Thomas Hardy

A Poet’s Thought

It sprang up out of him in the dark,
And took on the lightness of a lark:
It went from his chamber along the city strand,
Lingered awhile, then leapt all over the land.

It came back maimed and mangled. And the poet
When he beheld his offspring did not know it:
Yea, verily, since its birth Time’s tongue had tossed to him
Such travesties that his old thought was lost to him.