Thomas Hardy — I Said And Sang Her Excellence

(Fickle Lover's Song) I said and sang her excellence:     They called it laud undue.         (Have your way, my heart, O!) Yet what was homage far above The plain deserts of my olden Love     Proved verity of my new. "She moves a sylph in picture-land,     Where nothing frosts the air:"         (Have your way, my heart, O!) "To all winged pipers overhead She is known by shape and song," I said,     Conscious of licence there. I sang of her in a dim old hall     Dream-built too fancifully,         (Have your way, my heart, O!) But lo, the ripe months chanced to lead My feet to such a hall indeed,     Where stood the very She. Strange, startling, was it then to learn     I had glanced down unborn time,         (Have your way, my heart, O!) And prophesied, whereby I knew That which the years had planned to do     In warranty of my rhyme. BY RUSHY-POND.