Thomas Hardy

The Change

Out of the past there rises a week –
Who shall read the years O! –
Out of the past there rises a week
Enringed with a purple zone.
Out of the past there rises a week
When thoughts were strung too thick to speak,
And the magic of its lineaments remains with me alone.

In that week there was heard a singing –
Who shall spell the years, the years! –
In that week there was heard a singing,
And the white owl wondered why.
In that week, yea, a voice was ringing,
And forth from the casement were candles flinging
Radiance that fell on the deodar and lit up the path thereby.

Could that song have a mocking note? –
Who shall unroll the years O! –
Could that song have a mocking note
To the white owl’s sense as it fell?
Could that song have a mocking note
As it trilled out warm from the singer’s throat,
And who was the mocker and who the mocked when two felt all was well?

In a tedious trampling crowd yet later –
Who shall bare the years, the years! –
In a tedious trampling crowd yet later,
When silvery singings were dumb;
In a crowd uncaring what time might fate her,
Mid murks of night I stood to await her,
And the twanging of iron wheels gave out the signal that she was come.

She said with a travel-tired smile –
Who shall lift the years O! –
She said with a travel-tired smile,
Half scared by scene so strange;
She said, outworn by mile on mile,
The blurred lamps wanning her face the while,
‘O Love, I am here; I am with you!’... Ah, that there should have come a change!

O the doom by someone spoken –
Who shall unseal the years, the years! –
O the doom that gave no token,
When nothing of bale saw we:
O the doom by someone spoken,
O the heart by someone broken,
The heart whose sweet reverberances are all time leaves to me.