For Life I had never cared greatly

  For Life I [have]1 never cared greatly,
      As worth a man's while;
      Peradventures unsought,
   Peradventures that finished in nought,
Had kept me from youth and through manhood till lately
      Unwon by its style.

   In earliest years -- why I know not -- 
      I viewed it askance;
      Conditions of doubt,
   Conditions that leaked slowly out,
May haply have bent me to stand and to show not
      Much zest for its dance.

   With symphonies soft and sweet colour
      It courted me then,
      Till evasions seemed wrong,
   Till evasions gave in to its song,
And I warmed, until living aloofly loomed duller
      Than life among men.

   Anew I found nought to set eyes on,
      When, lifting its hand,
      It uncloaked a star,
   Uncloaked it from fog-damps afar,
And showed its beams burning from pole to horizon
      As bright as a brand.

   And so, the rough highway forgetting,
      I pace hill and dale
      Regarding the sky,
   Regarding the vision on high,
And thus re-illumed have no humour for letting
      My pilgrimage fail.

by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) , "For Life I have never cared greatly", from Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses, published 1917

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive)

by Gerald Finzi (1901-1956) , "For Life I had never cared greatly", op. 19b no. 5, published 1958 [low voice and piano], from I said to love, no. 5.

Added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.

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