Читать книгу Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with Miscellaneous Pieces - Thomas Hardy, Eleanor Bron, Томас Харди (Гарди) - Страница 4

We two kept house, the Past and I,

   The Past and I;

I tended while it hovered nigh,

   Leaving me never alone.

It was a spectral housekeeping

   Where fell no jarring tone,

As strange, as still a housekeeping

   As ever has been known.

As daily I went up the stair

   And down the stair,

I did not mind the Bygone there —

   The Present once to me;

Its moving meek companionship

   I wished might ever be,

There was in that companionship

   Something of ecstasy.

It dwelt with me just as it was,

   Just as it was

When first its prospects gave me pause

   In wayward wanderings,

Before the years had torn old troths

   As they tear all sweet things,

Before gaunt griefs had torn old troths

   And dulled old rapturings.

And then its form began to fade,

   Began to fade,

Its gentle echoes faintlier played

   At eves upon my ear

Than when the autumn’s look embrowned

   The lonely chambers here,

The autumn’s settling shades embrowned

   Nooks that it haunted near.

And so with time my vision less,

   Yea, less and less

Makes of that Past my housemistress,

   It dwindles in my eye;

It looms a far-off skeleton

   And not a comrade nigh,

A fitful far-off skeleton

   Dimming as days draw by.