Explore "The Dear" by Thomas Hardy on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I PLODDED to Fairmile Hill-top, where / A maiden one fain would guard / From every hazard and every care / Advanced on the roadside sward.
I wondered how succeeding suns / Would shape her wayfarings, / And wished some Power might take such ones / Under Its warding wings.
The busy breeze came up the hill / And smartened her cheek to red, / And frizzled her hair to a haze. With a will / "Good-morning, my Dear! " I said.
She glanced from me to the far-off gray, / And, with proud severity, / "Good-morning to you-though I may say / I am not _your_ Dear," quoth she:
"For I am the Dear of one not here- / One far from his native land! "- / And she passed me by; and I did not try / To make her understand.