| Thomas Hardy (1840–1928). Wessex Poems and Other Verses. 1898. |
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| 37. Thoughts of Ph——a |
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| NOT a line of her writing have I, | |
| Not a thread of her hair, | |
| No mark of her late time as dame in her dwelling, whereby | |
| I may picture her there; | |
| And in vain do I urge my unsight | 5 |
| To conceive my lost prize | |
| At her close, whom I knew when her dreams were upbrimming with light, | |
| And with laughter her eyes. | |
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| What scenes spread around her last days, | |
| Sad, shining, or dim? | 10 |
| Did her gifts and compassions enray and enarch her sweet ways | |
| With an aureate nimb? | |
| Or did life-light decline from her years, | |
| And mischances control | |
| Her full day-star; unease, or regret, or forebodings, or fears | 15 |
| Disennoble her soul? | |
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| Thus I do but the phantom retain | |
| Of the maiden of yore | |
| As my relic; yet haply the best of her—fined in my brain | |
| It may be the more | 20 |
| That no line of her writing have I, | |
| Nor a thread of her hair, | |
| No mark of her late time as dame in her dwelling, whereby | |
I may picture her there.
March, 1890. | |
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