Charlotte Mew (#poem)

 

Fin de Fête

Sweetheart, for such a day

  One mustn't grudge the score;

Here, then, it's all to pay,

  It's Good-night at the door.

Good-night and good dreams to you,--

  Do you remember the picture-book thieves

Who left two children sleeping in a wood the long night through,

  And how the birds came down covered them with leaves?

So you and I should have slept,--But now,

  Oh, what a lovely head!

With just the shadow of a waving bough

  In the moonlight over your bed.

-Charlotte Mew

Thomas Hardy was a booster of Charlotte Mew's (1869-1928) poetry, and he liked this one so well, he wrote it out in his own handwriting. It was found among his papers after his death, and later given to Charlotte Mew herself. 

A copy of it is reproduced in the anthology Recent Poetry 1923-1933, ed. Alida Monro, and published by The Poetry Bookshop.