Thomas Hardy

A Thought in Two Moods

I saw it – pink and white – revealed
Upon the white and green;
The white and green was a daisied field,
The pink and white Ethleen.

And as I looked it seemed in kind
That difference they had none;
The two fair bodiments combined
As varied miens of one.

A sense that, in some mouldering year,
As one they both would lie,
Made me move quickly on to her
To pass the pale thought by.

She laughed and said: ‘Out there, to me,
You looked so weather-browned,
And brown in clothes, you seemed to be
Made of the dusty ground!’