The Musical Box
878 Words
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The Musical Box
Lifelong to be
Seemed the fair colour of the time;
That there was standing shadowed near
A spirit who sang to the gentle chime
Of the self-struck notes, I did not hear,
I did not see.
Thus did it sing
To the mindless lyre that played indoors
As she came to listen for me without:
"O value what the nonce outpours -
This best of life--that shines about
Your welcoming!"
I had slowed along
After the torrid hours were done,
Though still the posts and walls and road
Flung back their sense of the hot-faced sun,
And had walked by Stourside Mill, where broad
Stream-lilies throng.
And I descried
The dusky house that stood apart,
And her, white-muslined, waiting there
In the porch with high-expectant heart,
While still the thin mechanic air
Went on inside.
At whiles would flit
Swart bats, whose wings, be-webbed and tanned,
Whirred like the wheels of ancient clocks:
She laughed a hailing as she scanned
Me in the gloom, the tuneful box
Intoning it.
Lifelong to be
I thought it. That there watched hard by
A spirit who sang to the indoor tune,
"O make the most of what is nigh!"
I did not hear in my dull soul-swoon -
I did not see.
About Thomas Hardy
Text
Summary
Moments of Vision
The Voice of Things
"Why be at pains?"
"We sat at the window"
Afternoon Service at Mellstock
At the Wicket-gate
In a Museum
Apostrophe to an Old Psalm Tune
At the Word "Farewell"
First Sight of Her and After
The Rival
Heredity
"You were the sort that men forget"
She, I, and They
Near Lanivet, 1872
Joys of Memory
To the Moon
Copying Architecture in an Old Minster
To Shakespeare
Quid hic agis?
On a Midsummer Eve
Timing Her
Before Knowledge
The Blinded Bird
"The wind blew words"
The Faded Face
The Riddle
The Duel
At Mayfair Lodgings
To my Father's Violin
The Statue of Liberty
The Background and the Figure
The Change
Sitting on the Bridge
The Young Churchwarden
"I travel as a phantom now"
Lines to a Movement in Mozart's E-flat Symphony
"In the seventies"
The Pedigree
This Heart. A Woman's Dream
Where they lived
The Occultation
Life Laughs Onward
The Peace-offering
"Something tapped"
The Wound
A Merrymaking in Question
"I said and sang her excellence"
A January Night. 1879
A Kiss
The Announcement
The Oxen
The Tresses
The Photograph
On a Heath
An Anniversary
"By the Runic Stone"
The Pink Frock
Transformations
In her Precincts
The Last Signal
The House of Silence
Great Things
The Chimes
The Figure in the Scene
"Why did I sketch"
Conjecture
The Blow
Love the Monopolist
At Middle-field Gate in February
The Youth who carried a Light
The Head above the Fog
Overlooking the River Stour
The Musical Box
On Sturminster Foot-bridge
Royal Sponsors
Old Furniture
A Thought in Two Moods
The Last Performance
"You on the tower"
The Interloper
Logs on the Hearth
The Sunshade
The Ageing House
The Caged Goldfinch
At Madame Tussaud's in Victorian Years
The Ballet
The Five Students
The Wind's Prophecy
During Wind and Rain
He prefers her Earthly
The Dolls
Molly gone
A Backward Spring
Looking Across
At a Seaside Town in 1869
The Glimpse
The Pedestrian
"Who's in the next room?"
At a Country Fair
The Memorial Brass: 186-
Her Love-birds
Paying Calls
The Upper Birch-Leaves
"It never looks like summer"
Everything comes
The Man with a Past
He fears his Good Fortune
He wonders about Himself
Jubilate
He revisits his First School
"I thought, my heart"
Fragment
Midnight on the Great Western
Honeymoon Time at an Inn
The Robin
"I rose and went to Rou'tor town"
The Nettles
In a Waiting-room
The Clock-winder
Old Excursions
The Masked Face
In a Whispering Gallery
The Something that saved Him
The Enemy's Portrait
Imaginings
On the Doorstep
Signs and Tokens
Paths of Former Time
The Clock of the Years
At the Piano
The Shadow on the Stone
In the Garden
The Tree and the Lady
An Upbraiding
The Young Glass-stainer
Looking at a Picture on an Anniversary
The Choirmaster's Burial
The Man who forgot
While drawing in a Churchyard
"For Life I had never cared greatly"
Poems of War and Pariotism
"Men who march away"
His Country
England to Germany in 1914
On the Belgian Expatriation
An Appeal to America
The Pity of It
In Time of Wars and Tumults
In Time of "the Breaking of nations"
Cry of the Homeless
Before Marching and After
"Often when warring"
Then and Now
A Call to National Service
The Dead and the Living One
A New Year's Eve in War Time
"I met a man"
"I looked up from my writing"
Finale
The Coming of the End
Afterwards
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