Explore "St. Launce's Revisited" by Thomas Hardy on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
SLIP back, Time! / Yet again I am nearing / Castle and keep, uprearing / Gray, as in my prime.
At the inn / Smiling close, why is it / Not as on my visit / When hope and I were twin?
Groom and jade / Whom I found here, moulder; / Strange the tavern-holder, / Strange the tap-maid.
Here I hired / Horse and man for bearing / Me on my wayfaring / To the door desired.
Evening gloomed / As I journeyed forward / To the faces shoreward, / Till their dwelling loomed.
If again / Towards the Atlantic sea there / I should speed, they'd be there / Surely now as then? . . .
Why waste thought, / When I know them vanished / Under earth; yea, banished / Ever into nought.