"The quay recedes. Hurrah! Ahead we go! . . . <br />It's true I've been accustomed now to home, <br />And joints get rusty, and one's limbs may grow <br /> More fit to rest than roam. <br /> <br />"But I can stand as yet fair stress and strain; <br />There's not a little steel beneath the rust; <br />My years mount somewhat, but here's to't again! <br /> And if I fall, I must. <br /> <br />"God knows that for myself I've scanty care; <br />Past scrimmages have proved as much to all; <br />In Eastern lands and South I've had my share <br /> Both of the blade and ball. <br /> <br />"And where those villains ripped me in the flitch <br />With their old iron in my early time, <br />I'm apt at change of wind to feel a twitch, <br /> Or at a change of clime. <br /> <br />"And what my mirror shows me in the morning <br />Has more of blotch and wrinkle than of bloom; <br />My eyes, too, heretofore all glasses scorning, <br /> Have just a touch of rheum . . . <br /> <br />"Now sounds 'The Girl I've left behind me,'--Ah, <br />The years, the ardours, wakened by that tune! <br />Time was when, with the crowd's farewell 'Hurrah!' <br /> 'Twould lift me to the moon. <br /> <br />"But now it's late to leave behind me one <br />Who if, poor soul, her man goes underground, <br />Will not recover as she might have done <br /> In days when hopes abound. <br /> <br />"She's waving from the wharfside, palely grieving, <br />As down we draw . . . Her tears make little show, <br />Yet now she suffers more than at my leaving <br /> Some twenty years ago. <br /> <br />"I pray those left at home will care for her! <br />I shall come back; I have before; though when <br />The Girl you leave behind you is a grandmother, <br /> Things may not be as then."<br /><br />Thomas Hardy<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-colonel-s-solilquy/
