Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with Miscellaneous Pieces

Transcribed from the 1919 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
BY THOMAS HARDY
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON 1919
COPYRIGHT
First Edition 1914 Reprinted 1915, 1919 Pocket Edition 1919
Plunging and labouring on in a tide of visions, Dolorous and dear, Forward I pushed my way as amid waste waters Stretching around, Through whose eddies there glimmered the customed landscape Yonder and near,
Blotted to feeble mist. And the coomb and the upland Foliage-crowned, Ancient chalk-pit, milestone, rills in the grass-flat Stroked by the light, Seemed but a ghost-like gauze, and no substantial Meadow or mound.
What were the infinite spectacles bulking foremost Under my sight, Hindering me to discern my paced advancement Lengthening to miles; What were the re-creations killing the daytime As by the night?
O they were speechful faces, gazing insistent, Some as with smiles, Some as with slow-born tears that brinily trundled Over the wrecked Cheeks that were fair in their flush-time, ash now with anguish, Harrowed by wiles.
Yes, I could see them, feel them, hear them, address them— Halo-bedecked— And, alas, onwards, shaken by fierce unreason, Rigid in hate, Smitten by years-long wryness born of misprision, Dreaded, suspect.
Then there would breast me shining sights, sweet seasons Further in date; Instruments of strings with the tenderest passion Vibrant, beside Lamps long extinguished, robes, cheeks, eyes with the earth’s crust Now corporate.
Also there rose a headland of hoary aspect Gnawed by the tide, Frilled by the nimb of the morning as two friends stood there Guilelessly glad— Wherefore they knew not—touched by the fringe of an ecstasy Scantly descried.