Explore "Places" by Thomas Hardy on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
NOBODY says: Ah, that is the place / Where chanced, in the hollow of years ago, / What none of the Three Towns cared to know- / The birth of a little girl of grace- / The sweetest the house saw, first or last; / Yet it was so / On that day long past.
Nobody thinks: There, there she lay / In a room by the Hoe, like the bud of a flower, / And listened, just after the bedtime hour, / To the stammering chimes that used to play / The quaint Old Hundred-and-Thirteenth tune / In Saint Andrew's tower / Night, morn, and noon.
Nobody calls to mind that here / Upon Boterel Hill, where the carters skid, / With cheeks whose airy flush outbid / Fresh fruit in bloom, and free of fear, / She cantered down, as if she must fall / (Though she never did), / To the charm of all.
Nay: one there is to whom these things, / That nobody else's mind calls back, / Have a savour that scenes in being lack, / And a presence more than the actual brings; / To whom to-day is beneaped and stale, / And its urgent clack / But a vapid tale.