---

Thomas Hardy - The Colonel`s Soliloquy
Work rating: Low

"The quay recedes.   Hurrah!  Ahead we go! . . .
It`s true I`ve been accustomed now to home,
And joints get rusty, and one`s limbs may grow
   More fit to rest than roam.

"But I can stand as yet fair stress and strain;
There`s not a little steel beneath the rust;
My years mount somewhat, but here`s to`t again!
   And if I fall, I must.

"God knows that for myself I`ve scanty care;
Past scrimmages have proved as much to all;
In Eastern lands and South I`ve had my share
   Both of the blade and ball.

"And where those villains ripped me in the flitch
With their old iron in my early time,
I`m apt at change of wind to feel a twitch,
   Or at a change of clime.

"And what my mirror shows me in the morning
Has more of blotch and wrinkle than of bloom;
My eyes, too, heretofore all glasses scorning,
   Have just a touch of rheum . . .

"Now sounds `The Girl I`ve left behind me,`—Ah,
The years, the ardours, wakened by that tune!
Time was when, with the crowd`s farewell `Hurrah!`
   `Twould lift me to the moon.

"But now it`s late to leave behind me one
Who if, poor soul, her man goes underground,
Will not recover as she might have done
   In days when hopes abound.

"She`s waving from the wharfside, palely grieving,
As down we draw . . . Her tears make little show,
Yet now she suffers more than at my leaving
   Some twenty years ago.

"I pray those left at home will care for her!
I shall come back; I have before; though when
The Girl you leave behind you is a grandmother,
   Things may not be as then."
Source
The script ran 0.002 seconds.