Quote of the Day (Thomas Hardy, on Being ‘Under the Summer Tree’)

 “They are blithely breakfasting all—
       Men and maidens—yea,
       Under the summer tree,
            With a glimpse of the bay,
       While pet fowl come to the knee. . . .
            Ah, no; the years O!
And the rotten rose is ript from the wall.
 
“They change to a high new house,
       He, she, all of them—aye,
       Clocks and carpets and chairs
          On the lawn all day,
       And brightest things that are theirs. . . .
          Ah, no; the years, the years;
Down their carved names the rain-drop ploughs.”—English poet-novelist Thomas Hardy (1840–1928), “During Wind and Rain,” in Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses (1917)