Read "On an Invitation to the United States" by Thomas Hardy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
I. MY ardours for emprize nigh lost / Since Life has bared its bones to me, / I shrink to seek a modern coast / Whose riper times have yet to be; / Where the new regions claim them free / From that long drip of human tears / Which peoples old in tragedy / Have left upon the centuried years.
II. For, wonning in these ancient lands, / Enchased and lettered as a tomb, / And scored with prints of perished hands, / And chronicled with dates of doom, / Though my own Being bear no bloom / I trace the lives such scenes enshrine, / Give past exemplars present room, / And their experience count as mine.