Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


THE RIFT by THOMAS HARDY

Poet Analysis

First Line: TWAS JUST AT GNAT AND COB-WEB TIME
Last Line: AND COBWEB-TIME.

'TWAS just at gnat and cobweb-time,
When yellow begins to show in the leaf,
That your old gamut changed its chime
From those true tones -- of span so brief! --
That met my beats of joy, of grief,
As rhyme meets rhyme.

So sank I from my high sublime!
We faced but chancewise after that,
And never I knew or guessed my crime. . . .
Yes; 'twas the date -- or nigh thereat --
Of the yellowing leaf; at moth and gnat
And cobweb-time.



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