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‹Better GutenbergLate Lyrics and Earlier“I Worked No Wile to Meet You” (Song) · 51 of 151Contents›

Late Lyrics and Earlier

by Thomas Hardy

51 of 151 · Contents · Download EPUB

“I Worked No Wile to Meet You” (Song)

I worked no wile to meet you,
   My sight was set elsewhere,
I sheered about to shun you,
   And lent your life no care.
I was unprimed to greet you
   At such a date and place,
Constraint alone had won you
   Vision of my strange face!

You did not seek to see me
   Then or at all, you said,
—Meant passing when you neared me,
   But stumblingblocks forbade.
You even had thought to flee me,
   By other mindings moved;
No influent star endeared me,
   Unknown, unrecked, unproved!

What, then, was there to tell us
   The flux of flustering hours
Of their own tide would bring us
   By no device of ours
To where the daysprings well us
   Heart-hydromels that cheer,
Till Time enearth and swing us
   Round with the turning sphere.

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