Departure
Platform
by Thomas Hardy
|
We kissed at the barrier ; and passing
through |
She left me, and moment by moment got |
Smaller and smaller, until to my view |
She was but a spot ;
|
A wee white spot of muslin fluff |
That down the diminishing platform bore |
Through hustling crowds of gentle and
rough |
To the carriage door.
|
Under the lamplight’s fitful glowers, |
Behind dark groups from far and near, |
Whose interests were apart from ours, |
She would disappear,
|
Then show again, till I ceased to see |
That flexible form, that nebulous white
; |
And she who was more than my life to me |
Had vanished quite.
|
We have penned new plans since that
fair fond day, |
And in season she will appear again— |
Perhaps in the same soft white array— |
But never as then !
|
—‘And why, young man, must eternally
fly |
A joy you’ll repeat, if you love her
well ?’ |
—O friend, nought happens twice thus ;
why, |
I cannot tell !
|
Thomas Hardy
| Classic Poems |
|
[ Afterwards ] [ At Castle Boterel ] [ The Darkling Thrush ] [ On the Departure Platform ] [ The Robin ] [ The Dead Man Walking ] |