Explore "Shut out that Moon" by Thomas Hardy on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
CLOSE up the casement, draw the blind, / Shut out that stealing moon, / She wears too much the guise she wore / Before our lutes were strewn / With years-deep dust, and names we read / On a white stone were hewn.
Step not out on the dew-dashed lawn / To view the Lady's Chair, / Immense Orion's glittering form, / The Less and Greater Bear: / Stay in; to such sights we were drawn / When faded ones were fair.
Brush not the bough for midnight scents / That come forth lingeringly, / And wake the same sweet sentiments / They breathed to you and me / When living seemed a laugh, and love / All it was said to be.
Within the common lamp-lit room / Prison my eyes and thought; / Let dingy details crudely loom, / Mechanic speech be wrought: / Too fragrant was Life's early bloom, / Too tart the fruit it brought!