Thomas Hardy
The Sunshade
Ah--it's the skeleton of a lady's sunshade,
Here at my feet in the hard rock's chink,
Merely a naked sheaf of wires!--
Twenty years have gone with their livers and diers
Since it was silked in its white or pink.
Noonshine riddles the ribs of the sunshade,
No more a screen from the weakest ray;
Nothing to tell us the hue of its dyes,
Nothing but rusty bones as it lies
In its coffin of stone, unseen till to-day.
Where is the woman who carried that sunshade
Up and down this seaside place?--
Little thumb standing against its stem,
Thoughts perhaps bent on a love-stratagem,
Softening yet ore the already soft face!
Is the fair woman who carried that sunshade
A skeleton just as her property is,
Laid in the chink that none may scan?
And does she regret--if regret dust can--
The vain thing thought when she flourished this?
Thomas Hardy.