Her Death And After Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCCB DBEEB FGHHG FIJJI EKBBK ELMML BNOON BEPPE QRBBR QSTTS SUAAU UVWWV UEOOE UBUUB UXYYZ UVRRR UUUUU RBA2A2B RSYYS EB2EEB2 ESRRS UC2EEC2 UEUUE URRRR UXUUX IEUUE TSUUS| 'TWAS a death bed summons and forth I went | A |
| By the way of the Western Wall so drear | B |
| On that winter night and sought a gate | C |
| The home by Fate | C |
| Of one I had long held dear | B |
| - | |
| And there as I paused by her tenement | D |
| And the trees shed on me their rime and hoar | B |
| I thought of the man who had left her lone | E |
| Him who made her his own | E |
| When I loved her long before | B |
| - | |
| The rooms within had the piteous shine | F |
| The home things wear which the housewife miss | G |
| From the stairway floated the rise and fall | H |
| Of an infant's call | H |
| Whose birth had brought her to this | G |
| - | |
| Her life was the price she would pay for that whine | F |
| For a child by the man she did not love | I |
| But let that rest forever I said | J |
| And bent my tread | J |
| To the chamber up above | I |
| - | |
| She took my hand in her thin white own | E |
| And smiled her thanks though nigh too weak | K |
| And made them a sign to leave us there | B |
| Then faltered ere | B |
| She could bring herself to speak | K |
| - | |
| 'Twas to see you before I go he'll condone | E |
| Such a natural thing now my time's not much | L |
| When Death is so near it hustles hence | M |
| All passioned sense | M |
| Between woman and man as such | L |
| - | |
| My husband is absent As heretofore | B |
| The City detains him But in truth | N |
| He has not been kind I will speak no blame | O |
| But the child is lame | O |
| O I pray she may reach his ruth | N |
| - | |
| Forgive past days I can say no more | B |
| Maybe if we'd wedded you'd now repine | E |
| But I treated you ill I was punished Farewell | P |
| Truth shall I tell | P |
| Would the child were yours and mine | E |
| - | |
| As a wife I was true But such my unease | Q |
| That could I insert a deed back in Time | R |
| I'd make her yours to secure your care | B |
| And the scandal bear | B |
| And the penalty for the crime | R |
| - | |
| When I had left and the swinging trees | Q |
| Rang above me as lauding her candid say | S |
| Another was I Her words were enough | T |
| Came smooth came rough | T |
| I felt I could live my day | S |
| - | |
| Next night she died and her obsequies | S |
| In the Field of Tombs by the Via renowned | U |
| Had her husband's heed His tendance spent | A |
| I often went | A |
| And pondered by her mound | U |
| - | |
| All that year and the next year whiled | U |
| And I still went thitherward in the gloam | V |
| But the Town forgot her and her nook | W |
| And her husband took | W |
| Another Love to his home | V |
| - | |
| And the rumor flew that the lame lone child | U |
| Whom she wished for its safety child of mine | E |
| Was treated ill when offspring came | O |
| Of the new made dame | O |
| And marked a more vigorous line | E |
| - | |
| A smarter grief within me wrought | U |
| Than even at loss of her so dear | B |
| Dead the being whose soul my soul suffused | U |
| Her child ill used | U |
| I helpless to interfere | B |
| - | |
| One eve as I stood at my spot of thought | U |
| In the white stoned Garth brooding thus her wrong | X |
| Her husband neared and to shun his view | Y |
| By her hallowed mew | Y |
| I went from the tombs among | Z |
| - | |
| To the Cirque of the Gladiators which faced | U |
| That haggard mark of Imperial Rome | V |
| Whose Pagan echoes mock the chime | R |
| Of our Christian time | R |
| It was void and I inward clomb | R |
| - | |
| Scarce had night the sun's gold touch displaced | U |
| From the vast Rotund and the neighboring dead | U |
| When her husband followed bowed half passed | U |
| With lip upcast | U |
| Then halting sullenly said | U |
| - | |
| It is noised that you visit my first wife's tomb | R |
| Now I gave her an honored name to bear | B |
| While living when dead So I've claim to ask | A2 |
| By what right you task | A2 |
| My patience by vigiling there | B |
| - | |
| There's decency even in death I assume | R |
| Preserve it sir and keep away | S |
| For the mother of my first born you | Y |
| Show mind undue | Y |
| Sir I've nothing more to say | S |
| - | |
| A desperate stroke discerned I then | E |
| God pardon or pardon not the lie | B2 |
| She had sighed that she wished lest the child should pine | E |
| Of slights 'twere mine | E |
| So I said But the father I | B2 |
| - | |
| That you thought it yours is the way of men | E |
| But I won her troth long ere your day | S |
| You learnt how in dying she summoned me | R |
| 'Twas in fealty | R |
| Sir I've nothing more to say | S |
| - | |
| Save that if you'll hand me my little maid | U |
| I'll take her and rear her and spare you toil | C2 |
| Think it more than a friendly act none can | E |
| I'm a lonely man | E |
| While you've a large pot to boil | C2 |
| - | |
| If not and you'll put it to ball or blade | U |
| To night to morrow night anywhen | E |
| I'll meet you here But think of it | U |
| And in season fit | U |
| Let me hear from you again | E |
| - | |
| Well I went away hoping but nought I heard | U |
| Of my stroke for the child till there greeted me | R |
| A little voice that one day came | R |
| To my window frame | R |
| And babbled innocently | R |
| - | |
| My father who's not my own sends word | U |
| I'm to stay here sir where I belong | X |
| Next a writing came Since the child was the fruit | U |
| Of your passions brute | U |
| Pray take her to right a wrong | X |
| - | |
| And I did And I gave the child my love | I |
| And the child loved me and estranged us none | E |
| But compunctions loomed for I'd harmed the dead | U |
| By what I'd said | U |
| For the good of the living one | E |
| - | |
| Yet though God wot I am sinner enough | T |
| And unworthy the woman who drew me so | S |
| Perhaps this wrong for her darling's good | U |
| She forgives or would | U |
| If only she could know | S |
Thomas Hardy
(1)
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