Thomas Hardy

Exeunt Omnes

I

Everybody else, then, going,
And I still left where the fair was?…
Much have I seen of neighbour loungers
Making a lusty showing,
Each now past all knowing.


II

There is an air of blankness
In the street and the littered spaces;
Thoroughfare, steeple, bridge and highway
Wizen themselves to lankness;
Kennels dribble dankness.


III

Folk all fade. And whither,
As I wait alone where the fair was?
Into the clammy and numbing night-fog
Whence they entered hither.
Soon one more goes thither!