Explore "In the Night she Came" by Thomas Hardy on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I TOLD her when I left one day / That whatsoever weight of care / Might strain our love, Time's mere assault / Would work no changes there. / And in the night she came to me, / Toothless, and wan, and old, / With leaden concaves round her eyes, / And wrinkles manifold.
I tremblingly exclaimed to her, / "O wherefore do you ghost me thus! / I have said that dull defacing Time / Will bring no dreads to us. " / "And is that true of _you_? " she cried / In voice of troubled tune. / I faltered: "Well. I did not think / You would test me quite so soon!"
She vanished with a curious smile, / Which told me, plainlier than by word, / That my staunch pledge could scarce beguile / The fear she had averred. / Her doubts then wrought their shape in me, / And when next day I paid / My due caress, we seemed to be / Divided by some shade.