Read "To a Lady" by Thomas Hardy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
OFFENDED BY A BOOK OF THE WRITER'S
NOW that my page upcloses, doomed, maybe, / Never to press thy cosy cushions more, / Or wake thy ready Yeas as heretofore, / Or stir thy gentle vows of faith in me:
Knowing thy natural receptivity, / I figure that, as flambeaux banish eve, / My sombre image, warped by insidious heave / Of those less forthright, must lose place in thee.
So be it. I have borne such. Let thy dreams / Of me and mine diminish day by day, / And yield their space to shine of smugger things; / Till I shape to thee but in fitful gleams, / And then in far and feeble visitings, / And then surcease. Truth will be truth alway.