This is one of my favs from one of my favs:
"To an Unborn Pauper Child," Thomas Hardy
Breathe not, hid Heart: cease silently,
And though thy birth-hour beckons thee,
Sleep the long sleep:
The Doomsters heap
Travails and teens around us here,
And Time-Wraiths turn our songsingings to fear.
Hark, how the peoples surge and sigh,
And laughters fail, and greetings die;
Hopes dwindle; yea,
Faiths waste away,
Affections and enthusiasms numb:
Thou canst not mend these things if thou dost come.
Had I the ear of wombed souls
Ere their terrestrial chart unrolls,
And thou wert free
To cease, or be,
Then would I tell thee all I know,
And put it to thee: Wilt thou take Life so?
Vain vow! No hint of mine may hence
To theeward fly: to thy locked sense
Explain none can
Life's pending plan:
Thou wilt thy ignorant entry make
Though skies spout fire and blood and nations quake.
Fain would I, dear, find some shut plot
Of earth's wide wold for thee, where not
One tear, one qualm,
Should break the calm.
But I am weak as thou and bare;
No man can change the common lot to rare.
Must come and bide. And such are we --
Unreasoning, sanguine, visionary --
That I can hope
Health, love, friends, scope
In full for thee; can dream thou'lt find
Joys seldom yet attained by humankind!
(1901)
First of all, "Had I the ear of wombed souls / Ere their terrestrial chart unrolls" is, for me, a jaw-dropper even if the rhythm is shaggy.
The question for which I've never been able to arrive at a satisfying answer is: What's with the sudden concession in the last stanza?
Because we're "unreasoning, sanguine, [and] visionary," I can wish for you all the things I just said actually kind of suck? How much (if any) of this blessing is sincere? The turn at the end is generally read as the speaker snapping out of his funk and sincerely wishing the child well, but it seems possible there's something more complicated going on here.
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