Time & Brevity

“Freed the Fret of Thinking”

by Thomas Hardy 1840–1928

From Human Shows, Far Phantasies, Songs and Trifles (1925)

Time & Brevity

Freed the fret of thinking,
Light of lot were we,
Song with service linking
Like to bird or bee:
Chancing bale unblinking,
Freed the fret of thinking
On mortality!

Had not thought-endowment
Beings ever known,
What Life once or now meant
None had wanted shown —
Measuring but the moment —
Had not thought-endowment
Caught Creation’s groan!

Loosed from wrings of reason,
We might blow like flowers,
Sense of Time-wrought treason
Would not then be ours
In and out of season;
Loosed from wrings of reason
We should laud the Powers!

MLA

Hardy, Thomas. ““Freed the Fret of Thinking”.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/hardy/576/.

Chicago

Hardy, Thomas. ““Freed the Fret of Thinking”.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/hardy/576/.

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