Commonplaceday hardy ws
A commonplace day by Thomas Hardy, read for Librivox.org by Winston Smith. The day is turning ghost, and scuttles from the calendar in fits and furtively, to join the anonymous host of those that throng oblivion, ceding his place maybe to one of like degree. I part the fire-nod logs, rake forth the embers, spoil the busy flames, and lay the ends upon the shining dogs. Further and further from the nooks the twilight stride extends and
beamless black impends. Nothing of tiniest worth have I wrought, pondered, planned. No one thing asking blame or praise, since the pale corpse-like birth of this diurnal unit, bearing blanks in all its rays, dullest of dull-hued days. Wainely upon the pains the rain slides, as have slid since morn my colorless thoughts. And yet here, while day's presence wanes, and over him the sepulcher-lid is slowly lowered and set,
he wakens my regret. Regret, though nothing dear that I wought of, was to ward in the wide world at his prime, or bloom'd elsewhere than here, to die with his decease and leave a memory sweet, sublime, or mark him out in time. Yet maybe in some soul, in some spot undiscerned on sea or land, some impulse rose, or some intent upstole of that enkindling ardency from whose mature glows the world's amendment flows. But which, benumbed at birth by momentary chance for a while,
has missed its hope to be embodied on the earth. And undervoicings of this lost man's futurity may wake regret in me.
