A Leader of Fashion

by Thomas Hardy (1925) — a poem card from Justes Mots

A stark catalog of intimate life experiences—watching dawn, hearing nature's sounds, tending to household tasks, caring for the dying—that a woman of high fashion never knew, implying she lived a hollow existence divorced from human reality and suffering. Hardy condemns privilege that isolates from authentic experience and the deeper connections born of hardship. This challenging poem serves those meditating on mortality, unfulfilled lives, and the cost of luxury.

NEVER has she known
The way a robin will skip and
come,
With an eye half bold, half timorsome,
To the table’s edge for a breakfast crumb :

Nor has she seen
A streak of roseate gently drawn…

Themes: sympathy · grief · reflection