Thomas Hardy: Collected Lyrics
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Public-domain lyrics

Unknowing

Thomas Hardy

“Unknowing” as printed in Wessex Poems and Other Verses (1899).

Thomas Hardy: Collected Lyrics Text 47 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

WHEN, soul in soul reflected,

We breathed an æthered air,

When we neglected

All things elsewhere,

And left the friendly friendless

To keep our love aglow,

We deemed it endless ...

—We did not know!

When, by mad passion goaded,

We planned to hie away,

Verse 2

But, unforeboded,

The storm-shafts gray

So heavily down-pattered

That none could forthward go,

Our lives seemed shattered ...

—We did not know!

When I found you, helpless lying,

And you waived my deep misprise,

And swore me, dying,

In phantom-guise

To wing to me when grieving,

And touch away my woe,

We kissed, believing ...

—We did not know!

But though, your powers outreckoning,

You hold you dead and dumb,

Or scorn my beckoning,

And will not come;

And I say, “'Twere mood ungainly

To store her memory so:"

I say it vainly—

I feel and know!

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), “Unknowing”

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

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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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