II - Rain on a Grave

This piece sets the poem Rain on a Grave​ from Hardy's collection Poems of 1912-13 which are a complicated response to the death of his first wife Emma.
The piece was premiered in Adleburgh at the Red House in December 2019

Rain on a Grave - T. Hardy
​Clouds spout upon her
Their waters amain
In ruthless disdain, -
Her who would lately
Had shivered with pain
As at touch of dishonour
If there had lit on her
So coldly, so straightly
Such arrows of rain

[stanza 2 not set]

Would that I lay there
And she were housed here!
Or better, together
Were folded away there
Exposed to one weather
We both, - who would stray there
When sunny the day there,
Or evening was clear
At the prime of the year.

Soon will be growing
Green blades from her mound,
And daisies be showing 
Like stars on the ground,
Till she form part of them - 
Ay - the sweet heart of them,
Loved beyond measure
​All her life's round.