The
Dead Man Walking
by Thomas Hardy
|
| They hail me as one living, |
| But don’t they know |
| That I have died of late years, |
Untombed although ?
|
| I am but a shape that stands here, |
| A pulseless mould, |
| A pale past picture, screening |
Ashes gone cold.
|
| Not at a minute’s warning, |
| Not in a loud hour, |
| For me ceased Time’s enchantments |
In hall and bower.
|
| There was no tragic transit, |
| No catch of breath, |
| When silent seasons inched me |
On to this death. . . .
|
| ―A Troubadour-youth I rambled |
| With Life for lyre, |
| The beats of being raging |
In me like fire.
|
| But when I practiced eyeing |
| The goal of men, |
| It iced me, and I perished |
A little then.
|
| When passed my friend, my kinsfolk, |
| Through the Last Door, |
| And left me standing bleakly, |
I died yet more ;
|
| And when my Love’s heart kindled |
| In hate of me, |
| Wherefore I knew not, died I |
One more degree.
|
| And if when I died fully |
| I cannot say, |
| And changed into the corpse-thing |
I am today,
|
| Yet is it that, though whiling |
| The time somehow |
| In walking, talking, smiling, |
I live not now.
|
| Thomas Hardy
| Classic Poems |
| |
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[ Afterwards ] [ At Castle Boterel ] [ The Darkling Thrush ] [ On the Departure Platform ] [ The Robin ] [ The Dead Man Walking ] |
