I Sometimes Think

I sometimes think as here I sit
Of things I have done,
Which seemed in doing not unfit
To face the sun:
Yet never a soul has paused a whit
On such not one.

There was that eager strenuous press
To sow good seed;
There was that saving from distress
In the nick of need;
There were those words in the wilderness:
Who cared to heed?

Yet can this be full true, or no?
For one did care,
And, spiriting into my house, to, fro,
Like wind on the stair,
Cares still, heeds all, and will, even though
I may despair.

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) was an English novelist and poet. Born in Dorset, his works often featured the semi-fictional region of Wessex. Hardy was initially trained as an architect, but he later pursued writing full-time. His novels, including 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles,' 'Far from the Madding Crowd,' and 'Jude the Obscure,' are known for their critical portrayal of Victorian society and its mores. As a poet, he is recognized for his explorations of human suffering and the indifferent forces of nature. Hardy's legacy is profound, influencing both literature and criticism.

Thomas Hardy

Imaginings

Thomas Hardy, Simple Poetry

The Pedestrian

Thomas Hardy, Simple Poetry

I Rose And Went To Rou'tor Town

Thomas Hardy, Simple Poetry

I Said And Sang Her Excellence - Fickle Lover's Song

Thomas Hardy, Simple Poetry

English

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For Life I Had Never Cared Greatly

For Life I had never cared greatly,
As worth a man's while;
Peradventures unsought,
Peradventures that finished in nought,
Had kept me from youth and through manhood till lately
Unwon by its style.

In earliest years - why I know not -
I viewed it askance;
Conditions of doubt,
Conditions that leaked slowly out,
May haply have bent me to stand and to show not
Much zest for its dance.

With symphonies soft and sweet colour
It courted me then,
Till evasions seemed wrong,
Till evasions gave in to its song,
And I warmed, until living aloofly loomed duller
Than life among men.

Anew I found nought to set eyes on,
When, lifting its hand,
It uncloaked a star,
Uncloaked it from fog-damps afar,
And showed its beams burning fr...

Thomas Hardy

Nature's Questioning

When I look forth at dawning, pool,
Field, flock, and lonely tree,
All seem to gaze at me
Like chastened children sitting silent in a school;

Their faces dulled, constrained, and worn,
As though the master's ways
Through the long teaching days
Their first terrestrial zest had chilled and overborne.

And on them stirs, in lippings mere
(As if once clear in call,
But now scarce breathed at all) -
"We wonder, ever wonder, why we find us here!

"Has some Vast Imbecility,
Mighty to build and blend,
But impotent to tend,
Framed us in jest, and left us now to hazardry?

"Or come we of an Automaton
Unconscious of our pains? . . .
Or are we live remains
Of Godhead dying downwards, brain and eye now gone?

"Or is it that som...

Thomas Hardy

The Temporary The All

Change and chancefulness in my flowering youthtime,
Set me sun by sun near to one unchosen;
Wrought us fellow-like, and despite divergence,
Friends interlinked us.

"Cherish him can I while the true one forthcome -
Come the rich fulfiller of my prevision;
Life is roomy yet, and the odds unbounded."
So self-communed I.

Thwart my wistful way did a damsel saunter,
Fair, the while unformed to be all-eclipsing;
"Maiden meet," held I, "till arise my forefelt
Wonder of women."

Long a visioned hermitage deep desiring,
Tenements uncouth I was fain to house in;
"Let such lodging be for a breath-while," thought I,
"Soon a more seemly.

"Then, high handiwork will I make my life-deed,
Truth and Light outshow; but the ripe time pending,
Inter...

Thomas Hardy

De Profundis - II

"Considerabam ad dexteram, et videbam; et non erat qui cognosceret me
. . . Non est qui requirat animam meam." - Ps. cxli.

When the clouds' swoln bosoms echo back the shouts of the many and strong
That things are all as they best may be, save a few to be right ere long,
And my eyes have not the vision in them to discern what to these is so clear,
The blot seems straightway in me alone; one better he were not here.

The stout upstanders say, All's well with us: ruers have nought to rue!
And what the potent say so oft, can it fail to be somewhat true?
Breezily go they, breezily come; their dust smokes around their career,
Till I think I am one horn out of due time, who has no calling here.

Their dawns bring lusty joys, it seems; their eves exultance sweet;
Our ti...

Thomas Hardy

An Experience

Wit, weight, or wealth there was not
In anything that was said,
In anything that was done;
All was of scope to cause not
A triumph, dazzle, or dread
To even the subtlest one,
My friend,
To even the subtlest one.

But there was a new afflation -
An aura zephyring round,
That care infected not:
It came as a salutation,
And, in my sweet astound,
I scarcely witted what
Might pend,
I scarcely witted what.

The hills in samewise to me
Spoke, as they grayly gazed,
First hills to speak so yet!
The thin-edged breezes blew me
What I, though cobwebbed, crazed,
Was never to forget,
My friend,
Was never to forget!

Thomas Hardy

Self-Unconscious

    Along the way
    He walked that day,
Watching shapes that reveries limn,
    And seldom he
    Had eyes to see
The moment that encompassed him.

    Bright yellowhammers
    Made mirthful clamours,
And billed long straws with a bustling air,
    And bearing their load
    Flew up the road
That he followed, alone, without interest there.

    From bank to ground
    And over and round
They sidled along the adjoining hedge;
    Sometimes to the gutter
    Their yellow flutter
Would dip from the nearest slatestone ledge.

    The smooth sea-line
    With a metal shine,
And flashes of white, and a sail thereon,
    He would also descry
    With a half-wrapt eye
Between the projects he mused upon.

  ...

Thomas Hardy