Read "The Masked Face" by Thomas Hardy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
I FOUND me in a great surging space, / At either end a door, / And I said: "What is this giddying place, / With no firm-fixéd floor, / That I knew not of before? " / "It is Life," said a mask-clad face.
I asked: "But how do I come here, / Who never wished to come; / Can the light and air be made more clear, / The floor more quietsome, / And the doors set wide? They numb / Fast-locked, and fill with fear."
The mask put on a bleak smile then, / And said, "O vassal-wight, / There once complained a goosequill pen / To the scribe of the Infinite / Of the words it had to write / Because they were past its ken. "