Thomas Hardy — For Life I Had Never Cared Greatly

   For Life I had never cared greatly,         As worth a man's while;         Peradventures unsought,    Peradventures that finished in nought, Had kept me from youth and through manhood till lately         Unwon by its style.    In earliest years—why I know not -         I viewed it askance;         Conditions of doubt,    Conditions that leaked slowly out, May haply have bent me to stand and to show not         Much zest for its dance.    With symphonies soft and sweet colour         It courted me then,         Till evasions seemed wrong,    Till evasions gave in to its song, And I warmed, until living aloofly loomed duller         Than life among men.    Anew I found nought to set eyes on,         When, lifting its hand,         It uncloaked a star,    Uncloaked it from fog-damps afar, And showed its beams burning from pole to horizon         As bright as a brand.    And so, the rough highway forgetting,         I pace hill and dale         Regarding the sky,    Regarding the vision on high, And thus re-illumed have no humour for letting         My pilgrimage fail.