The Poetry Corner

She Did Not Turn

By Thomas Hardy

She did not turn, But passed foot-faint with averted head In her gown of green, by the bobbing fern, Though I leaned over the gate that led From where we waited with table spread; But she did not turn: Why was she near there if love had fled? She did not turn, Though the gate was whence I had often sped In the mists of morning to meet her, and learn Her heart, when its moving moods I read As a book she mine, as she sometimes said; But she did not turn, And passed foot-faint with averted head.