I look into my glass

I disdained the poems of Thomas Hardy as a teenager - probably much influenced by my fierce dislike of The Trumpet Major which was a set book one term.

I cannot believe how much I missed out on, though put against that is the even more intenese pleasure I get from discovering him in my old age.

Although I can't help but ponder the ambiguity in this one: is the glass into which he looks the reflecting kind, or the kind from which he has imbibed too frequently.

Could be both, I guess.


I LOOK into my glass,
And view my wasting skin,
And say, “Would God it came to pass
My heart had shrunk as thin!”

For then, I, undistrest
By hearts grown cold to me,
Could lonely wait my endless rest
With equanimity.

But Time, to make me grieve,
Part steals, lets part abide;
And shakes this fragile frame at eve
With throbbings of noontide.

Thomas Hardy