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Shilpa KarhikThe Dead Man Walking - Thomas Hardy
May 23rd 2006 06:12
Thomas Hardy was an English poet and author, who, unlike the public in general, preferred his poetry to his novels and stories, and published nine collections over a period of 27 years. His novels and poetry are marked by a sense of fatalism and usually lean towards darker themes, though some are more upbeat. He felt a strong attachment to the church and Christianity, but did not believe in God, and his bleak outlook on things is often ascribed to this inner conflict.
THE DEAD MAN WALKING
by Thomas Hardy
They hail me as one living,
But don’t they know
That I have died of late years,
Untombed although?
I am but a shape that stands here,
A pulseless mould,
A pale past picture, screening
Ashes gone cold.
Not at a minute’s warning,
Not in a loud hour,
For me ceased Time’s enchantments
In hall and bower.
There was no tragic transit,
No catch of breath,
When silent seasons inched me
On to this death....
--A Troubadour-youth I rambled
With Life for lyre,
The beats of being raging
In me like fire.
But when I practiced eyeing
The goal of men,
It iced me, and I perished
A little then.
When passed my friend, my kinsfolk,
Through the Last Door,
And left me standing bleakly,
I died yet more;
And when my Love’s heart kindled
In hate of me,
Wherefore I knew not, died I
One more degree.
And if when I died fully
I cannot say,
And changed into the corpse-thing
I am today,
Yet is it that, though whiling
The time somehow
In walking, talking, smiling,
I live not now.
THE DEAD MAN WALKING
by Thomas Hardy
They hail me as one living,
But don’t they know
That I have died of late years,
Untombed although?
I am but a shape that stands here,
A pulseless mould,
A pale past picture, screening
Ashes gone cold.
Not at a minute’s warning,
Not in a loud hour,
For me ceased Time’s enchantments
In hall and bower.
There was no tragic transit,
No catch of breath,
When silent seasons inched me
On to this death....
--A Troubadour-youth I rambled
With Life for lyre,
The beats of being raging
In me like fire.
But when I practiced eyeing
The goal of men,
It iced me, and I perished
A little then.
When passed my friend, my kinsfolk,
Through the Last Door,
And left me standing bleakly,
I died yet more;
And when my Love’s heart kindled
In hate of me,
Wherefore I knew not, died I
One more degree.
And if when I died fully
I cannot say,
And changed into the corpse-thing
I am today,
Yet is it that, though whiling
The time somehow
In walking, talking, smiling,
I live not now.
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