Explore "Penance" by Thomas Hardy on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
"WHY do you sit, O pale thin man, / At the end of the room / By that harpsichord, built on the quaint old plan? / -It is cold as a tomb, / And there's not a spark within the grate; / And the jingling wires / Are as vain desires / That have lagged too late."
"Why do I? Alas, far times ago / A woman lyred here / In the evenfall; one who fain did so / From year to year; / And, in loneliness bending wistfully, / Would wake each note / In sick sad rote, / None to listen or see!
"I would not join. I would not stay, / But drew away, / Though the winter fire beamed brightly... Aye! / I do to-day / What I would not then; and the chill old keys, / Like a skull's brown teeth / Loose in their sheath, / Freeze my touch; yes, freeze. "