Read "The Minute before Meeting" by Thomas Hardy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
THE grey gaunt days dividing us in twain / Seemed hopeless hills my strength must faint to climb, / But they are gone; and now I would detain / The few clock-beats that part us; rein back Time,
And live in close expectance never closed / In change for far expectance closed at last, / So harshly has expectance been imposed / On my long need while these slow blank months passed.
And knowing that what is now about to be / Will all _have been_ in O, so short a space! / I read beyond it my despondency / When more dividing months shall take its place, / Thereby denying to this hour of grace / A full-up measure of felicity.