At a Lunar Eclipse

The Division

Rain on the windows, creaking doors, With blasts that besom the green, And I am here, and you are there, And a hundred miles between!

О were it but the weather, Dear, О were it but the miles That summed up all our severance, There might be room for smiles.

But that thwart Thing betwixt us twain, Which nothing cleaves or clears, Is more than distance, Dear, or rain, And longer than the years!

Quite different is:

Thy shadow, Earth, from Pole to Central Sea, Now steals along upon the Moon's meek shine In even monochrome and curving line Of imperturbable serenity.

How shall I link such sun-cast symmetry With the torn troubled form I know as thine, That profile, placid as a brow divine, With continents of toil and misery?

And can immense Morality but throw

So small a shade, and Heaven's high human

scheme

□

u

Be hemmed within the coasts yon arc implies? Is such the stellar gauge of earthly show, Nation at war with nation, brains that teem, Heroes, and women fairer than the skies?

This poem is written in a high-flown style; the lan­guage is obscure, mysterious and puzzling.

In spite of the vagueness, sometimes dimness, of Thomas Hardy's literary manner, his poetry has a more modern ring than his novels.

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