Looking Across
By Thomas Hardy
I
It is dark in the sky,
And silence is where
Our laughs rang high;
And recall do I
That One is out there.
II
The dawn is not nigh,
And the trees are bare,
And the waterways sigh
That a year has drawn by,
And Two are out there.
III
The wind drops to die
Like the phantom of Care
Too frail for a cry,
And heart brings to eye
That Three are out there.
IV
This Life runs dry
That once ran rare
And rosy in dye,
And fleet the days fly,
And Four are out there.
V
Tired, tired am I
Of this earthly air,
And my wraith asks: Why,
Since these calm lie,
Are not Five out there?
December 1915.