Poem by Thomas Hardy

* * *

(Fickle Lover’s Song)

I said and sang her excellence:
They called it laud undue.
(Have your way, my heart, O!)
Yet what was homage far above
The plain deserts of my olden Love
Proved verity of my new.

‘She moves a sylph in picture-land,
Where nothing frosts the air:’
(Have your way, my heart, O!)
‘To all winged pipers overhead
She is known by shape and song,’ I said,
Conscious of licence there.

I sang of her in a dim old hall
Dream-built too fancifully,
(Have your way, my heart, O!)
But lo, the ripe months chanced to lead
My feet to such a hall indeed,
Where stood the very She.

Strange, startling, was it then to learn
I had glanced down unborn time,
(Have your way, my heart, O!)
And prophesied, whereby I knew
That which the years had planned to do
In warranty of my rhyme.

By Rushy-Pond

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

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