Thomas Hardy - At Waking lyrics

  When night was lifting, And dawn had crept under its shade,   Amid cold clouds drifting Dead-white as a corpse outlaid,    With a sudden scare    I seemed to behold    My Love in bare    Hard lines unfold.   Yea, in a moment, An insight that would not die   k**ed her old endowment Of charm that had capped all nigh,    Which vanished to none    Like the gilt of a cloud,    And showed her but one    Of the common crowd.  She seemed but a sample Of earth's poor average kind,   Lit up by no ample Enrichments of mien or mind.    I covered my eyes    As to cover the thought,    And unrecognize    What the morn had taught.   O vision appalling When the one believed-in thing   Is seen falling, falling, With all to which hope can cling.    Off: it is not true;    For it cannot be    That the prize I drew    Is a blank to me!