The Change by Thomas Hardy 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.