A PIECE of Dorset’s literary heritage has returned to the county after it went up for sale in the USA.

The Departure, a poem by Dorset-born Thomas Hardy, was written in 1899 after the scribe visited Southampton Docks to see the departure of troops heading for the Boer War.

In 2005, the poem was sold at Sotheby’s in London, believed to have been bought by a collector across the Atlantic, and in 2014, it appeared at a dealership in Massachusetts, where it was bought by another collector.

Then, in June this year, it was listed for sale at a Chicago auction.

This time, the Dorset History Centre (DHC) was prepared, and secured funding from the Friends of the National Libraries charity, which enabled them to buy it.

Now, two decades after leaving UK shores, the poem is back in Dorchester, where it will remain as part of the larger Hardy archive currently being catalogued in a project that will open up public access.

The Departure was first published in the Daily Chronicle on October 25, 1899, and later included in his Poems of Past and Present (1902).

DHC holds several other items which relate to this manuscript, including a letter from Hardy to Florence Henniker written in November 1899, in which he questions her response to the poem.

READ MORE: £35,000 will help preserve and reveal Hardy archives in Dorset

“I fancy you thought my sonnet on the departure too tragic? But I was not at Southampton on the Saturday when you were there – I went Friday, and saw of 5000 altogether,” he wrote.

“The grisly events of the Boer War clearly left a lasting impression on Hardy as he watched thousands of troops leaving for foreign shores,” a DHC spokesperson said.

Cllr Ryan Hope, cabinet member for customer, culture and community engagement at Dorset Council, said: “I’m delighted that DHC has been able to bring this notable piece of Dorset literary heritage back to its place of origin.

“The story perhaps underlines how, over time, elements of our literary and other heritage has been sold to overseas institutions and collectors – and how fortunate we are to have been able to bring it back into the large Hardy archive to ensure free ongoing public access.”

The Departure, by Thomas Hardy
(Southampton Docks: 1899)

Here, where Vespasian’s legions struck the sands
And Cedric with his Saxons entered in,
And Henry’s army leapt afloat to win
Convincing triumphs over neighbour lands,
Vaster battalions press for further strands,
To argue in the selfsame bloody mode
Which this late age of thought, and pact, and code,
Still fails to mend. – Now deckward tramp the bands,
Yellow as autumn leaves, alive as spring;
And as each host draws out upon the sea
Beyond which lies the tragical To-be,
None dubious of the cause, none murmuring,
Wives, sisters, parents, wave white hands and smile,
As if they knew not that they weep the while.