| Thomas Hardy (1840–1928). Wessex Poems and Other Verses. 1898. |
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| 44. At an Inn |
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| WHEN we as strangers sought | |
| Their catering care, | |
| Veiled smiles bespoke their thought | |
| Of what we were. | |
| They warmed as they opined | 5 |
| Us more than friends— | |
| That we had all resigned | |
| For love’s dear ends. | |
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| And that swift sympathy | |
| With living love | 10 |
| Which quicks the world—maybe | |
| The spheres above, | |
| Made them our ministers, | |
| Moved them to say, | |
| “Ah, God, that bliss like theirs | 15 |
| Would flush our day!” | |
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| And we were left alone | |
| As Love’s own pair; | |
| Yet never the love-light shone | |
| Between us there! | 20 |
| But that which chilled the breath | |
| Of afternoon, | |
| And palsied unto death | |
| The pane-fly’s tune. | |
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| The kiss their zeal foretold, | 25 |
| And now deemed come, | |
| Came not: within his hold | |
| Love lingered numb. | |
| Why cast he on our port | |
| A bloom not ours? | 30 |
| Why shaped us for his sport | |
| In after-hours? | |
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| As we seemed we were not | |
| That day afar, | |
| And now we seem not what | 35 |
| We aching are. | |
| O severing sea and land, | |
| O laws of men, | |
| Ere death, once let us stand | |
| As we stood then! | 40 |
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