Read "At a Lunar Eclipse" by Thomas Hardy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
THY shadow, Earth, from Pole to Central Sea, / Now steals along upon the Moon's meek shine / In even monochrome and curving line / Of imperturbable serenity.
How shall I link such sun-cast symmetry / With the torn troubled form I know as thine, / That profile, placid as a brow divine, / With continents of moil and misery?
And can immense Mortality but throw / So small a shade, and Heaven's high human scheme / Be hemmed within the coasts yon arc implies?
Is such the stellar gauge of earthly show, / Nation at war with nation, brains that teem, / Heroes, and women fairer than the skies?