Thomas Hardy (Томас Гарди (Харди))
On the Esplanade
Midsummer: 10 p.m. The broad bald moon edged up where the sea was wide, Mild, mellow-faced; Beneath, a tumbling twinkle of shines, like dyed, A trackway traced To the shore, as of petals fallen from a rose to waste, In its overblow, And fluttering afloat on inward heaves of the tide: – All this, so plain; yet the rest I did not know. The horizon gets lost in a mist new-wrought by the night: The lamps of the Bay That reach from behind me round to the left and right On the sea-wall way For a constant mile of curve, make a long display As a pearl-strung row, Under which in the waves they bore their gimlets of light: – All this was plain; but there was a thing not so. Inside a window, open, with undrawn blind, There plays and sings A lady unseen a melody undefined: And where the moon flings Its shimmer a vessel crosses, whereon to the strings Plucked sweetly and low Of a harp, they dance. Yea, such did I mark. That, behind, My Fate’s masked face crept near me I did not know!
Thomas Hardy’s other poems:
915
