Unknowing

Thomas Hardy 1840 (Stinsford) – 1928 (Dorchester, Dorset)



WHEN, soul in soul reflected,
     We breathed an æthered air,
        When we neglected
        All things elsewhere,
     And left the friendly friendless
     To keep our love aglow,
        We deemed it endless...
        --We did not know!

     When, by mad passion goaded,
     We planned to hie away,
        But, unforeboded,
        The storm-shafts gray
     So heavily down-pattered
     That none could forthward go,
        Our lives seemed shattered...
        --We did not know!

     When I found you, helpless lying,
     And you waived my deep misprise,
        And swore me, dying,
        In phantom-guise
     To wing to me when grieving,
     And touch away my woe,
        We kissed, believing...
        --We did not know!

     But though, your powers outreckoning,
     You hold you dead and dumb,
        Or scorn my beckoning,
        And will not come;
     And I say, "'Twere mood ungainly
     To store her memory so:"
        I say it vainly--
        I feel and know!

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 10, 2023

42 sec read
158

Quick analysis:

Scheme ababcdcD xeaefdfD gcgcgdgD ghghicid
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 976
Words 142
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8, 8

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy, was not a Scottish Minister, not a Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland nor a Professor of Eccesiastical History at Edinburgh University. more…

All Thomas Hardy poems | Thomas Hardy Books

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    "Unknowing" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 17 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/36607/unknowing>.

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