The Poetry Corner

Unknowing

By Thomas Hardy

When, soul in soul reflected, We breathed an aethered 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!