Thomas Hardy
In the small hours
I lay in my bed and fiddled
  With a dreamland viol and bow,
And the tunes flew back to my fingers
  I had melodied years ago.
It was two or three in the morning
  When I fancy-fiddled so
Long reels and country-dances,
  And hornpipes swift and slow.
And soon anon came crossing
  The chamber in the gray
Figures of jigging fieldfolk -
  Saviours of corn and hay -
To the air of “Haste to the Wedding,”
  As after a wedding-day;
Yea, up and down the middle
  In windless whirls went they!
There danced the bride and bridegroom,
  And couples in a train,
Gay partners time and travail
  Had longwhiles stilled amain! . . .
It seemed a thing for weeping
  To find, at slumber’s wane
And morning’s sly increeping,
  That Now, not Then, held reign.