Poem by Thomas Hardy

The Blow

That no man schemed it is my hope –
Yea, that it fell by will and scope
Of That Which some enthrone,
And for whose meaning myriads grope.

For I would not that of my kind
There should, of his unbiassed mind,
Have been one known
Who such a stroke could have designed;

Since it would augur works and ways
Below the lowest that man assays
To have hurled that stone
Into the sunshine of our days!

And if it prove that no man did,
And that the Inscrutable, the Hid,
Was cause alone
Of this foul crash our lives amid,

I’ll go in due time, and forget
In some deep graveyard’s oubliette
The thing whereof I groan,
And cease from troubling; thankful yet

Time’s finger should have stretched to show
No aimful author’s was the blow
That swept us prone,
But the Immanent Doer’s That doth not know,

Which in some age unguessed of us
May lift Its blinding incubus,
And see, and own:
‘It grieves me I did thus and thus!’

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

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