Why go to Saint-Juliot? What's Juliot to me? <br />I've been but made fancy <br />By some necromancy <br />That much of my life claims the spot as its key. <br /> <br /> <br />Yes. I have had dreams of that place in the West, <br />And a maiden abiding <br />Thereat as in hiding; <br />Fair-eyed and white-shouldered, broad-browed and brown-tressed. <br /> <br /> <br />And of how, coastward bound on a night long ago, <br />There lonely I found her, <br />The sea-birds around her, <br />And other than nigh things uncaring to know. <br /> <br /> <br />So sweet her life there (in my thought has it seemed) <br />That quickly she drew me <br />To take her unto me, <br />And lodge her long years with me. Such have I dreamed. <br /> <br /> <br />But nought of that maid from Saint-Juliot I see; <br />Can she ever have been here, <br />And shed her life's sheen here, <br />The woman I thought a long housemate with me? <br /> <br /> <br />Does there even a place like Saint-Juliot exist? <br />Or a Vallency Valley <br />With stream and leafed alley, <br />Or Beeny, or Bos with its flounce flinging mist?<br /><br />Thomas Hardy<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-dream-or-no/
