Thomas Hardy - The Change lyrics

Out of the past there rises a week - Who shall read the years O! - Out of the past there rises a week Enringed with a purple zone. Out of the past there rises a week When thoughts were strung too thick to speak, And the magic of its lineaments remains with me alone. In that week there was heard a singing - Who shall spell the years, the years! - In that week there was heard a singing, And the white owl wondered why. In that week, yea, a voice was ringing, And forth from the casement were candles flinging Radiance that fell on the deodar and lit up the path thereby. Could that song have a mocking note? - Who shall unroll the years O! - Could that song have a mocking note To the white owl's sense as it fell? Could that song have a mocking note As it trilled out warm from the singer's throat, And who was the mocker and who the mocked when two felt all was well? In a tedious trampling crowd yet later - Who shall bare the years, the years! - In a tedious trampling crowd yet later, When silvery singings were dumb; In a crowd uncaring what time might fate her, Mid murks of night I stood to await her, And the twanging of iron wheels gave out the signal that she was come. She said with a travel-tired smile - Who shall lift the years O! - She said with a travel-tired smile, Half scared by scene so strange; She said, outworn by mile on mile, The blurred lamps wanning her face the while, "O Love, I am here; I am with you!" . . . Ah, that there should have come a change! O the doom by someone spoken - Who shall unseal the years, the years! - O the doom that gave no token, When nothing of bale saw we: O the doom by someone spoken, O the heart by someone broken, The heart whose sweet reverberances are all time leaves to me. Jan.-Feb. 1913.