A Commonplace Day

Thomas Hardy 1840 (Stinsford) – 1928 (Dorchester, Dorset)



The day is turning ghost,
And scuttles from the kalendar in fits and furtively,
   To join the anonymous host
Of those that throng oblivion; ceding his place, maybe,
   To one of like degree.

   I part the fire-gnawed logs,
Rake forth the embers, spoil the busy flames, and lay the ends
   Upon the shining dogs;
Further and further from the nooks the twilight's stride extends,
   And beamless black impends.

   Nothing of tiniest worth
Have I wrought, pondered, planned; no one thing asking blame or
praise,
   Since the pale corpse-like birth
Of this diurnal unit, bearing blanks in all its rays -
   Dullest of dull-hued Days!

   Wanly upon the panes
The rain slides as have slid since morn my colourless thoughts; and
yet
   Here, while Day's presence wanes,
And over him the sepulchre-lid is slowly lowered and set,
   He wakens my regret.

   Regret--though nothing dear
That I wot of, was toward in the wide world at his prime,
   Or bloomed elsewhere than here,
To die with his decease, and leave a memory sweet, sublime,
   Or mark him out in Time . . .

   --Yet, maybe, in some soul,
In some spot undiscerned on sea or land, some impulse rose,
   Or some intent upstole
Of that enkindling ardency from whose maturer glows
   The world's amendment flows;

   But which, benumbed at birth
By momentary chance or wile, has missed its hope to be
   Embodied on the earth;
And undervoicings of this loss to man's futurity
   May wake regret in me.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 29, 2023

1:14 min read
159

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABB CDXDC EXFEFF GXHGHH XIXII XJBJJ EBEAB
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 1,459
Words 245
Stanzas 7
Stanza Lengths 5, 5, 6, 6, 5, 5, 5

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy, was not a Scottish Minister, not a Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland nor a Professor of Eccesiastical History at Edinburgh University. more…

All Thomas Hardy poems | Thomas Hardy Books

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