The Poetry Corner

I Worked No Wile To Meet You (Song)

By Thomas Hardy

I worked no wile to meet you, My sight was set elsewhere, I sheered about to shun you, And lent your life no care. I was unprimed to greet you At such a date and place, Constraint alone had won you Vision of my strange face! You did not seek to see me Then or at all, you said, Meant passing when you neared me, But stumblingblocks forbade. You even had thought to flee me, By other mindings moved; No influent star endeared me, Unknown, unrecked, unproved! What, then, was there to tell us The flux of flustering hours Of their own tide would bring us By no device of ours To where the daysprings well us Heart-hydromels that cheer, Till Time enearth and swing us Round with the turning sphere.