On A New York evening of thin tedium
A woman with blue eyes and some feeling read
A poem; while the city like a drum
Heavied her voice. Casually, she was dead

A little later. I recall and cannot find
The poem. It was a poem then,
About a clock that ticked and would unwind
In an old house, and strike out nine or ten

While sparrows chaffered and feathered on outside.
By Thomas Hardy. Three quatrains.
We were not friends. We were polite. She died
In a meagre way, I think, of minor pains…

And in the deckle edges of his thick
Books I have looked, but I cannot find
The poem. Still the clock does tick
Somewhere, and the springs unwind.

(And the insignificant woman, and the dull, polite
Evening…the subway crammed and stale…. )
Goodnight, goodnight, goodnight, goodnight, goodnight,
Woman and poem in limbo.
Detail, detail,
Of the infallible city of our failure, drawn to scale.

Love, any devill else but you,
Would for a given Soule give something too.
At Court your fellowes every day,
Give th'art of Riming, Huntsmanship, or Play,
For them which were their owne before; 
Onely I have nothing which gave more,
But am, alas, by being lowly, lower.

I aske no dispensation now
To falsifie a teare, or sigh, or vow,
I do not sue from thee to draw 
A non obstante on natures law,
These are prerogatives, they inhere
In thee and thine; none should forsweare
Except that hee Loves minion were.

Give mee thy weaknesse, make mee blinde, 
Both wayes, as thou and thine, in eies and minde;
Love, let me never know that this
Is love, or, that love childish is;
Let me not know that others know
That she knowes my paines, least that so 
A tender shame make me mine owne new woe.

If thou give nothing, yet thou'art just,
Because I would not thy first motions trust;
Small townes which stand stiffe, till great shot
Enforce them, by warres law condition not. 
Such in loves warfare is my case,
I may not article for grace,
Having put Love at last to shew this face.

This face, by which he could command
And change the Idolatrie of any land, 
This face, which wheresoe'r it comes,
Can call vow'd men from cloisters, dead from tombes,
And melt both Poles at once, and store
Deserts with cities, and make more
Mynes in the earth, then Quarries were before. 

For this, Love is enrag'd with mee,
Yet kills not. If I must example bee
To future Rebells; If th'unborne
Must learne, by my being cut up, and torne:
Kill, and dissect me, Love; for this 
Torture against thine owne end is,
Rack't carcasses make ill Anatomies.