For a Book by Thomas Hardy

With searching feet, through dark circuitous ways,

I plunged and stumbled; round me, far and near,

Quaint hordes of eyeless phantoms did appear,

Twisting and turning in a bootless chase, —

When, like an exile given by God's grace

To feel once more a human atmosphere,

I caught the world's first murmur, large and clear,

Flung from a singing river's endless race.

Then, through a magic twilight from below,

I heard its grand sad song as in a dream:

Life's wild infinity of mirth and woe

It sang me; and, with many a changing gleam,

Across the music of its onward flow

I saw the cottage lights of Wessex beam.