Wessex Poems by Thomas Hardy - 30/48. A Meeting with Despair (read by Libby Gohn)

A MEETING WITH DESPAIR As evening shaped I found me on a moor Which sight could scarce sustain. The black lean lands, a featureless contour, Was like a tract in pain. This scene, like my own life, I said, Is one where many glooms abide, Honed by its fortune to a deadly done, Lightless on every side. I glanced aloft and halted, pleasure caught, To see the contrast there. The ray-lit clouds gleamed glory, And I thought, there's solace everywhere. Then bitter self-reproaches as I stood I dealt me silently, As one perverse, misrepresenting good In graceless mutiny. Past the horizon's dim, discerned wheel, A form rose, strange of mould, That he was hideous, hopeless, I could feel Rather than behold. Tis a dead spot, where even the light Lies spent to darkness, croaked the thing. Not if you look aloft, I said, Intent on my new reasoning. Yea, but wait a while, he cried, Ho, ho, look now aloft and see. I looked, there too sat night, Heaven's radiant show had gone, Then chuckled he.