Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses

“That whisper takes the voiceOf a Spirit, speaking to me,Close, but invisible,And throws me under a spellAt the kindling vision it brings;And for a moment I rejoice,And believe in transcendent thingsThat would make of this muddy earthA spot for the splendid birthOf everlasting lives,Whereto no night arrives;And this gaunt gray galleryA tabernacle of worthOn this drab-aired afternoon,When you can barely seeAcross its hazed lacuneIf opposite aught there beOf fleshed humanityWherewith I may commune;Or if the voice so nearBe a soul’s voice floating here.””

— Thomas Hardy

“I climbed to the crest,And, fog-festooned,The sun lay westLike a crimson wound:Like that wound of mineOf which none knew,For I’d given no signThat it pierced me through.””

— Thomas Hardy

“I went by the Druid stone That stands in the garden white and lone, And I stopped and looked at the shifting shadows That at some moments there are thrown From the tree hard by with a rhythmic swing, And they shaped in my imaginingTo the shade that a well-known head and shoulders Threw there when she was gardening. I thought her behind my back, Yea, her I long had learned to lack,And I said: “I am sure you are standing behind me, Though how do you get into this old track?” And there was no sound but the fall of a leaf As a sad response; and to keep down griefI would not turn my head to discover That there was nothing in my belief. Yet I wanted to look and see That nobody stood at the back of me;But I thought once more: “Nay, I’ll not unvision A shape which, somehow, there may be.” So I went on softly from the glade, And left her behind me throwing her shade, As she were indeed an apparition”

— Thomas Hardy