Wessex Poems by Thomas Hardy - 28/48. Her Immortality (read by Libby Gohn)

Upon a noon I pilgrim'd through a pasture, Mile by mile, and to the place where last I saw My dead love's living smile. And sorrowing, I lay me down Upon the heated sod. It seemed as if my body pressed The very ground she trod. I lay me down, and I lay me down, And I lay me down, and I lay me down, It seemed as if my body pressed The very ground she trod. I lay, and thought, and in a trance She came and stood me by, The same even to the marvellous ray That used to light her eye. You draw me, and I come to you, My faithful one, she said, In voice that had the moving tone It bore ere breath had fled. She says, "'Tis seven years since I died, Few now remember me, My husband clasps another bride, My children's love has she. My brethren, sisters, and my friends, Care not to meet my sprite, Who prize me most I did not know Till I passed down from sight. I said, my days are lonely here, I need thy smile all way, I'll use this night my ball or blade, And join thee e'er the day.' A tremor stirred her tender lips, Which parted to dissuade. "'That cannot be, O friend,' she cried, Think, I am but a shade, A shade but in its mindful ones has immortality, By living you keep me alive, By dying you slay me. In you resides my single power, Of sweet continuance here, On your fidelity I count Through many a cunning year.' I started through me at her plight, So suddenly confessed, This missing late distaste for life, I craved its bleak unrest. I will not die, my one of all, To lengthen out thy days, I'll guard me from minutest harms That may invest my ways.' She smiled and went. Since then she comes oft When her birth-moon climbs, Or at the season's ingresses, Or anniversary times. But grows my grief, When I surcease, Through whom alone lives she, Ceases my love, her words, her ways, Never again to be.