The Self-Unseeing

The evening glance strikes somewhere still, On elixirs that were true, While scents divine, the thrushes spill A magic’s mood or dew.

Yet I stood beneath a story oak, Arrayed in lifeless care; The darkened forebill folded stole, Adrift, too gray was air.

For what in art is half a tryst With a woman who last spun, With trees blown past and behind mist, That say the roses won?

• Thomas Hardy