Read "Why did I Sketch" by Thomas Hardy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
WHY did I sketch an upland green, / And put the figure in / Of one on the spot with me? - / For now that one has ceased to be seen / The picture waxes akin / To a wordless irony.
If you go drawing on down or cliff / Let no soft curves intrude / Of a woman's silhouette, / But show the escarpments stark and stiff / As in utter solitude; / So shall you half forget.
Let me sooner pass from sight of the sky / Than again on a thoughtless day / Limn, laugh, and sing, and rhyme / With a woman sitting near, whom I / Paint in for love, and who may / Be called hence in my time!
_From an old note_.