'A woman never agreed to it!' said my knowing friend to me. <br />'That one thing she'd refuse to do for Solomon's mines in fee: <br />No woman ever will make herself look older than she is.' <br />I did not answer; but I thought, 'You err there, ancient Quiz.' <br /> <br /> <br />It took a rare one, true, to do it; for she was surely rare - <br />As rare a soul at that sweet time of her life as she was fair. <br />And urging motives, too, were strong, for ours was a passionate case, <br />Yea, passionate enough to lead to freaking with that young face. <br /> <br /> <br />I have told no one about it, should perhaps make few believe, <br />But I think it over now that life looms dull and years bereave, <br />How blank we stood at our bright wits' end, two frail barks in distress, <br />How self-regard in her was slain by her large tenderness. <br /> <br /> <br />I said: 'The only chance for us in a crisis of this kind <br />Is going it thorough!' - 'Yes,' she calmly breathed. 'Well, I don't mind.' <br />And we blanched her dark locks ruthlessly: set wrinkles on her brow; <br />Ay - she was a right rare woman then, whatever she may be now. <br /> <br /> <br />That night we heard a coach drive up, and questions asked below. <br />'A gent with an elderly wife, sir,' was returned from the bureau. <br />And the wheels went rattling on, and free at last from public ken <br />We washed all off in her chamber and restored her youth again. <br /> <br /> <br />How many years ago it was! Some fifty can it be <br />Since that adventure held us, and she played old wife to me? <br />But in time convention won her, as it wins all women at last, <br />And now she is rich and respectable, and time has buried the past.<br /><br />Thomas Hardy<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-elopement/
