...
Yet seems this vast and singular confection
Wherein our scenery glints of scantest size,
Inutile all--so far as reasonings tell.
SPIRIT OF PITIES
Thou arguest still the
Inadvertent Mind.
But, even so, shall blankness be for aye?...
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
What wouldst have hoped and had the
Will to be?...
SEMI-CHORUS I OF THE PITIES
Nay;--shall not
Its blindness break?
Yea, must not
Its heart awake,
Promptly tending
To its mending
In a genial germing purpose,
and for loving-kindness' sake?
SEMI-CHORUS II
Should It never
Curb or cure
Aught whatever
Those endure
Whom It quickens,
Let them darkle
To extinction
Swift and sure,
CHORUS
But--a stirring thrills the air
Like to sounds of joyance there
That the rages
Of the ages
Shall be cancelled, and
Deliverance offered
From the darts that were,
Consciousness the
Will informing, till
It fashions all things fair!
The Spirit of the Years (which is another name for Hardy's
reflections upon life and history) planned in sad conviction of
the "blank entrancement" of the Great Foresightless Will, those
sad narratives in which innocence, as in "Tess of the
d'Ubervilles," is crushed, or vivid personality frustrated, as in
"The Return of the Native.
Pages:
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321