The Life of Thomas Hardy
reason, perhaps, one of the most easily comprehensible of his poems.
Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me,
Saying that now you are not as you were
When you had changed from the one who was all to me,
But as at first, when our day was fair.
Saying that now you are not as you were
When you had changed from the one who was all to me,
But as at first, when our day was fair.
Can it he you that I hear? Let me view you, then,
Standing as when I drew near to the town
Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then,
Even to the original air-blue gown!
Standing as when I drew near to the town
Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then,
Even to the original air-blue gown!
Or is it only the breeze, in its listlessness
Travelling across the wet mead to me here,
Yet being ever dissolved to existlessness
Heard no more again far or near?
Travelling across the wet mead to me here,
Yet being ever dissolved to existlessness
Heard no more again far or near?
Thus I; faltering forward,
Leaves around me falling,
Wind oozing thin through the thorn from nor'ward,
And the woman calling.
Leaves around me falling,
Wind oozing thin through the thorn from nor'ward,
And the woman calling.
The effect of the whole series can not be reproduced by the citation of extracts and examples: the poems should be read, preferably at one sitting.
Hardy's special fields of interest,—all his "hobbies"—both artistic and scientific, can be traced as easily through his lyric poems as through his prose writings. If we now look into his poetry for expressions of his philosophical outlook upon human life and its significance in the general scheme of the universe, we shall find a most unexpected richness of material. Even without
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