Time & Brevity

Nobody comes

by Thomas Hardy 1840–1928

From Human Shows, Far Phantasies, Songs and Trifles (1925)

Time & Brevity

Tree-leaves labour up and down,
And through them the fainting light
Succumbs to the crawl of night.
Outside in the road the telegraph wire
To the town from the darkening land
Intones to travellers like a spectral lyre
Swept by a spectral hand.

A car comes up, with lamps full-glare,
That flash upon a tree:
It has nothing to do with me,
And whangs along in a world of its own,
Leaving a blacker air;
And mute by the gate I stand again alone,
And nobody pulls up there.

✦ ✦ ✦

October 9, 1924.

MLA

Hardy, Thomas. “Nobody comes.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/hardy/571/.

Chicago

Hardy, Thomas. “Nobody comes.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/hardy/571/.

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