Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with Miscellaneous Pieces. Thomas Hardy

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      Sinking down by the gate I discern the thin moon,

      And a blackbird tries over old airs in the pine,

      But the moon is a sorry one, sad the bird’s tune,

      For this spot is unknown to that Heartmate of mine.

      Did my Heartmate but haunt here at times such as now,

      The song would be joyous and cheerful the moon;

      But she will see never this gate, path, or bough,

      Nor I find a joy in the scene or the tune.

      Once more the cauldron of the sun

      Smears the bookcase with winy red,

      And here my page is, and there my bed,

      And the apple-tree shadows travel along.

      Soon their intangible track will be run,

         And dusk grow strong

         And they be fled.

      Yes: now the boiling ball is gone,

      And I have wasted another day.

      But wasted —wasted, do I say?

      Is it a waste to have imaged one

      Beyond the hills there, who, anon,

         My great deeds done

         Will be mine alway?

      When I set out for Lyonnesse,

         A hundred miles away,

         The rime was on the spray,

      And starlight lit my lonesomeness

      When I set out for Lyonnesse

         A hundred miles away.

      What would bechance at Lyonnesse

         While I should sojourn there

         No prophet durst declare,

      Nor did the wisest wizard guess

      What would bechance at Lyonnesse

         While I should sojourn there.

      When I came back from Lyonnesse

         With magic in my eyes,

         None managed to surmise

      What meant my godlike gloriousness,

      When I came back from Lyonnesse

         With magic in my eyes.

      She wore a new “terra-cotta” dress,

      And we stayed, because of the pelting storm,

      Within the hansom’s dry recess,

      Though the horse had stopped; yea, motionless

         We sat on, snug and warm.

      Then the downpour ceased, to my sharp sad pain,

      And the glass that had screened our forms before

      Flew up, and out she sprang to her door:

      I should have kissed her if the rain

         Had lasted a minute more.

      I tore your letter into strips

         No bigger than the airy feathers

         That ducks preen out in changing weathers

      Upon the shifting ripple-tips.

      In darkness on my bed alone

         I seemed to see you in a vision,

         And hear you say: “Why this derision

      Of one drawn to you, though unknown?”

      Yes, eve’s quick mood had run its course,

         The night had cooled my hasty madness;

         I suffered a regretful sadness

      Which deepened into real remorse.

      I thought what pensive patient days

         A soul must know of grain so tender,

         How much of good must grace the sender

      Of such sweet words in such bright phrase.

      Uprising then, as things unpriced

         I sought each fragment, patched and mended;

         The midnight whitened ere I had ended

      And gathered words I had sacrificed.

      But some, alas, of those I threw

         Were past my search, destroyed for ever:

         They were your name and place; and never

      Did I regain those clues to you.

      I learnt I had missed, by rash unheed,

         My track; that, so the Will decided,

         In life, death, we should be divided,

      And at the sense I ached indeed.

      That ache for you, born long ago,

         Throbs on; I never could outgrow it.

         What a revenge, did you but know it!

      But that, thank God, you do not know.

      While rain, with eve in partnership,

      Descended darkly, drip, drip, drip,

      Beyond the last lone lamp I passed

         Walking slowly, whispering sadly,

         Two linked loiterers, wan, downcast:

      Some heavy thought constrained each face,

      And blinded them to time and place.

      The pair seemed lovers, yet absorbed

      In mental scenes no longer orbed

      By love’s young rays.  Each countenance

         As it slowly, as it sadly

         Caught the lamplight’s yellow glance

      Held in suspense a misery

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