In The Small Hours

I lay in my bed and fiddled

With a dreamland viol and bow,

And the tunes flew back to my fingers

I had melodied years ago.

It was two or three in the morning

When I fancy-fiddled so

Long reels and country-dances,

And hornpipes swift and slow.

And soon anon came crossing

The chamber in the grey,

Figures of jigging fieldfolk –

Saviours of corn and hay –

To the air of ‘Haste to the Wedding.’

As after a wedding-day;

Yea, up and down the middle

In windless whirls went they!

There danced the bride and bridegroom,

And couples in a train,

Gay partners time and travail

Had longwhiles stilled amain -

It seemed a thing for weeping

To find, at slumber’s wane

And morning’s sly increeping,

That Now, not Then, held reign.

A quote from a Hardy novel

“Like all people who have known rough times, light-heartedness seemed to her too irrational and inconsequent to be indulged in except as a reckless dream now and then; for she had been too early habituated to anxious reasoning to drop the habit suddenly...Her triumph was tempered by circumspection, she had still that field-mouse fear of the coulter of destiny despite fair promise, which is common among the thoughtful who have suffered early from poverty and oppression.” (The Mayor of Casterbridge)

-o0o-