Thomas Hardy is in unusually upbeat mood.

It's almost as if he has been experiencing a Wordsworthian moment of revelation linked to nature.

ON A FINE MORNING

Whence comes Solace? - Not from seeing

What is doing, suffering, being,

Not from noting Life's conditions,

Nor from heeding Time's monitions;

But in cleaving to the Dream,

And in gazing at the gleam

Whereby grey things golden seem.

Thus do I this heyday, holding

Shadows but as lights unfolding,

As no specious show this moment

With its iris-hued embowment;

But as nothing other than

Part of a benignant plan;

Proof that earth was made for man.