Read "Going and Staying" by Thomas Hardy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
I. THE moving sun-shapes on the spray, / The sparkles where the brook was flowing, / Pink faces, plightings, moonlit May, / These were the things we wished would stay; / But they were going.
II. Seasons of blankness as of snow, / The silent bleed of a world decaying, / The moan of multitudes in woe, / These were the things we wished would go; / But they were staying.
III. Then we looked closelier at Time, / And saw his ghostly arms revolving / To sweep off woeful things with prime, / Things sinister with things sublime / Alike dissolving.