Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
The Dead Man Walking
1They hail me as one living,
2 But don't they know
3That I have died of late years,
4 Untombed although?
5I am but a shape that stands here,
6 A pulseless mould,
7A pale past picture, screening
8 Ashes gone cold.
9Not at a minute's warning,
10 Not in a loud hour,
11For me ceased Time's enchantments
12 In hall and bower.
13There was no tragic transit,
14 No catch of breath,
15When silent seasons inched me
16 On to this death ....
17-- A Troubadour-youth I rambled
18 With Life for lyre,
19The beats of being raging
20 In me like fire.
21But when I practised eyeing
22 The goal of men,
23It iced me, and I perished
24 A little then.
25When passed my friend, my kinsfolk,
26 Through the Last Door,
27And left me standing bleakly,
28 I died yet more;
29And when my Love's heart kindled
30 In hate of me,
31Wherefore I knew not, died I
32 One more degree.
33And if when I died fully
34 I cannot say,
35And changed into the corpse-thing
37Yet is it that, though whiling
38 The time somehow
39In walking, talking, smiling,
40 I live not now.
Notes
25] kinsfolk,: "kinsfolk" in 1909.
36] "to-day,": "to-day;" in 1909.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: Collected Poems of Thomas Hardy (London: Macmillan and Co., 1932): 202-03. PR 4741 F32 Robarts Library.
First publication date:
1909
Publication date note: Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses (London: Macmillan, 1909): 49-50. PR 4750 T5 Robarts Library
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1998.
Recent editing: 2:2002/2/13
Rhyme: abab
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