Read "Midnight on the Great Western" by Thomas Hardy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
In the third-class seat sat the journeying boy, / And the roof-lamp's oily flame / Played down on his listless form and face, / Bewrapt past knowing to what he was going, / Or whence he came.
In the band of his hat the journeying boy / Had a ticket stuck; and a string / Around his neck bore the key of his box, / That twinkled gleams of the lamp's sad beams / Like a living thing.
What past can be yours, O journeying boy / Towards a world unknown, / Who calmly, as if incurious quite / On all at stake, can undertake / This plunge alone?
Knows your soul a sphere, O journeying boy, / Our rude realms far above, / Whence with spacious vision you mark and mete / This region of sin that you find you in, / But are not of?