Read "Geographical Knowledge" by Thomas Hardy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
(A MEMORY OF CHRISTIANA C-)
WHERE Blackmoor was, the road that led / To Bath, she could not show, / Nor point the sky that overspread / Towns ten miles off or so.
But that Calcutta stood this way, / Cape Horn there figured fell, / That here was Boston, here Bombay, / She could declare full well.
Less known to her the track athwart / Froom Mead or Yell'ham Wood / Than how to make some Austral port / In seas of surly mood.
She saw the glint of Guinea's shore / Behind the plum-tree nigh, / Heard old unruly Biscay's roar / In the weir's purl hard by . . .
"My son's a sailor, and he knows / All seas and many lands, / And when he's home he points and shows / Each country where it stands.
"He's now just there-by Gib's high rock- / And when he gets, you see, / To Portsmouth here, behind the clock, / Then he'll come back to me! "