Thomas Hardy — Best times

We went a day’s excursion to the stream, Basked by the bank, and bent to the ripple-gleam,        &nbsp       &nbsp And I did not know        &nbsp       &nbsp That life would show, However it might flower, no finer glow. I walked in the Sunday sunshine by the road That wound towards the wicket of your abode,        &nbsp       &nbsp And I did not think        &nbsp       &nbsp That life would shrink To nothing ere it shed a rosier pink. Unlooked for I arrived on a rainy night, And you hailed me at the door by the swaying light,        &nbsp       &nbsp And I full forgot        &nbsp       &nbsp That life might not Again be touching that ecstatic height. And that calm eve when you walked up the stair, After a gaiety prolonged and rare,        &nbsp       &nbsp No thought soever        &nbsp       &nbsp That you might never Walk down again, struck me as I stood there.