Literature Network » Thomas Hardy » Moments of Vision » The Change

The Change

   Out of the past there rises a week -
      Who shall read the years O! -
   Out of the past there rises a week
      Enringed with a purple zone.
   Out of the past there rises a week
   When thoughts were strung too thick to speak,
And the magic of its lineaments remains with me alone.
   In that week there was heard a singing -
      Who shall spell the years, the years! -
   In that week there was heard a singing,
      And the white owl wondered why.
   In that week, yea, a voice was ringing,
   And forth from the casement were candles flinging
Radiance that fell on the deodar and lit up the path thereby.
   Could that song have a mocking note? -
      Who shall unroll the years O! -
   Could that song have a mocking note
      To the white owl's sense as it fell?
   Could that song have a mocking note
   As it trilled out warm from the singer's throat,
And who was the mocker and who the mocked when two felt all was well?
   In a tedious trampling crowd yet later -
      Who shall bare the years, the years! -
   In a tedious trampling crowd yet later,
      When silvery singings were dumb;
   In a crowd uncaring what time might fate her,
   Mid murks of night I stood to await her,
And the twanging of iron wheels gave out the signal that she was
come.
   She said with a travel-tired smile -
      Who shall lift the years O! -
   She said with a travel-tired smile,
      Half scared by scene so strange;
   She said, outworn by mile on mile,
   The blurred lamps wanning her face the while,
"O Love, I am here; I am with you!" . . . Ah, that there should have
come a change!
   O the doom by someone spoken -
      Who shall unseal the years, the years! -
   O the doom that gave no token,
      When nothing of bale saw we:
   O the doom by someone spoken,
   O the heart by someone broken,
The heart whose sweet reverberances are all time leaves to me.
Jan.-Feb.  1913.

Literature Network » Thomas Hardy » Moments of Vision » The Change