Time's Laughingstocks, and Other Verses - Thomas Hardy

As a whole they will, I hope, take the reader forward, even if not far, rather than backward. I should add that some lines in the early-dated poems have been rewritten, though they have been left substantially unchanged.

T. H.

September 1909.

Time’sLaughingstocks—			PAGE
	The Revisitation		[3]
	A Trampwoman’s Tragedy		[11]
	The Two Rosalinds		[17]
	A Sunday Morning Tragedy		[21]
	The House of Hospitalities		[27]
	Bereft		[28]
	John and Jane		[30]
	The Curate’s Kindness		[31]
	The Flirt’s Tragedy		[34]
	The Rejected Member’s Wife		[40]
	The Farm-Woman’s Winter		[42]
	Autumn in King’s Hintock Park		[43]
	Shut out that Moon		[45]
	Reminiscences of a Dancing Man		[47]
	The Dead Man Walking		[49]
More LoveLyrics—
	1967		[53]
	Her Definition		[54]
	The Division		[55]
	On the Departure Platform		[56]
	In a Cathedral City		[58]
	“I say I’ll seek Her”		[59]
	Her Father		[60]
	At Waking		[61]
	Four Footprints		[63]
	In the Vaulted Way		[65]
	In the Mind’s Eye		[66]
	The End of the Episode		[67]
	The Sigh		[68]
	“In the Night She Came”		[70]
	The Conformers		[72]
	The Dawn after the Dance		[74]
	The Sun on the Letter		[76]
	The Night of the Dance		[77]
	Misconception		[78]
	The Voice of the Thorn		[80]
	From Her in the Country		[82]
	Her Confession		[83]
	To an Impersonator of Rosalind		[84]
	To an Actress		[85]
	The Minute before Meeting		[86]
	He abjures Love		[87]
A Set of CountrySongs—
	Let me Enjoy		[91]
	At Casterbridge Fair:
	I.	The Ballad-Singer	[93]
	II.	Former Beauties	[94]
	III.	After the Club Dance	[95]
	IV.	The Market-Girl	[95]
	V.	The Inquiry	[96]
	VI.	A Wife Waits	[97]
	VII.	After the Fair	[98]
	The Dark-eyed Gentleman		[100]
	To Carrey Clavel		[102]
	The Orphaned Old Maid		[103]
	The Spring Call		[104]
	Julie-Jane		[106]
	News for Her Mother		[108]
	The Fiddler		[110]
	The Husband’s View		[111]
	Rose-Ann		[113]
	The Homecoming		[115]
Pieces Occasional andVarious—
	A Church Romance		[121]
	The Rash Bride		[122]
	The Dead Quire		[128]
	The Christening		[135]
	A Dream Question		[137]
	By the Barrows		[139]
	A Wife and Another		[140]
	The Roman Road		[144]
	The Vampirine Fair		[145]
	The Reminder		[150]
	The Rambler		[151]
	Night in the Old Home		[152]
	After the Last Breath		[154]
	In Childbed		[156]
	The Pine Planters		[158]
	The Dear		[161]
	One We Knew		[163]
	She Hears the Storm		[166]
	A Wet Night		[167]
	Before Life and After		[168]
	New Year’s Eve		[169]
	God’s Education		[171]
	To Sincerity		[172]
	Panthera		[173]
	The Unborn		[184]
	The Man He Killed		[186]
	Geographical Knowledge		[187]
	One Ralph Blossom Soliloquizes		[189]
	The Noble Lady’s Tale		[191]
	Unrealized		[201]
	Wagtail and Baby		[203]
	Aberdeen: 1905		[204]
	George Meredith, 1828–1909		[205]
	Yell’ham-wood’s Story		[207]
	A Young Man’s Epigram on Existence		[208]

TIME’S LAUGHINGSTOCKS

THE REVISITATION

As I lay awake at night-time
In an ancient country barrack known to ancient cannoneers,
And recalled the hopes that heralded each seeming brave and bright time
Of my primal purple years,

Much it haunted me that, nigh there,
I had borne my bitterest loss—when One who went, came not again;
In a joyless hour of discord, in a joyless-hued July there—
A July just such as then.

And as thus I brooded longer,
With my faint eyes on the feeble square of wan-lit window frame,
A quick conviction sprung within me, grew, and grew yet stronger,
That the month-night was the same,

CONTENTS

TIME’S LAUGHINGSTOCKS

THE REVISITATION