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Poems of the Past and the Present

by Thomas Hardy

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On a Fine Morning

Whence comes Solace?—Not from seeing
What is doing, suffering, being,
Not from noting Life’s conditions,
Nor from heeding Time’s monitions;
   But in cleaving to the Dream,
   And in gazing at the gleam
   Whereby gray things golden seem.

II

Thus do I this heyday, holding
Shadows but as lights unfolding,
As no specious show this moment
With its irisèd embowment;
   But as nothing other than
   Part of a benignant plan;
   Proof that earth was made for man.

February 1899.

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