The Photograph
911 Words
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The Photograph
The flame crept up the portrait line by line
As it lay on the coals in the silence of night's profound,
And over the arm's incline,
And along the marge of the silkwork superfine,
And gnawed at the delicate bosom's defenceless round.
Then I vented a cry of hurt, and averted my eyes;
The spectacle was one that I could not bear,
To my deep and sad surprise;
But, compelled to heed, I again looked furtive-wise
Till the flame had eaten her breasts, and mouth, and hair.
"Thank God, she is out of it now!" I said at last,
In a great relief of heart when the thing was done
That had set my soul aghast,
And nothing was left of the picture unsheathed from the past
But the ashen ghost of the card it had figured on.
She was a woman long hid amid packs of years,
She might have been living or dead; she was lost to my sight,
And the deed that had nigh drawn tears
Was done in a casual clearance of life's arrears;
But I felt as if I had put her to death that night! . . .
* * *
- Well; she knew nothing thereof did she survive,
And suffered nothing if numbered among the dead;
Yet--yet--if on earth alive
Did she feel a smart, and with vague strange anguish strive?
If in heaven, did she smile at me sadly and shake her head?
About Thomas Hardy
Text
Summary
Moments of Vision
The Voice of Things
"Why be at pains?"
"We sat at the window"
Afternoon Service at Mellstock
At the Wicket-gate
In a Museum
Apostrophe to an Old Psalm Tune
At the Word "Farewell"
First Sight of Her and After
The Rival
Heredity
"You were the sort that men forget"
She, I, and They
Near Lanivet, 1872
Joys of Memory
To the Moon
Copying Architecture in an Old Minster
To Shakespeare
Quid hic agis?
On a Midsummer Eve
Timing Her
Before Knowledge
The Blinded Bird
"The wind blew words"
The Faded Face
The Riddle
The Duel
At Mayfair Lodgings
To my Father's Violin
The Statue of Liberty
The Background and the Figure
The Change
Sitting on the Bridge
The Young Churchwarden
"I travel as a phantom now"
Lines to a Movement in Mozart's E-flat Symphony
"In the seventies"
The Pedigree
This Heart. A Woman's Dream
Where they lived
The Occultation
Life Laughs Onward
The Peace-offering
"Something tapped"
The Wound
A Merrymaking in Question
"I said and sang her excellence"
A January Night. 1879
A Kiss
The Announcement
The Oxen
The Tresses
The Photograph
On a Heath
An Anniversary
"By the Runic Stone"
The Pink Frock
Transformations
In her Precincts
The Last Signal
The House of Silence
Great Things
The Chimes
The Figure in the Scene
"Why did I sketch"
Conjecture
The Blow
Love the Monopolist
At Middle-field Gate in February
The Youth who carried a Light
The Head above the Fog
Overlooking the River Stour
The Musical Box
On Sturminster Foot-bridge
Royal Sponsors
Old Furniture
A Thought in Two Moods
The Last Performance
"You on the tower"
The Interloper
Logs on the Hearth
The Sunshade
The Ageing House
The Caged Goldfinch
At Madame Tussaud's in Victorian Years
The Ballet
The Five Students
The Wind's Prophecy
During Wind and Rain
He prefers her Earthly
The Dolls
Molly gone
A Backward Spring
Looking Across
At a Seaside Town in 1869
The Glimpse
The Pedestrian
"Who's in the next room?"
At a Country Fair
The Memorial Brass: 186-
Her Love-birds
Paying Calls
The Upper Birch-Leaves
"It never looks like summer"
Everything comes
The Man with a Past
He fears his Good Fortune
He wonders about Himself
Jubilate
He revisits his First School
"I thought, my heart"
Fragment
Midnight on the Great Western
Honeymoon Time at an Inn
The Robin
"I rose and went to Rou'tor town"
The Nettles
In a Waiting-room
The Clock-winder
Old Excursions
The Masked Face
In a Whispering Gallery
The Something that saved Him
The Enemy's Portrait
Imaginings
On the Doorstep
Signs and Tokens
Paths of Former Time
The Clock of the Years
At the Piano
The Shadow on the Stone
In the Garden
The Tree and the Lady
An Upbraiding
The Young Glass-stainer
Looking at a Picture on an Anniversary
The Choirmaster's Burial
The Man who forgot
While drawing in a Churchyard
"For Life I had never cared greatly"
Poems of War and Pariotism
"Men who march away"
His Country
England to Germany in 1914
On the Belgian Expatriation
An Appeal to America
The Pity of It
In Time of Wars and Tumults
In Time of "the Breaking of nations"
Cry of the Homeless
Before Marching and After
"Often when warring"
Then and Now
A Call to National Service
The Dead and the Living One
A New Year's Eve in War Time
"I met a man"
"I looked up from my writing"
Finale
The Coming of the End
Afterwards
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