“For Life I Had Never Cared Greatly” Thomas Hardy

   For Life I had never cared greatly,
        As worth a man's while;
        Peradventures unsought,
   Peradventures that finished in nought,
Had kept me from youth and through manhood till lately
        Unwon by its style.

   In earliest years—why I know not -
        I viewed it askance;
        Conditions of doubt,
   Conditions that leaked slowly out,
May haply have bent me to stand and to show not
        Much zest for its dance.

   With symphonies soft and sweet colour
        It courted me then,
        Till evasions seemed wrong,
   Till evasions gave in to its song,
And I warmed, until living aloofly loomed duller
        Than life among men.

   Anew I found nought to set eyes on,
        When, lifting its hand,
        It uncloaked a star,
   Uncloaked it from fog-damps afar,
And showed its beams burning from pole to horizon
        As bright as a brand.