Explore "The Memorial Brass: 186–" by Thomas Hardy on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
"WHY do you weep there, O sweet lady, / Why do you weep before that brass? - / (I'm a mere student sketching the mediaeval) / Is some late death lined there, alas? - / Your father's?... Well, all pay the debt that paid he!"
"Young man, O must I tell! -My husband's! And under / His name I set mine, and my _death_! - / Its date left vacant till my heirs should fill it, / Stating me faithful till my last breath. " / -"Madam, that you are a widow wakes my wonder!"
"O wait! For last month I-remarried! / And now I fear 'twas a deed amiss. / We've just come home. And I am sick and saddened / At what the new one will say to this; / And will he think-think that I should have tarried?
"I may add, surely,-with no wish to harm him- / That he's a temper-yes, I fear! / And when he comes to church next Sunday morning, / And sees that written... O dear, O dear! " / -"Madam, I swear your beauty will disarm him! "