JOYS OF MEMORY

By Thomas Hardy

When the spring comes round, and a certain day

Looks out from the brume by the eastern copsetrees

And says, Remember,

I begin again, as if it were new,

A day of like date I once lived through,

Whiling it hour by hour away;

So shall I do till my December,

When spring comes round.

I take my holiday then and my rest

Away from the dun life here about me,

Old hours re-greeting

With the quiet sense that bring they must

Such throbs as at first, till I house with dust,

And in the numbness my heartsome zest

For things that were, be past repeating

When spring comes round.