Very verses for Tess’s virtue

In esteem for Tess of the D’urbervilles, a pure woman faithfully presented by Thomas Hardy.

The flickering flame entombed to sky

along with ancestry fallen and forgotten

But claim for kinship overbrimmed- like enough 

the durberfields sought a degree of enlightenment

Ergo, set out the gentle damsel

not ware of awaiting venery

Paynim at heart, placed her distant hope

on the luminous motion of phoebus

that she felt at May-dance festive

Here betided an unforseen hysteria

plunging forth to doom her fate

Deflowered, yet not peccant

Was the brimming light absent

unable to witness her despoil?

Or did it remain impervious 

to continue passing by as before?

For she is destined to suffer 

as the pure woman ever

Ne’er did she plain over this unwanted fruit

Named him ‘sorrow’, christened him on her own

mayhap the holy-acres deserve not dispraisal

Verily she is neither a Magdalen nor a mooncalf

The sun swelled again, skimming through a new horizon

her scrupple orisons, when she thought, were retorted 

to form a Lucifer made at nature’s site

Forsooth he was the ‘Angel’, the leman of her life

And again an abrupt kismet did befall

So a great wanion, when she did confess misfortunes bygone

where the veiled sun turned winter days into nights 

not shedding a sole flicker over her despair

For she is destined to suffer 

as the pure woman ever

Wherefore did she become a slave of darbies

Prithee! She did not deserve death for begetting death 

to a fiendish eft that did deserve naught

but death

Therewith the Stonehenge drenched up in racing streaks of waxing sun 

eagerly showered shades of gold unto 

the pure woman hither martyred

for being pure, ever

~f.h.