Thomas Hardy — The Two Rosalinds

I        &nbsp The dubious daylight ended, And I walked the Town alone, unminding whither bound and why, As from each gaunt street and gaping square a mist of light ascended        &nbsp And dispersed upon the sky. II        &nbsp Files of evanescent faces Passed each other without heeding, in their travail, teen, or joy, Some in void unvisioned listlessness inwrought with pallid traces        &nbsp Of keen penury's annoy. III        &nbsp Nebulous flames in crystal cages Leered as if with discontent at city movement, murk, and grime, And as waiting some procession of great ghosts from bygone ages        &nbsp To exalt the ignoble time. IV        &nbsp In a colonnade high-lighted, By a thoroughfare where stern utilitarian traffic dinned, On a red and white emblazonment of players and parts, I sighted        &nbsp The name of "Rosalind," V        &nbsp And her famous mates of "Arden," Who observed no stricter customs than "the seasons' difference" bade, Who lived with running brooks for books in Nature's wildwood garden,        &nbsp And called idleness their trade . . . VI        &nbsp Now the poster stirred an ember Still remaining from my ardours of some forty years before, When the selfsame portal on an eve it thrilled me to remember        &nbsp A like announcement bore; VII        &nbsp And expectantly I had entered, And had first beheld in human mould a Rosalind woo and plead, On whose transcendent figuring my speedy soul had centred        &nbsp As it had been she indeed . . . VIII        &nbsp So; all other plans discarding, I resolved on entrance, bent on seeing what I once had seen, And approached the gangway of my earlier knowledge, disregarding        &nbsp The tract of time between. IX        &nbsp "The words, sir?" cried a creature Hovering mid the shine and shade as 'twixt the live world and the tomb; But the well-known numbers needed not for me a text or teacher        &nbsp To revive and re-illume. X        &nbsp Then the play . . . But how unfitted Was THIS Rosalind!—a mammet quite to me, in memories nurst, And with chilling disappointment soon I sought the street I had quitted,        &nbsp To re-ponder on the first. XI        &nbsp The hag still hawked,—I met her Just without the colonnade. "So you don't like her, sir?" said she. "Ah—I was once that Rosalind!—I acted her—none better -        &nbsp Yes—in eighteen sixty-three. XII        &nbsp "Thus I won Orlando to me In my then triumphant days when I had charm and maidenhood, Now some forty years ago.—I used to say, COME WOO ME, WOO ME!"        &nbsp And she struck the attitude. XIII        &nbsp It was when I had gone there nightly; And the voice—though raucous now—was yet the old one.—Clear as noon My Rosalind was here . . . Thereon the band withinside lightly        &nbsp Beat up a merry tune.