Literature Network » Thomas Hardy » Late Lyrics and Earlier » The Rift

The Rift

(SONG: Minor Mode)

'Twas just at gnat and cobweb-time,
When yellow begins to show in the leaf,
That your old gamut changed its chime
From those true tones--of span so brief! -
That met my beats of joy, of grief,
As rhyme meets rhyme.

So sank I from my high sublime!
We faced but chancewise after that,
And never I knew or guessed my crime. . .
Yes; 'twas the date--or nigh thereat -
Of the yellowing leaf; at moth and gnat
And cobweb-time.

Literature Network » Thomas Hardy » Late Lyrics and Earlier » The Rift