The Young Churchwarden

The Young Churchwarden

by Thomas Hardy

When he lit the candles there,

And the light fell on his hand,

And it trembled as he scanned

Her and me, his vanquished air

Hinted that his dream was done,

And I saw he had begun To understand.

When Love's viol was unstrung,

Sore I wished the hand that shook

Had been mine that shared her book

While that evening hymn was sung,

His the victor's, as he lit

Candles where he had bidden us sit

With vanquished look.

Now her dust lies listless there,

His afar from tending hand,

What avails the victory scanned?

Does he smile from upper air:

"Ah, my friend, your dream is done;

And 'tis YOU who have begun To understand!

Alone by Edgar

Allan Poe

From childhood's hour I have not been

As others were; I have not seen

As others saw; I could not bring

My passions from a common spring.

From the same source I have not taken

My sorrow; I could not awaken

My heart to joy at the same tone;

And all I loved, I loved alone.

Then- in my childhood, in the dawn

Of a most stormy life- was drawn

From every depth of good and ill

The mystery which binds me still:

From the torrent, or the fountain,

From the red cliff of the mountain,

From the sun that round me rolled

In its autumn tint of gold,

From the lightning in the sky

As it passed me flying by,

From the thunder and the storm,

And the cloud that took the form

(When the rest of Heaven was blue)

Of a demon in my view.