Read "The Pedigree" by Thomas Hardy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
I. I BENT in the deep of night / Over a pedigree the chronicler gave / As mine; and as I bent there, half-unrobed, / The uncurtained panes of my window-square let in the watery light / Of the moon in its old age: / And green-rheumed clouds were hurrying past where mute and cold it / globed / Like a drifting dolphin's eye seen through a lapping wave.
II. So, scanning my sire-sown tree, / And the hieroglyphs of this spouse tied to that, / With offspring mapped below in lineage, / Till the tangles troubled me, / The branches seemed to twist into a seared and cynic face / Which winked and tokened towards the window like a Mage / Enchanting me to gaze again thereat.