Thomas Hardy
She sped through the door

The Going by Thomas Hardy
Why did you give no hint that night

The High-School Lawn by Thomas Hardy
Gray prinked with rose

The Interloper by Thomas Hardy
There are three folk driving in a quaint old chaise

The Man He Killed by Thomas Hardy
"Had he and I but met

The Oxen by Thomas Hardy
Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock

The Ruined Maid by Thomas Hardy
"O 'Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!

The Voice by Thomas Hardy
Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me,

The Year's Awakening by Thomas Hardy
How do you know that the pilgrim track

To A Sea-Cliff by Thomas Hardy

		Poems About Illness
		Kaddish, Part I by Allen Ginsberg
		A Litany in Time of Plague by Thomas Nashe
		Afternoon at MacDowell by Jane Kenyon
		Against Elegies by Marilyn Hacker
		Bedside by William Olsen
		Breathing by Josephine Dickinson
		Christmas Away from Home by Jane Kenyon
		Cognitive Deficit Market by Joshua Corey
		E.W. by Rosanna Warren
		Evening by Gail Mazur
		Everyone Gasps with Anxiety by Jeni Olin
		Having it Out with Melancholy by Jane Kenyon
		Her Body Like a Lantern Next to Me by John Rybicki
		Hyper- by David Baker
		In Memory of W. B. Yeats by W. H. Auden
		Mastectomy by Wanda Coleman
		Phases by Michael Redhill
		Prayer for Sleep by Cheryl Dumesnil
		R.I.P., My Love by Tory Dent
		Sick by Shel Silverstein
		The Embrace by Mark Doty
		The Land of Counterpane by Robert Louis Stevenson
		The Nurse by Michael Blumenthal
		The Sick Child by Robert Louis Stevenson
		The Sick Rose by William Blake
		The Transparent Man by Anthony Hecht
		The Visit by Jason Shinder
		Tubes by Donald Hall
		Units by Albert Goldbarth
		Visits to St. Elizabeths by Elizabeth Bishop
		Waking in the Blue by Robert Lowell
		When I Consider How My Light Is Spent by John Milton

The Subalterns

Thomas Hardy

Poems by This Author

Further Reading