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Won't you help support DayPoems? The Colonel's Soliloquy (Southampton Docks: October, 1899)By Thomas Hardy6/2/1840-1/11/1928"The quay recedes. Hurrah! Ahead we go! . . . It's true I've been accustomed now to home, And joints get rusty, and one's limbs may grow More fit to rest than roam. "But I can stand as yet fair stress and strain; There's not a little steel beneath the rust; My years mount somewhat, but here's to't again! And if I fall, I must. "God knows that for myself I've scanty care; Past scrimmages have proved as much to all; In Eastern lands and South I've had my share Both of the blade and ball. "And where those villains ripped me in the flitch With their old iron in my early time, I'm apt at change of wind to feel a twitch, Or at a change of clime. "And what my mirror shows me in the morning Has more of blotch and wrinkle than of bloom; My eyes, too, heretofore all glasses scorning, Have just a touch of rheum . . . "Now sounds 'The Girl I've left behind me,'--Ah, The years, the ardours, wakened by that tune! Time was when, with the crowd's farewell 'Hurrah!' 'Twould lift me to the moon. "But now it's late to leave behind me one Who if, poor soul, her man goes underground, Will not recover as she might have done In days when hopes abound. "She's waving from the wharfside, palely grieving, As down we draw . . . Her tears make little show, Yet now she suffers more than at my leaving Some twenty years ago. "I pray those left at home will care for her! I shall come back; I have before; though when The Girl you leave behind you is a grandmother, Things may not be as then." DayPoems Poem No. 997 Comment on DayPoems? If you are like us, you have strong feelings about poetry, and about each poem you read. Let it all out! Comment on this poem, any poem, DayPoems, other poetry places or the art of poetry at DayPoems Feedback. Won't you help support DayPoems? Click here to learn more about how you can keep DayPoems on the Web . . . Copyright The DayPoems web site, www.daypoems.net, is copyright 2001-2005 by Timothy K. Bovee. All rights reserved. The authors of poetry and other material appearing on DayPoems retain full rights to their work. Any requests for publication in other venues must be negotiated separately with the authors. The editor of DayPoems will gladly assist in putting interested parties in contact with the authors. |
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