Thomas Hardy — At A Seaside Town In 1869

(Young Lover's Reverie) I went and stood outside myself,         Spelled the dark sky         And ship-lights nigh, And grumbling winds that passed thereby. Then next inside myself I looked,          And there, above         All, shone my Love, That nothing matched the image of. Beyond myself again I ranged;         And saw the free          Life by the sea, And folk indifferent to me. O 'twas a charm to draw within          Thereafter, where          But she was; care For one thing only, her hid there! But so it chanced, without myself         I had to look,         And then I took More heed of what I had long forsook: The boats, the sands, the esplanade,         The laughing crowd;         Light-hearted, loud Greetings from some not ill-endowed; The evening sunlit cliffs, the talk,         Hailings and halts,         The keen sea-salts, The band, the Morgenblatter Waltz. Still, when at night I drew inside         Forward she came,         Sad, but the same As when I first had known her name. Then rose a time when, as by force,          Outwardly wooed          By contacts crude, Her image in abeyance stood . . . At last I said: This outside life         Shall not endure;         I'll seek the pure Thought-world, and bask in her allure. Myself again I crept within,         Scanned with keen care         The temple where She'd shone, but could not find her there. I sought and sought. But O her soul         Has not since thrown         Upon my own One beam! Yea, she is gone, is gone. From an old note.