Jonathan Spencer's Tales of Ordinary Wisdom

Thomas Hardy

someone sent me this, poem by Hardy and I liked it….

At Castle Boterel

As I drive to the junction of lane and highway,
and the drizzle bedrenches the waggonette,
I look behind at the fading byway,
and see on its slope, now glistening wet,
Distincly yet

Myself and a girlish form benighted
In dry March weather.We climb the road
Beside a chaise.We had just alighted
To ease the sturdy ponys load
When he sighed and slowed.

What we did as we climbed,and what we talked of
Matters not much,nor to what it led,-
Something that life will not be balked of
Without rude reason till hope is dead
and feeling fled.

It filled but a minute.But was there ever
A time in that hills story? To one mind never,
Though it has been climbed,foot-swift,foot-sore,
By thousands more.

Primaeval rocks from the roads steep border,
And much they have faced there,first and last,
Of the trasitory in earths long order;
But what they record in colour and cast
Is-that we two passed.

And to me,Times unflintching rigour,
In mindless rote, has ruled from sight
The substance now,one phantom figure
Remains on the slope,as when that night
Saw us alight.

I look and see it there, shrinking,shrinking,
I look back at it amid the rain
For the very last time;for my sand is sinking,
And I shall traverse old loves domain
Never again.

March 1913

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