Midsommer's Eve

Thomas Hardy, "On a Midsummer Eve" (1915)

I idly cut a parsley stalk,
And blew therein towards the moon;
I had not thought what ghosts would walk
With shivering footsteps to my tune.

I went, and knelt, and scooped my hand
As if to drink, into the brook,
And a faint figure seemed to stand
Above me, with the bygone look.

I lipped rough rhymes of chance, not choice,
I thought not what my words might be;
There came into my ear a voice
That turned a tenderer verse for me.

...

"At a Lunar Eclipse" (1901)

I sat on the starlit hill:
Hair-vestured, lagged, and crusted with gleams,
The moon-ray glided across the rill,
And lit the woods for a thousand dreams;
And I said: "The midsummer night is a time
When phantoms and fairies come to rhyme."
But none appeared in the shadowed maze,
And the summer fireflies went their ways.

(for August 28, 2026)