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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


THE TWO WIVES (SMOKER'S CLUB STORY) by THOMAS HARDY

Poet Analysis

First Line: I WAITED AT HOME ALL THE WHILE THEY WERE BOATING TOGETHER
Last Line: "AND IT'S JUST THE SAME THING, DON'T YOU SEE."
Subject(s): LOVE - NATURE OF;

I WAITED at home all the while they were boating together --
My wife and my near neighbour's wife:
Till there entered a woman I loved more than life,
And we sat and sat on, and beheld the uprising dark weather,
With a sense that some mischief was rife.

Tidings came that the boat had capsized, and that one of the ladies
Was drowned -- which of them was unknown:
And I marvelled -- my friend's wife? -- or was it my own
Who had gone in such wise to the land where the sun as the shade is?
-- We learnt it was @3his@1 had so gone.

Then I cried in unrest: "He is free! But no good is releasing
To him as it would be to me!"
"-- But it is," said the woman I loved, quietly.
"How?" I asked her. "-- Because he has long loved me too without ceasing,
And it's just the same thing, don't you see."



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