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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


THE FLOWER'S TRAGEDY by THOMAS HARDY

Poet Analysis

First Line: IN THE BEDCHAMBER WINDOW, NEAR THE GLASS
Last Line: OF THE FLOWER'S FATE; NOR IT OF HER OWN.

IN the bedchamber window, near the glass,
Stood the little flower in the little vase,
Unnoticed quite
For a whole fortnight,
And withered for lack of watering
To a skeleton mere -- a mummied thing.

But it was not much, mid a world of teen,
That a flower should waste in a nook unseen!

One needed no thought to ascertain
How it happened; that when she went in the rain
To return here not,
She was mindless what
She had left here to perish. -- Ah, well: for an hour
I wished I had not found the flower!

Yet it was not much. And she never had known
Of the flower's fate; nor it of her own.



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