Explore "Before and after Summer" by Thomas Hardy on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I. LOOKING forward to the spring / One puts up with anything. / On this February day, / Though the winds leap down the street, / Wintry scourgings seem but play, / And these later shafts of sleet / -Sharper pointed than the first- / And these later snows-the worst- / Are as a half-transparent blind / Riddled by rays from sun behind.
II. Shadows of the October pine / Reach into this room of mine: / On the pine there stands a bird; / He is shadowed with the tree. / Mutely perched he bills no word; / Blank as I am even is he. / For those happy suns are past, / Fore-discerned in winter last. / When went by their pleasure, then? / I, alas, perceived not when.