| Thomas Hardy (1840–1928). Wessex Poems and Other Verses. 1898. |
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| 2. Amabel |
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| I MARKED her ruined hues, | |
| Her custom-straitened views, | |
| And asked, “Can there indwell | |
| My Amabel?” | |
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| I looked upon her gown, | 5 |
| Once rose, now earthen brown; | |
| The change was like the knell | |
| Of Amabel. | |
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| Her step’s mechanic ways | |
| Had lost the life of May’s; | 10 |
| Her laugh, once sweet in swell, | |
| Spoilt Amabel. | |
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| I mused: “Who sings the strain | |
| I sang ere warmth did wane? | |
| Who thinks its numbers spell | 15 |
| His Amabel?”— | |
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| Knowing that, though Love cease, | |
| Love’s race shows undecrease; | |
| All find in dorp or dell | |
| An Amabel. | 20 |
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| —I felt that I could creep | |
| To some housetop, and weep, | |
| That Time the tyrant fell | |
| Ruled Amabel! | |
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| I said (the while I sighed | 25 |
| That love like ours had died), | |
| “Fond things I’ll no more tell | |
| To Amabel, | |
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| “But leave her to her fate, | |
| And fling across the gate, | 30 |
| ‘Till the Last Trump, farewell, | |
O Amabel!’”
1865. | |
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