Poem by Thomas Hardy

He Inadvertently Cures His Love-Pains

             Song

I said: ‘O let me sing the praise
Of her who sweetly racks my days, –
Her I adore;
Her lips, her eyes, her moods, her ways!’

In miseries of pulse and pang
I strung my harp, and straightway sang
As none before: –
To wondrous words my quavers rang!

Thus I let heartaches lilt my verse,
Which suaged and soothed, and made disperse
The smarts I bore
To stagnance like a sepulchre’s.

But, eased, the days that thrilled ere then
Lost value; and I ask, O when,
And how, restore
Those old sweet agonies again!

1. The End of the Episode
2. The Month’s Calendar
3. The Strange House
4. The Pair He Saw Pass
5. Song to Aurore

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