Explore "Where Three Roads Joined" by Thomas Hardy on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
WHERE three roads joined it was green and fair, / And over a gate was the sun-glazed sea, / And life laughed sweet when I halted there; / Yet there I never again would be.
I am sure those branchways are brooding now, / With a wistful blankness upon their face, / While the few mute passengers notice how / Spectre-beridden is the place;
Which nightly sighs like a laden soul, / And grieves that a pair, in bliss for a spell / Not far from thence, should have let it roll / Away from them down a plumbless well
While the phasm of him who fared starts up, / And of her who was waiting him sobs from near, / As they haunt there and drink the wormwood cup / They filled for themselves when their sky was clear.
Yes, I see those roads-now rutted and bare, / While over the gate is no sun-glazed sea; / And though life laughed when I halted there, / It is where I never again would be.