Unknowing

Thomas Hardy

     WHEN, soul in soul reflected,
     We breathed an thered air,
        When we neglected
        All things elsewhere,
     And left the friendly friendless
     To keep our love aglow,
        We deemed it endless...
        --We did not know!

     When, by mad passion goaded,
     We planned to hie away,
        But, unforeboded,
        The storm-shafts gray
     So heavily down-pattered
     That none could forthward go,
        Our lives seemed shattered...
        --We did not know!

     When I found you, helpless lying,
     And you waived my deep misprise,
        And swore me, dying,
        In phantom-guise
     To wing to me when grieving,
     And touch away my woe,
        We kissed, believing...
        --We did not know!

     But though, your powers outreckoning,
     You hold you dead and dumb,
        Or scorn my beckoning,
        And will not come;
     And I say, "'Twere mood ungainly
     To store her memory so:"
        I say it vainly--
        I feel and know!

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