Read "A Gentleman's Epitaph on himself and a Lady, who were Buried Together" by Thomas Hardy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
I DWELT in the shade of a city, / She far by the sea, / With folk perhaps good, gracious, witty; / But never with me.
Her form on the ballroom's smooth flooring / I never once met, / To guide her with accents adoring / Through Weippert's "First Set."
I spent my life's seasons with pale ones / In Vanity Fair, / And she enjoyed hers among hale ones / In salt-smelling air.
Maybe she had eyes of deep colour, / Maybe they were blue, / Maybe as she aged they got duller; / That never I knew.
She may have had lips like the coral, / But I never kissed them, / Saw pouting, nor curling in quarrel, / Nor sought for, nor missed them.
Not a word passed of love all our lifetime, / Between us, nor thrill; / We'd never a husband-and-wife time, / For good or for ill.
Yet as one dust, through bleak days and vernal, / Lie I and lies she, / This never-known lady, eternal / Companion to me!