Thomas Hardy

When I set out for Lyonnesse, A hundred miles away, The rime was on the spray, And starlight lit my lonesomeness When I set out for Lyonnesse A hundred miles away
What would bechance at Lyonnesse While I should sojourn there No prophet durst ...

'It is a foolish thing,' said I,'To bear with such, and pass it by;
Yet so I do,
I know not why
'And at each clash I would

I leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was spectre-gray, And Winter's dregs made desolate The weakening eye of day
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky Like strings of broken lyres, And all mankind that haunted nigh Had sought their househol...

I
OK into my glass, And view my wasting skin, And say, "Would God it came to pass My heart had shrunk as thin
" For then,
I, undistrest By hearts grown cold to me, Could lonely wait my endless rest With equanimity...

By Rome's dim relics there walks a man,
Eyes bent; and he carries a basket and spade;
I guess what impels him to scrape and scan;
Yea, his dreams of that Empire long decayed

In our heart of hearts
Victory crown the just,
And that braggarts
Surely bite the dust,

EY bear him to his resting-place— In slow procession sweeping by; I follow at a stranger's space; His kindred they, his sweetheart I
Unchanged my gown of garish dye, Though sable-sad is their attire; But they stand round with griefless eye, W...