Read "The Bullfinches" by Thomas Hardy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
BROTHER Bulleys, let us sing / From the dawn till evening! - / For we know not that we go not / When the day's pale pinions fold / Unto those who sang of old.
When I flew to Blackmoor Vale, / Whence the green-gowned faeries hail, / Roosting near them I could hear them / Speak of queenly Nature's ways, / Means, and moods,-well known to fays.
All we creatures, nigh and far / (Said they there), the Mother's are: / Yet she never shows endeavour / To protect from warrings wild / Bird or beast she calls her child.
Busy in her handsome house / Known as Space, she falls a-drowse; / Yet, in seeming, works on dreaming, / While beneath her groping hands / Fiends make havoc in her bands.
How her hussif'ry succeeds / She unknows or she unheeds, / All things making for Death's taking! / -So the green-gowned faeries say / Living over Blackmoor way.
Come then, brethren, let us sing, / From the dawn till evening! - / For we know not that we go not / When the day's pale pinions fold / Unto those who sang of old.