| Thomas Hardy (1840–1928). Wessex Poems and Other Verses. 1898. |
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| 3. Hap |
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| IF but some vengeful god would call to me | |
| From up the sky, and laugh: “Thou suffering thing, | |
| Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy, | |
| That thy love’s loss is my hate’s profiting!” | |
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| Then would I bear, and clench myself, and die, | 5 |
| Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited; | |
| Half-eased, too, that a Powerfuller than I | |
| Had willed and meted me the tears I shed. | |
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| But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain, | |
| And why unblooms the best hope ever sown? | 10 |
| —Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain, | |
| And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan…. | |
| These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown | |
Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.
1866. | |
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