Read "A Young Man's Exhortation" by Thomas Hardy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
CALL off your eyes from care / By some determined deftness; put forth joys / Dear as excess without the core that cloys, / And charm Life's lourings fair.
Exalt and crown the hour / That girdles us, and fill it full with glee, / Blind glee, excelling aught could ever be / Were heedfulness in power.
Send up such touching strains / That limitless recruits from Fancy's pack / Shall rush upon your tongue, and tender back / All that your soul contains.
For what do we know best? / That a fresh love-leaf crumpled soon will dry, / And that men moment after moment die, / Of all scope dispossest.
If I have seen one thing / It is the passing preciousness of dreams; / That aspects are within us; and who seems / Most kingly is the King.