Poem by Thomas Hardy

He Inadvertently Cures His Love-Pains

             Song

I said: ‘O let me sing the praise
Of her who sweetly racks my days, –
Her I adore;
Her lips, her eyes, her moods, her ways!’

In miseries of pulse and pang
I strung my harp, and straightway sang
As none before: –
To wondrous words my quavers rang!

Thus I let heartaches lilt my verse,
Which suaged and soothed, and made disperse
The smarts I bore
To stagnance like a sepulchre’s.

But, eased, the days that thrilled ere then
Lost value; and I ask, O when,
And how, restore
Those old sweet agonies again!

1. To Carrey Clavel
2. O I Won’t Lead a Homely Life
3. When Dead
4. The Fight on Durnover Moor
5. The Aërolite

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