Thomas Hardy: Collected Lyrics
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Public-domain lyrics

A Meeting with Despair

Thomas Hardy

“A Meeting with Despair” as printed in Wessex Poems and Other Verses (1899).

Thomas Hardy: Collected Lyrics Text 4 1899 · historical text
Public domainSong lyricsWessex verse
Complete public-domain lyrics

This text comes from Wessex Poems and Other Verses, a historical songbook transcribed on Wikisource and reproduced from the pinned revision linked below.

Verse 1

AS evening shaped I found me on a moor

Which sight could scarce sustain:

The black lean land, of featureless contour,

Was like a tract in pain.

"This scene, like my own life," I said, "is one

Where many glooms abide;

Toned by its fortune to a deadly dun—

Lightless on every side.

Verse 2

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.

Against the horizon's dim-discerned wheel

A form rose, strange of mould:

That he was hideous, hopeless, I could feel

Rather than could behold.

"'Tis a dead spot, where even the light lies spent

To darkness!" croaked the Thing.

"Not if you look aloft!" said I, intent

On my new reasoning.

Verse 3

"Yea—but await awhile!" he cried. "Ho-ho!—

Look now aloft and see!"

I looked. There, too, sat night: Heaven's radiant show

Had gone. Then chuckled he.

Credits

Written by Thomas Hardy

Words by Thomas Hardy. Historical text published in Wessex Poems and Other Verses (1899); public domain. No claim to a modern recording or arrangement.

Source & text edition

Wessex Poems and Other Verses (1899), “A Meeting with Despair”

The 1899 published edition is in the public domain in the United States (pre-1931 publication). Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) died more than 96 years ago and his works entered the public domain in life-plus-70 jurisdictions in 1999; entries credited to other hands are held unless their author died more than 70 years ago.

How to read this historical text and its source

Read the source on Wikisource

View copyright evidence · Transcription terms (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Retrieved 2026-10-27. Line spacing and section labels are adapted for reading. The displayed text follows the linked edition. Editorial notes and abstract artwork are by 52lyrics.
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