The Going
Thomas Hardy

Why did you give no hint that night
That quickly after the morrow's dawn,
And calmly, as if indifferent quite,
You would close your term here, up and be gone
Where I could not follow
With wing of swallow
To gain one glimpse of you ever anon!

Never to bid good-bye
Or lip me the softest call,
Or utter a wish for a word, while I
Saw morning harden upon the wall,
Unmoved, unknowing
That your great going
Had place that moment, and altered all.

Why do you make me leave the house
And think for a breath it is you I see
At the end of the alley of bending boughs
Where so often at dusk you used to be;
Till in darkening dankness
The yawning blankness
Of the perspective sickens me!

You were she who abode
By those red-veined rocks far West,
You were the swan-necked one who rode
Along the beetling Beeny Crest,
And, reining nigh me,
Would muse and eye me,
While Life unrolled us its very best.

Why, then, latterly did we not speak,
Did we not think of those days long dead,
And ere your vanishing strive to seek
That time's renewal? We might have said,
"In this bright spring weather
We'll visit together
Those places that once we visited."

Well, well! All's past amend,
Unchangeable. It must go.
I seem but a dead man held on end
To sink down soon. . . . O you could not know
That such swift fleeing
No soul foreseeing--
Not even I--would undo me so!           

To........
Thomas Moore

'Tis time, I feel, to leave thee now,
While yet my soul is something free;
While yet those dangerous eyes allow
One minute's thought to stray from thee.

Oh! thou art every instant dearer-
Every chance that brings me nigh thee
Brings my ruin nearer, nearer,--
I am lost, unless I fly thee!

Nay, if thou dost not scorn and hate me,
Wish me not so soon to fall
Duties, fame, and hopes await me,
Oh! that eye would blast them all!

Yes, yes, it would - for thou'rt cold
As ever yet allured and swayed,
And wouldst, without a sigh, behold
The ruin which thyself had made.

Yet - could I think that, truly fond,
That eye but once would smile on me,
Good Heaven! how much, how far beyond
Fame, duty, hope, that smile would be!

Oh! but to win it, night and day,
Inglorious at thy feet reclined,
I'd sigh my dreams of fame away,
The world for thee forgot, resigned!

But no, no, no - farewell - we part,
Never to meet, no, never, never -
Oh woman, what a mind and heart
Thy coldness has undone forever!

Weathers
Thomas Hardy

This is the weather the cuckoo likes,
And so do I;
When showers betumble the chestnut spikes,
And nestlings fly;
And the little brown nightingale bills his best,
And they sit outside at 'The Traveller's Rest,'
And maids come forth sprig-muslin drest,
And citizens dream of the south and west,
And so do I.

This is the weather the shepherd shuns,
And so do I;
When beeches drip in browns and duns,
And thresh and ply;
And hill-hid tides throb, throe on throe,
And meadow rivulets overflow,
And drops on gate bars hang in a row,
And rooks in families homeward go,
And so do I.           

 

Woolly Thoughts

 

I've had this jumper twenty years... or more,

It was bought, I think, in nineteen ninety four.
Wow!

Last century, when I was young and green.

Impossible that I could have foreseen
The life that I now have, a global star;
A happenstance that's taken me so far.

 

Yet, the only thought that makes me starry-eyed,

Is, I'm loved by that sweet Woman by my side.

Some things, like people, we can't bear to part with,

But all that counts is, who you share your heart with.

The Dream

John Donne

 

   Dear love, for nothing less than thee

Would I have broke this happy dream;

            It was a theme

For reason, much too strong for fantasy,

Therefore thou wak'd'st me wisely; yet

My dream thou brok'st not, but continued'st it.

Thou art so true that thoughts of thee suffice

To make dreams truths, and fables histories;

Enter these arms, for since thou thought'st it best,

Not to dream all my dream, let's act the rest.

   As lightning, or a taper's light,

Thine eyes, and not thy noise wak'd me;

            Yet I thought thee

(For thou lovest truth) an angel, at first sight;

But when I saw thou sawest my heart,

And knew'st my thoughts, beyond an angel's art,

When thou knew'st what I dreamt, when thou knew'st when

Excess of joy would wake me, and cam'st then,

I must confess, it could not choose but be

Profane, to think thee any thing but thee.

   Coming and staying show'd thee, thee,

But rising makes me doubt, that now

            Thou art not thou.

That love is weak where fear's as strong as he;

'Tis not all spirit, pure and brave,

If mixture it of fear, shame, honour have;

Perchance as torches, which must ready be,

Men light and put out, so thou deal'st with me;

Thou cam'st to kindle, goest to come; then I

Will dream that hope again, but else would die.

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At Night
Sara Teasdale

Love said, "Wake still and think of me,"
Sleep, "Close your eyes till break of day,"
But Dreams came by and smilingly
Gave both to Love and Sleep their way.       

Royal Navy Air Station
Roy Fuller

The piano, hollow and sentimental, plays
And outside, falling in a moonlit haze,
The rain is endless as the empty days.

Here in the mess, on beds, on benches, fall
The blue serge limbs in shapes fantastical:
The photographs of girls are on the wall.

And the songs of the minute walk into our ears;
Behind the easy words are difficult tears:
The pain which stabs is dragged out over years.

A ghost has made uneasy every bed.
You are not you without me and The dead
Only are pleased to be alone it said.

And hearing it silently the living cry
To be again themselves, or sleeping try
To dream it is impossible to die.

The Bay
Roy Fuller

The semi-circular and lunar bay
Where the grey stone fall to untidily
The grey volcanic waves: no man, no tree,
Break the cold greenness of the bitten lea-
The scene the orator of memory
Already knew: forbore till now to say.

But on the hill the gun’s black twig, the moan
Of the convoy home from seas instinct with steel,
The hidden spies. The bomber’s slanting keel
As slowly it takes the wind-all the remain
Unwished, undreamed, unknown. They are the days,
The escaping seconds, terrible and real,
Through which I live; which memory will seal
To keep and smear for ever future bays.