Thoughts of Phena at the News of Her Death
Thomas Hardy
1840 to 1928
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Not a line of her writing have I
Not thread of her hair,
No mark of her late as dame in her dwelling, whereby
I may picture there;
And in vain do I urge my unsight
conceive my lost prize
At her close, whom I when her dreams were upbrimming with light
And with her eyes.
What scenes spread around her last days,
Sad, shining, or dim?
Did her gifts and compassions enray enarch her sweet ways
With an aureate nimb?
Or life-light decline from her years,
And mischances control
Her day-star; unease, or regret, or forebodings, or fears
Disennoble soul?
Thus I do but the phantom retain
Of maiden of yore
As my relic; yet haply the of her—fined in my brain
It may be the
That no line of her writing have I,
Nor thread of her hair,
No mark of her late as dame in her dwelling, whereby
I may picture there.