 | Collected poems of Thomas Hardy |  |
GOING AND STAYING
I
The moving sun-shapes on the spray,The sparkles where the brook was flowing,
Pink faces, plightings, moonlit May,
These were the things we wished would stay;
But they were going.
II
Seasons of blankness as of snow,The silent bleed of a world decaying,
The moan of multitudes in woe,
These were the things we wished would go;
But they were staying.
III
Then we looked closelier at Time,And saw his ghostly arms revolving
To sweep off woeful things with prime,
Things sinister with things sublime
Alike dissolving.
| Collected poems of Thomas Hardy | |