A Two-Years' Idyll

Yes; such it was;

Just those two seasons unsought,

Sweeping like summertide wind on our ways;

Moving, as straws,

Hearts quick as ours in those days;

Going like wind, too, and rated as nought

Save as the prelude to plays

Soon to come larger, life-fraught:

Yes; such it was.

"Nought" it was called,

Even by ourselves that which springs

Out of the years for all flesh, first or last,

Commonplace, scrawled

Dully on days that go past.

Yet, all the while, it upbore us like wings

Even in hours overcast:

Aye, though this best thing of things,

"Nought" it was called!

What seems it now?

Lost: such beginning was all;

Nothing came after: romance straight forsook

Quickly somehow

Life when we sped from our nook,

Primed for new scenes with designs smart and tall . . .

A preface without any book,

A trumpet uplipped, but no call;

That seems it now.

A quote from a Hardy novel

“The cow and horse tracks in the road were full of water, the rain having been enough to charge them, but not enough to wash them away. Across these minute pools the reflected stars flitted in a quick transit as she passed; she would not have known they were shining overhead if she had not seen them there—the vastest things of the universe imaged in objects so mean.”  (Tess of the D'Urbervilles)

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