Thomas Hardy — Meditations on a Holiday

’Tis May morning, All-adorning, No cloud warning          Of rain to-day. Where shall I go to, Go to, go to? - Can I say No to          Lyonnesse-way? Well - what reason Now at this season Is there for treason          To other shrines? Tristram is not there, Isolt forgot there, New eras blot there          Sought-for signs! Stratford-on-Avon - Poesy-paven - I’ll find a haven          There, somehow! - Nay - I’m but caught of Dreams long thought of, The Swan knows nought of          His Avon now! What shall it be, then, I go to see, then, Under the plea, then,          Of votary? I’ll go to Lakeland, Lakeland, Lakeland, Certainly Lakeland          Let it be. But - why to that place, That place, that place, Such a hard come-at place          Need I fare? When its bard cheers no more, Loves no more, fears no more, Sees no more, hears no more          Anything there! Ah, there is Scotland, Burns’s Scotland, And Waverley’s. To what land          Better can I hie? - Yet - if no whit now Feel those of it now - Care not a bit now          For it - why I? I’ll seek a town street, Aye, a brick-brown street, Quite a tumbledown street,          Drawing no eyes. For a Mary dwelt there, And a Percy felt there Heart of him melt there,          A Claire likewise. Why incline to that city, Such a city, that city, Now a mud-bespat city! -          Care the lovers who Now live and walk there, Sit there and talk there, Buy there, or hawk there,          Or wed, or woo? Laughters in a volley Greet so fond a folly As nursing melancholy          In this and that spot, Which, with most endeavour, Those can visit never, But for ever and ever          Will now know not! If, on lawns Elysian, With a broadened vision And a faint derision          Conscious be they, How they might reprove me That these fancies move me, Think they ill behoove me,          Smile, and say: “What! - our hoar old houses, Where the past dead-drowses, Nor a child nor spouse is          Of our name at all? Such abodes to care for, Inquire about and bear for, And suffer wear and tear for -          How weak of you and small!”