Poem by Thomas Hardy

The Missed Train

How I was caught
Hieing home, after days of allure,
And forced to an inn – small, obscure –
At the junction, gloom-fraught.

How civil my face
To get them to chamber me there –
A roof I had scorned, scarce aware
That it stood at the place.

And how all the night
I had dreams of the unwitting cause
Of my lodgment. How lonely I was;
How consoled by her sprite!

Thus onetime to me . . .
Dim wastes of dead years bar away
Then from now. But such happenings to-day
Fall to lovers, may be!

Years, years as shoaled seas,
Truly, stretch now between! Less and less
Shrink the visions then vast in me. – Yes,
Then in me: Now in these.

1. Genitrix Laesa
2. Over the Coffin
3. V.R. 1819–1901
4. Song from Heine
5. Song to an Old Burden

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