Read "What did it Mean?" by Thomas Hardy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
What did it mean that noontide, when / You bade me pluck the flower / Within the other woman's bower, / Whom I knew nought of then?
I thought the flower blushed deeplier-aye, / And as I drew its stalk to me / It seemed to breathe: "I am, I see, / Made use of in a human play."
And while I plucked, upstarted sheer / As phantom from the pane thereby / A corpse-like countenance, with eye / That iced me by its baleful peer- / Silent, as from a bier . . .
When I came back your face had changed, / It was no face for me; / O did it speak of hearts estranged, / And deadly rivalry
In times before / I darked your door, / To seise me of / Mere second love, / Which still the haunting first deranged?