Explore "The Unborn" by Thomas Hardy on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I ROSE at night, and visited / The Cave of the Unborn: / And crowding shapes surrounded me / For tidings of the life to be, / Who long had prayed the silent Head / To haste its advent morn.
Their eyes were lit with artless trust, / Hope thrilled their every tone; / "A scene the loveliest, is it not? / A pure delight, a beauty-spot / Where all is gentle, true and just, / And darkness is unknown?"
My heart was anguished for their sake, / I could not frame a word; / And they descried my sunken face, / And seemed to read therein, and trace / The news that pity would not break, / Nor truth leave unaverred.
And as I silently retired / I turned and watched them still, / And they came helter-skelter out, / Driven forward like a rabble rout / Into the world they had so desired / By the all-immanent Will.