Time & Brevity

The Brother

by Thomas Hardy 1840–1928

From Winter Words in Various Moods and Metres (1928)

Time & Brevity

O know you what I have done
To avenge our sister? She,
I thought, was wantoned with
By a man of levity:

And I lay in wait all day,
All day did I wait for him,
And dogged him to Bollard Head
When twilight dwindled dim,

And hurled him over the edge
And heard him fall below:
O would I were lying with him,
For the truth I did not know!

“O where’s my husband?” she asked,
As evening wore away:
“Best you had one, forsooth,
But never had you!” I I say.

“Yes, but I have!” says she,
“My Love made it up with me,
And we churched it yesterday
And mean to live happily.”

And now I go in haste
To the Head, before she’s aware,
To join him in death for the wrong
I’ve done them both out there!

MLA

Hardy, Thomas. “The Brother.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/hardy/718/.

Chicago

Hardy, Thomas. “The Brother.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/hardy/718/.

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