Thomas Hardy - One Ralph Blossom Soliloquizes lyrics

When I am in hell or some such place, A-groaning over my sorry case, What will those seven women say to me Who, when I coaxed them, answered "Aye" to me? "I did not understand your sign!" Will be the words of Caroline; While Jane will cry, "If I'd had proof of you, I should have learnt to hold aloof of you!" "I won't reproach: it was to be!" Will dryly murmur Cicely; And Rosa: "I feel no hostility, For I must own I lent facility." Lizzy says: "Sharp was my regret, And sometimes it is now! But yet I joy that, though it brought notoriousness, I knew Love once and all its gloriousness!" Says Patience: "Why are we apart? Small harm did you, my poor Sweet Heart! A manchild born, now tall and beautiful, Was worth the ache of days undutiful." And Anne cries: "O the time was fair, So wherefore should you burn down there? There is a deed under the sun, my Love, And that was ours. What's done is done, my Love. These trumpets here in Heaven are dumb to me With you away. Dear, come, O come to me!"