BEENY CLIFF
by: Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
I
- THE opal
and the sapphire of that wandering western sea,
- And the woman riding high above with bright hair flapping
free--
- The woman whom I loved so, and who loyally loved me.
-
- II
-
- The pale mews plained below us, and the waves seemed far
away
- In a nether sky, engrossed in saying their ceaseless babbling
say,
- As we laughed light-heartedly aloft in that clear-sunned
March day.
-
- III
-
- A little cloud then cloaked us, and there flew an irised
rain,
- And the Atlantic dyed its levels with a dull misfeatured
stain,
- And then the sun burst out again, and purples prinked the
main.
-
- IV
-
- --Still in all its chasmal beauty bulks old Beeny to the
sky,
- And shall she and I not go there once again now March is
nigh,
- And the sweet things said in that March say anew there by
and by?
-
- V
-
- What if still in chasmal beauty looms that wild weird western
shore,
- The woman now is--elsewhere--whom the ambling pony bore,
- And nor knows nor cares for Beeny, and will laugh there nevermore.
"Beeny Cliff" is reprinted
from An Anthology of Modern Verse. Ed. A. Methuen. London:
Methuen & Co., 1921. |
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POEMS BY THOMAS HARDY |
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