Explore "On the Departure Platform" by Thomas Hardy on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
WE kissed at the barrier; and passing through / She left me, and moment by moment got / Smaller and smaller, until to my view / She was but a spot;
A wee white spot of muslin fluff / That down the diminishing platform bore / Through hustling crowds of gentle and rough / To the carriage door.
Under the lamplight's fitful glowers, / Behind dark groups from far and near, / Whose interests were apart from ours, / She would disappear,
Then show again, till I ceased to see / That flexible form, that nebulous white; / And she who was more than my life to me / Had vanished quite . . .
We have penned new plans since that fair fond day, / And in season she will appear again- / Perhaps in the same soft white array- / But never as then!
-"And why, young man, must eternally fly / A joy you'll repeat, if you love her well? " / -O friend, nought happens twice thus; why, / I cannot tell!