The Ruined Maid
‘O ’Melia, my dear, this does everything crown! Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town? And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?’ – ‘O didn’t you know I’d been ruined?’ said she. – ‘You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks, Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks; * And now you’ve gay bracelets and bright feathers three!’ – ‘Yes: that’s how we dress when we’re ruined,’ said she. – ‘At home in the barton you said “thee” and “thou”, And “thik oon”, and “theäs oon”, and “t’other”; but now Your talking quite fits ’ee for high compa-ny!’ – ‘Some polish is gained with one’s ruin,’ said she. – ‘Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak But now I’m bewitched by your delicate cheek, And your little gloves fit as on any la-dy!’ – ‘We never do work when we’re ruined,’ said she. – ‘You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream, And you’d sigh, and you’d sock; but at present you seem To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!’ – ‘True. One’s pretty lively when ruined,’ said she. – ‘I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown, And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!’ – ‘My dear – a raw country girl, such as you be, Cannot quite expect that. You ain’t ruined,’ said she. Westbourne Park Villas, 1866 * digging up docks (weeds) with a narrow spade called a spud Hardy wrote this poem in 1866, very early in his writing career. It shows that, even as a young man, he was ahead of his time in his views on women, as he was later to prove himself in his views on war. Whereas Victorian society generally had one rule of acceptable behaviour for women and quite another for men, in this poem Hardy forces his reader to reconsider conventional values. It is true that novelists like Dickens and Elizabeth Gaskell had already revealed the hypocrisy of a society that allowed its men a sexual freedom it condemned in women. Hardy was later to write Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891) which he subtitled A Pure Woman, thus...