Poem by Thomas Hardy

The Wind’s Prophecy

I travel on by barren farms,
And gulls glint out like silver flecks
Against a cloud that speaks of wrecks,
And bellies down with black alarms.
I say: ‘Thus from my lady’s arms
I go; those arms I love the best!’
The wind replies from dip and rise,
‘Nay; toward her arms thou journeyest.’

A distant verge morosely gray
Appears, while clots of flying foam
Break from its muddy monochrome,
And a light blinks up far away.
I sigh: ‘My eyes now as all day
Behold her ebon loops of hair!’
Like bursting bonds the wind responds,
‘Nay, wait for tresses flashing fair!’

From tides the lofty coastlands screen
Come smitings like the slam of doors,
Or hammerings on hollow floors,
As the swell cleaves through caves unseen.
Say I: ‘Though broad this wild terrene,
Her city home is matched of none!’
From the hoarse skies the wind replies:
‘Thou shouldst have said her sea-bord one.’

The all-prevailing clouds exclude
The one quick timorous transient star;
The waves outside where breakers are
Huzza like a mad multitude.
‘Where the sun ups it, mist-imbued,’
I cry, ‘there reigns the star for me!’
The wind outshrieks from points and peaks:
‘Here, westward, where it downs, mean ye!’

Yonder the headland, vulturine,
Snores like old Skrymer in his sleep,
And every chasm and every steep
Blackens as wakes each pharos-shine.
‘I roam, but one is safely mine,’
I say. ‘God grant she stay my own!’
Low laughs the wind as if it grinned:
‘Thy Love is one thou’st not yet known.’

Rewritten from an old copy

1. The Supplanter
2. Afternoon Service at Mellstock
3. At the Word ‘Farewell’
4. Tragedian to Tragedienne
5. The Three Tall Men

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