Explore "Fetching Her" by Thomas Hardy on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
AN hour before the dawn, / My friend, / You lit your waiting bedside-lamp, / Your breakfast-fire anon, / And outing into the dark and damp / You saddled, and set on.
Thuswise, before the day, / My friend, / You sought her on her surfy shore, / To fetch her thence away / Unto your own new-builded door / For a staunch lifelong stay.
You said: "It seems to be, / My friend, / That I were bringing to my place / The pure brine breeze, the sea, / The mews-all her old sky and space, / In bringing her with me!"
-But time is prompt to expugn, / My friend, / Such magic-minted conjurings: / The brought breeze fainted soon, / And then the sense of seamews' wings, / And the shore's sibilant tune.
So, it had been more due, / My friend, / Perhaps, had you not pulled this flower / From the craggy nook it knew, / And set it in an alien bower; / But left it where it grew!