Read "At a Country Fair" by Thomas Hardy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
At a bygone Western country fair / I saw a giant led by a dwarf / With a red string like a long thin scarf; / How much he was the stronger there / The giant seemed unaware.
And then I saw that the giant was blind, / And the dwarf a shrewd-eyed little thing; / The giant, mild, timid, obeyed the string / As if he had no independent mind, / Or will of any kind.
Wherever the dwarf decided to go / At his heels the other trotted meekly, / (Perhaps-I know not-reproaching weakly) / Like one Fate bade that it must be so, / Whether he wished or no.
Various sights in various climes / I have seen, and more I may see yet, / But that sight never shall I forget, / And have thought it the sorriest of pantomimes, / If once, a hundred times!