Read "A Meeting with Despair" by Thomas Hardy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
AS evening shaped I found me on a moor / Which sight could scarce sustain: / The black lean land, of featureless contour, / Was like a tract in pain.
"This scene, like my own life," I said, "is one / Where many glooms abide; / Toned by its fortune to a deadly dun- / Lightless on every side.
I glanced aloft and halted, pleasure-caught / To see the contrast there: / The ray-lit clouds gleamed glory; and I thought, / "There's solace everywhere!"
Then bitter self-reproaches as I stood / I dealt me silently / As one perverse-misrepresenting Good / In graceless mutiny.
Against the horizon's dim-discernèd wheel / A form rose, strange of mould: / That he was hideous, hopeless, I could feel / Rather than could behold.
"Tis a dead spot, where even the light lies spent / To darkness! " croaked the Thing. / "Not if you look aloft! " said I, intent / On my new reasoning.
"Yea-but await awhile! " he cried. "Ho-ho! - / Look now aloft and see! " / I looked. There, too, sat night: Heaven's radiant show / Had gone. Then chuckled he.