Explore "In the Small Hours" by Thomas Hardy on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I LAY in my bed and fiddled / With a dreamland viol and bow, / And the tunes flew back to my fingers / I had melodied years ago. / It was two or three in the morning / When I fancy-fiddled so / Long reels and country-dances, / And hornpipes swift and slow.
And soon anon came crossing / The chamber in the gray / Figures of jigging fieldfolk- / Saviours of corn and hay- / To the air of "Haste to the Wedding," / As after a wedding-day; / Yea, up and down the middle / In windless whirls went they!
There danced the bride and bridegroom, / And couples in a train, / Gay partners time and travail / Had longwhiles stilled amain!... / It seemed a thing for weeping / To find, at slumber's wane / And morning's sly increeping, / That Now, not Then, held reign.