by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928)
If you had known
Language: English
If you had known When listening with her to the far-down moan Of the white-selvaged and empurpled sea, And rain came on that did not hinder talk, Or damp your flashing facile gaiety In turning home, despite the slow wet walk By crooked ways, and over stiles of stone; If you had known You would lay roses, Fifty years thence, on her monument, that discloses Its graying shape upon the luxuriant green; Fifty years thence to an hour, by chance led there, What might have moved you? - yea, had you foreseen That on the tomb of the selfsame one, gone where The dawn of every day is as the close is, You would lay roses!
Authorship:
- by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928), "'If you had known'", appears in Late Lyrics and Earlier with Many Other Verses, first published 1922 [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Garth Baxter (b. 1946), "If you had known" [ voice and piano ] [sung text checked 1 time]
Researcher for this page: Garth Baxter
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 16
Word count: 116