Thomas Hardy offers the ingredients of a happy life in this songlike tribute to cider, dance, and love – with the last mentioned perhaps given pride of place! The artless positivity seems rather out of kilter with the poet’s customary brooding nature.
GREAT THINGS
Sweet cider is a great thing,
A great thing to me,
Spinning down to Weymouth town
By Ridgway thirstily,
And maid and mistress summoning
Who tend the hostelry:
O cider is a great thing,
A great thing to me!
~
The dance it is a great thing,
A great thing to me,
With candles lit and partners fit
For night-long revelry;
And going home when day-dawning
Peeps pale upon the lee:
O dancing is a great thing,
A great thing to me!
~
Love is, yea, a great thing,
A great thing to me,
When, having drawn across the lawn
In darkness silently,
A figure flits like one a-wing
Out from the nearest tree:
A love is, yes, a great thing
A great thing to me!
~
Will these be always great things,
Great things to me?. . .
Let it befall that One will call,
‘Soul, I have need of thee.’
What then? Joy-jaunts, impassioned flings,
Love, and its ecstasy,
Will always have been great things,
Great things to me!
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