Poem by Thomas Hardy

The Sheep-Boy

A yawning, sunned concave
Of purple, spread as an ocean wave
Entroughed on a morning of swell and sway
After a night when wind-fiends have been heard to rave:
Thus was the Heath called ‘Draäts’, on an August day.

Suddenly there intunes a hum:
This side, that side, it seems to come.
From the purple in myriads rise the bees
With consternation mid their rapt employ.
So headstrongly each speeds him past, and flees,
As to strike the face of the shepherd-boy.
Awhile he waits, and wonders what they mean;
Till none is left upon the shagged demesne.

To learn what ails, the sheep-boy looks around;
Behind him, out of the sea in swirls
Flexuous and solid, clammy vapour-curls
Are rolling over Pokeswell Hills to the inland ground.
Into the heath they sail,
And travel up the vale
Like the moving pillar of cloud raised by the Israelite: –
In a trice the lonely sheep-boy seen so late ago,
Draäts’-Hollow in gorgeous blow,
And Kite-Hill’s regal glow,
Are viewless – folded into those creeping scrolls of white.

On Rainbarrows

1. At the Word ‘Farewell’
2. The Supplanter
3. Afternoon Service at Mellstock
4. The Children and Sir Nameless
5. Tragedian to Tragedienne

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