At The Word “Farewell” Thomas Hardy

She looked like a bird from a cloud
        On the clammy lawn,
Moving alone, bare-browed
        In the dim of dawn.
The candles alight in the room
        For my parting meal
Made all things withoutdoors loom
        Strange, ghostly, unreal.

The hour itself was a ghost,
        And it seemed to me then
As of chances the chance furthermost
        I should see her again.
I beheld not where all was so fleet
        That a Plan of the past
Which had ruled us from birthtime to meet
        Was in working at last:

No prelude did I there perceive
        To a drama at all,
Or foreshadow what fortune might weave
        From beginnings so small;
But I rose as if quicked by a spur
        I was bound to obey,
And stepped through the casement to her
        Still alone in the gray.