Thomas Hardy — Conjecture

If there were in my kalendar    No Emma, Florence, Mary, What would be my existence now -    A hermit's?—wanderer's weary? -         How should I live, and how         Near would be death, or far? Could it have been that other eyes    Might have uplit my highway? That fond, sad, retrospective sight    Would catch from this dim byway         Prized figures different quite         From those that now arise? With how strange aspect would there creep    The dawn, the night, the daytime, If memory were not what it is    In song-time, toil, or pray-time. -         O were it else than this,         I'd pass to pulseless sleep!