At the Altar-Rail
‘My bride is not coming, alas!’ says the groom,
And the telegram shakes in his hand. ‘I own
It was hurried! We met at a dancing room
When I went to the Cattle-Show alone,
And then, next night, where the Fountain leaps,
And the Street of the Quarter-Circle sweeps.
‘Ay, she won me to ask her to be my wife-
‘Twas foolish perhaps! - to forsake the ways
Of the flaring town for a farmer’s life.
She agreed. And we fixed it. Now she says:
“It’s sweet of you, dear, to prepare me a nest
But a swift, short, gay life suits me best
What I really am you never have gleaned
I had eaten the apple ere you were weaned.”
(Thomas Hardy)
This poem about a cozening woman seems an apt introduction the the short story by Claire Keegan ‘So Late in the Day’. More anon.
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