Thomas Hardy (1840 – 1928)
English novelist, short story writer and poet.
These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown
Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.
Aggressive Fancy working spells
Upon a mind o’erwrought.
She had no fear of the shadows; her sole idea seemed to be to shun mankind — or rather that cold accretion called the world, which, so terrible in the mass, is so unformidable, even pitiable, in its units.
A star looks down at me,
And says: "Here I and you
Stand each in our degree:
What do you mean to do,—
Mean to do?"
The heath and changes of weather were quite blotted out from their eyes for the present. They were enclosed in a sort of luminous mist, which hid from them surroundings of any inharmonious colour, and gave to all things the character of light. When it rained they were charmed, because they could remain indoors together all day with such a show of reason; when it was fine they were charmed, because they could sit together on the hills. They were like those double stars which revolve round and round each other, and from a distance appear to be one.
What of the Immanent Will and Its designs?
It works unconsciously, as heretofore,
Eternal artistries in Circumstance.
This is the weather the shepherd shuns,
And so do I.
In fact, precisely at this transitional point of its nightly roll into darkness the great and particular glory of the Egdon waste began, and nobody could be said to understand the heath who had not been there at such a time. It could best be felt when it could not clearly be seen, its complete effect and explanation lying in this and the succeeding hours before the next dawn; then, and only then, did it tell its true tale.
Of course poets have morals and manners of their own, and custom is no argument with them.
A local cult, called Christianity.
Above the plain rose the hill, above the hill rose the barrow, and above the barrow rose the figure. Above the figure was nothing that could be mapped elsewhere than on a celestial globe.
Overhead the hollow stretch of whitish cloud shutting out the sky was as a tent which had the whole heath for its floor.
There's reason for ghastliness. Eustacia, you have held my happiness in the hollow of your hand, and like a devil you have dashed it down!
William Dewy, Tranter Reuben, Farmer Ledlow late at plough,
Robert's kin, and John's, and Ned's,
And the Squire, and Lady Susan, lie in Mellstock churchyard now!
And as the smart ship grew
In stature, grace, and hue,
In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.
All that blooth means heavy autumn work for him and his hands.
Why doth IT so and so, and ever so,
This viewless, voiceless Turner of the Wheel?
'Twas a little one-eyed, blinking sort o' place.
And all her shining keys will be took from her, and her cupboards opened; and little things a' didn't wish seen, anybody will see; and her wishes and ways will all be as nothing!
It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.