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Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

"When I Set Out for Lyonnesse"


              1When I set out for Lyonnesse,
              2    A hundred miles away,
              3    The rime was on the spray,
              4And starlight lit my lonesomeness
              5When I set out for Lyonnesse
              6    A hundred miles away.

              7What would bechance at Lyonnesse
              8    While I should sojourn there
              9    No prophet durst declare,
            10Nor did the wisest wizard guess
            11What would bechance at Lyonnesse
            12    While I should sojourn there.

            13When I came back from Lyonnesse
            14    With magic in my eyes,
            15    All marked with mute surmise
            16My radiance rare and fathomless,
            17When I came back from Lyonnesse
            18    With magic in my eyes!

Notes

1] The 1914 edition lacks the date "1870" following the title.
Lyonesse: a legendary region, associated with King Arthur and thought now to be under sea.

3] rime: frost forming on the windward side.

15] All marked with mute: "None managed to" in 1914.

16] "What meant my godlike gloriousness" in 1914.

18] eyes!: "eyes." in 1914.


Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: Collected Poems of Thomas Hardy (London: Macmillan and Co., 1932): 293-94. PR 4741 F32 Robarts Library.
First publication date: 1914
Publication date note: Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries with Miscellaneous Pieces (London: Macmillan, 1915): 20. PR 4750 S3 1914 Robarts Library
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1998.
Recent editing: 2:2002/2/13

Composition date: 1870
Rhyme: abbaab


Other poems by Thomas Hardy